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Farm Crisis | Rural distress
Rural distress

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What's Inside

Kindly click here and here to access the CSE report titled State of Biofertilizers and Organic Fertilizers in India (released in April 2022).

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Please click here and here to access the key findings of the report titled Tenant Farmers Study Report for Andhra Pradesh: Implementation of Crop Cultivator Rights Act, Inclusion in Rythu Bharosa & other Schemes Part-1 (released on March 8, 2022), which has been prepared by Rythu Swarajya Vedika.

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Please click here to access the press note on the Status of ‘PM-KISAN Samman Nidhi’ exclusions in Telangana, prepared by LibTech India (released on January 19, 2022).

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Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International) in partnership with Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) has been implementing a four years’ project from 1st April 2017 to 31st March, 2021 to develop a culture of sustainable consumption and lifestyle in the State of Rajasthan with a special focus on organic consumption and production. In short, the project is titled as 'ProOrganic II'.

Present study is the end line evaluation of this project with a goal to assess the project effectiveness and to collect evidence of change due to the project intervention. Key objective of the study is to capture the perception/experience from various stakeholders about awareness, capacity, challenges, and suggestions etc. The study was conducted in 46 gram panchayats from 23 selected blocks of ten project districts of Jaipur, Dausa, Kota, Jhalawar, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Sawai Madhopur, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara and Pratapgarh. 

Besides, the end line research also focussed to gauge the level of impact, which has been created in the last four years of intervention as part of project outcome with a focus on changes seen on organic consumption and production patterns in the targeted ten districts comparing these with the baseline results and findings.

The study methodology involved a mix of quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative survey was mainly focused on two set of respondents, which were Consumers and Farmer producers. A total of 2,390 sample stakeholders’ feedback was collected from 46 gram panchayats of 10 districts of Rajasthan. Out of the total samples, 640 were farmer respondents, while 1750 consumers were interviewed. More than 40 percent respondents out of the total sample were women.

Survey of consumers and farmers was largely quantitative in nature; it has been supplemented by qualitative interviews with other relevant stakeholders including policy makers, concerned government agencies, subject experts and organisations/ institutes working on organic farming and consumption issues in the state of Rajasthan. Survey also involved study of project related documents/ reports etc. 

Study instruments/ questionnaires were originally developed in English but were translated and rendered in Hindi. Training for survey teams was conducted to brief investigators, supervisors and field manager on survey objective, survey tools, sampling design and expected data quality. The data collected was disaggregated and analysed based at Geography and Gender. Analysis of the data was guided by the specified research objectives. 

The key findings of the document titled End Line Survey Report 2021: ProOrganic II -- Developing a Culture of Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyle in the state of Rajasthan, India with a Special Focus on Organic Consumption and Production (released on 5th July, 2021), which has been prepared by Consumer Unity and Trust Society International, are as follows (please click here and here to access): 

Consumers

• During the quantitative field survey, a total of 1,750 consumer respondents were interviewed out of which 42.7 percent were female respondents. Almost 38.6 percent of consumer households belong to Below Poverty Line (BPL) category. Nearly 29.6 percent respondents never attended school, while 30.8 percent are educated only up to primary level. Cumulatively 60.4 percent of respondents were either uneducated or educated up to primary level only. Only 6.9% respondents were either graduate or post graduate. 

• Around 69.4 percent of consumer respondents have their household income below rupees 10 thousand per month. Only 2.2 percent respondents have their monthly household income more than rupees 20 thousand. Low economic background of the respondents is further reflected in the fact that 32 percent households have less than a thousand rupees expenditure on food items. Only 4.9 percent households have monthly expenditure of more than rupees 5 thousand rupees. 

• Decision on what is to be purchased for consumption is taken majorly by male members of the households at 41.4 percent although in 32 percent households, the decision is taken jointly.

• Nearly 97.4 percent consumer respondents were found aware of the fact that chemical input-based food products are harmful for health compared to 86 percent consumers aware of this in the baseline. 

• About 94.7 percent consumer respondents reported general awareness about organic products in comparison to 84% consumers aware during the baseline. 

• Almost 66.8 percent of consumer respondents reported having purchased organic products ever. This is a huge difference from baseline as there were only 39% consumers reporting buying of organic products ever. 

• Only 26 percent (from 66.8 percent) of those purchasing organic products reported higher prices for organic products in comparison to more than half of the consumer respondents in the baseline. 

• Only 40 percent consumer respondents reported facing difficulty in finding organic products against 68 percent of consumers reporting this during the baseline. 

• It was found that 30.7 percent of consumer respondents were satisfied while 63 percent were partially satisfied with the quality of organic products they had purchased. This data is in comparison to 56 percent consumers reporting satisfaction and 34 percent consumers reporting partial satisfaction with the organic products in the baseline study. Lesser number of satisfied consumers in 2021 is due to the factors related to growing number of retailers in the market, which resulted into a competition affecting consumers both in terms of price and quality of goods. 

