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Education
for Farmers
By Valdemar
Losse
Aug. 15, 2008 |
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I lived in
Patna for one month, April 2008, to work in the
village of Katauna. It is interesting that
Sushil Kumar Modi is setting up some technical
schools in Bihar which is very good for the
young people who have an education. But I found
the educational opportunities in the villages to
be non-existent. So again, the village people
will remain enslaved to the land and without
education, they will never learn to farm the
land in a productive way.
The education required to be good farmers is
non-existent. The land is being destroyed by the
farming methods which have been used for
centuries.
Good farming is the basis of a civilization. One
of the technical schools should be about
farming.
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Comments: |
Dear
Valdemar Losse:
Agriculture production and related
life-style in Bihar is on changing
path. The old way of ‘subsistence’
is slowly giving way to the
commercial crops esp. horticulture
crops and vegetables. In all
villages you would find a group of
peoples having small landholding
engaged in vegetable growing. I do
not know you country of origin, but
Bihar agriculture should not be seen
with a western lens. I appreciate
you genuine concern and warmth
towards our peasantry and hope you
would come back and do more.
In my view, technological change is
what is needed most. Even if we go
organic way (until 30 years ago –
most of the crops and vegetables
were grown organically), we need new
and better local solutions. I would
urge you to support the local
agriculture research and especially
the farmers’ drive and need-based
research that could directly go into
solving problems. Based on my
experiences, I could enlist some:
- Better Open pollinated seeds as
hybrid seeds are very expensive for
more farmers;
- Links to market – most often there
is no shortage of harvest but due to
lack of processing and market links
we have to face glut;
- Better packaging, branding and
marketing;
- I would also ask you to learn the
AMUL model (www.amul.com)
probably one of the best managed
farmers cooperative in the world and
can we emulate similar story for
vegetables;
- Lastly, networking – there are
many peoples very capable,
dedicated, upright and hardworking
trying to solve these problems and
we need assembly of minds in Bihar.
Thank you and welcome to Bihar
again. - Dr. Prabhat Kumar - Aug.
25, 2008 |
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Discussion on this topic is now
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