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The IUP Journal of Agricultural Economics :
Impact of Agriclinics and Agribusiness Centers on the Economic Status of the Farmers
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This paper examines the impact of Agriclinics and Agribusiness Centers Scheme on the economic status of the farmers of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The present study is based on the primary data from a sample of 107 farmers from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The results of the study indicated that majority of the sample farmers received free advisory and quality input supply and more than one service in time from the Agripreneurs. Cropping pattern shifts occurred in both the states due to the intervention of Agripreneurs, and this shift is more in Maharashtra. Around 90% of the farmers adopted improved technologies after obtaining services from Agripreneurs. This results pointed out that the yield of the sample farmers has gone up due to adoption of better package of practices based on the advice of Agripreneurs. Income of the sample farmers has gone up due to intensification, diversification, value addition, adoption of allied enterprises and better market linkage. Professionalism in agriculture extension brought by Agripreneurs contributed to the overall development of agriculture.

Agriculture predominates the Indian economy with 68% of the its population still depending on agriculture either directly or indirectly. However, with a rapid increase in population, the number of people engaged in agriculture has become extremely large. It is very important to make agriculture a more attractive profession. At present, farmer to extension worker ratio worked out to be about 1000:1. In such situation, it is extremely difficult for the extension worker to provide effective extension services to a large number of targeted farmers. As a result, large extension gaps have been observed in transfer of technology process. Hence, providing value added extension services to farmers through additional qualified manpower and adequate infrastructure is the need of the hour.

Centrally sponsored scheme of Agriclinics and Agribusiness Centers was launched in the year 2002 to provide value added extension services to farmers by introducing qualified agrigraduates and to bring back the unemployed agriculture graduates to rural areas to serve farmers. This scheme is intended to make available supplementary sources of input supply and services to the needy farmers, by providing gainful employment to agriculture graduates and to supplement public extension efforts.

 
 
 

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