• More than 70 percent of the consumer respondents were found aware about the ProOrganic project by way of their participation in project active in some or the other way. Here involvement in the project indicates that the consumer had participated in at least one of the activities of the project.

Farmers

• A total of 640 farmers were covered during the field survey. Out of these 38 percent were female respondents. Almost 33 percent respondents were from Below Poverty Line. Nearly 52 percent of the farmer respondents were those either never attended any school or educated up to primary level. Roughly 14 percent of the respondents were educated up to graduation or above level. Almost 71 percent were those having own agriculture land. About 70 percent respondents had monthly income below rupees 10 thousand.

• More than 97 percent of the respondents reported awareness on ill effects of farming based on chemical inputs, which was reported at 94 percent during the baseline. Only 14 percent farmers reported doing farming based on chemical inputs only as compared to 26 percent in the baseline. Means that there is a decrease in the number. 

• The percentage of farmers doing an organic farming has rose to 23 percent from 19 percent from the same set farmers in 2017. From these 23 percent of farmers reporting doing full organic farming, 11 percent says that they are doing chemical, while 66 percent reported to be involved in doing both chemical and organic mix farming, which comparing the same data of 2017 baseline were 19 percent for complete organic, 55 percent for both and 26 percent respectively for chemical exclusively.

• Almost 18 percent (66+11) of farmers doing chemical input based reported easy availability of chemical inputs as the reason of using chemical inputs against a 4 percent reporting easy availability in the baseline. 66 percent reported more production while using chemicals, while the remaining 15 percent reported less price as the reason. 

• 32 percent respondents reported difficulty in marketing against 28 percent of the farmers interviewed reported difficulty in selling their organic produce in the baseline. Here, the higher number is again due to the fact that the market force has changed in four years and producers pose more problems and challenges as compared to 2017, which are due to competition, government policies and other like factors.

• More than half (52 percent) respondents reported getting higher price for their organic produce against 32 percent reporting higher price in the baseline study.

• Almost 98 percent respondents reported that they will motivate others to adopt organic farming as against 91 percent reporting it in the baseline. 

• Roughly 79 percent of the farmer respondents were found aware about the ProOrganic project. More than 70 percent of those aware were found involved in the project. Further out of the farmers aware about the project, 80 percent admitted that the project had made an impact on them.

Conclusion

Survey findings indicate that the project has been successful in bringing out the desired outcome in the form of changes in awareness level of targeted stakeholders especially the farmers and consumers. The project has engaged a wide range of stakeholders including representatives from various government departments/ agencies and development and research organisations. It can be concluded that the project has made remarkable impact on many parameters. However, despite increase in the area of intervention and activities, the project interventions are limited considering the geographical area and population of the state. To sustain these efforts and strengthen the outcomes achieved through the two phases of the project, it will be imperative to make sustained efforts specially to promote and engage community institutions, who can strengthen the impact of the project and own the same in order to make it sustainable.

Recommendations

• State Government should form a commission/corporation for promotion of organic farming and consumption in the state in a focussed manner.

• Mission ‘Organic Dungarpur’ is a good initiative, however needs further strengthening and expansion to bring the desired outcome. It also needs institutional support and convergence with other departments in order to have wide outreach. State Government may also launch a “Mission Organic Rajasthan” on the side-lines of region-specific plans.

• PKVY scheme need to be further strengthened and expanded. It also needs to be transitioned to incorporate all the components to provide support for organic farming and consumption including more focus on certification and marketing.

• Producers/ farmers should be motivated to adopt organic farming in a phased manner i.e. the farmer should be first provided training and input support in a piece of land as a pilot and then should be incentivised to replicate it.

• For marketing of organic produce, a separate agency on the lines of Agriculture Marketing Board should be constituted for development of market, access initiatives, pricing support and forward and backward linkages throughout the value chain. This agency would promote provisions of separate outlets/dedicated platforms for sale of organic grains/vegetables with premium pricing system. Minimum Support Prices (MSP) should  be announced by the government for various organic gains/ products. 

• Organic farming and consumption should be recognised and integrated in the policies of the government in the sectors such as Agriculture, Food Processing, Health and Environment which would ensure that all the issues to be properly addressed and considered in Union and State Government programmes budgets. 

• Convergence with departments such as Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Industry Bodies should be promoted to promote awareness on organic farming and consumption issues.

• As a state level supplementary component to the PKVY scheme, state government should also adopt a cluster-based approach for promoting organic farming in different geographies to increase the area and generate marketable surplus. 

• Community Based Organisations such as Self-Help Groups (SHGs/ Farmer Clubs/ Cooperative Federations should be taken on board in convergence with the WCD/ RD departments. Technological inputs should be promoted in organic farming and consumption space. Applications may be developed and cadres on the lines of Business Correspondents may be promoted. They may also facilitate provision of information and credit to the farmers through various banks and rural credit institutions such as RRBs.

Rural Expert
 

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