Secretary, DARE reviews Doubling Farmers’ Income (DFI) in Odisha

Secretary, DARE reviews Doubling Farmers’ Income (DFI) in Odisha

Dr. T Mohapatra, Secretary, DARE and DG, ICAR reviewed the progress of activities being undertaken by ICAR Institutes, OUAT and KVKs of Odisha towards Doubling Farmers’ Income. Opening presentation was made by Dr. H. Pathak, Director, ICAR-NRRI on the Strategy Document on DFI in Odisha followed by presentations by Dr. SS Singh, Director, ATARI Zone V; Dr. MP Nayak, JD (Ext), OUAT, Directors of ICAR Institutes and Heads of selected KVKS of Odisha depicting their efforts towards DFI in Odisha. Dr. HK Dash presented the plan of action for doubling farmers’ income in ten villages in one of the aspirational districts, Gajapati. All the ICAR Institutes of Odisha are involved in this effort in a coordinated manner.

Dr. Mohapatra appreciated the efforts being undertaken by all the institutes/OUAT/KVKs in doubling farmers’ income. However, he stressed that the institutes/KVKs should select 5-10 villages, undertake baseline survey and identify interventions based on the agro-climatic condition and farming situations.   He further added that individual commodity approach needs to be broadened to system approach where all aspects of production, processing and marketing need to be linked.  He also encouraged to involve NGOs, FPOs, SHGs and CSR wing of Corporate for better impact. Dr. Mohapatra concluded that such a systematic effort should be undertaken in all ten agro-climatic zones of Odisha which can be replicated by Odisha government in all the districts to double the farmers’ income by 2022.