Workshop on Doubling Farmers’ Income: Exploring Pathways for Cooperatives in Odisha, Bhubaneswar 2019

Abstract

The Government of India’s earlier policy for the agricultural sector growth centered on rising agricultural production and enhancing food security. While this strategy yielded good results for hidia’s food production, it did not focus on the farmer. Recognising the need to focus on the plight of farmers, the Central Government set the target of doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022-23 to promote farmers’ welfare, reduce agrarian distress and bring parity between farmers’ incomes and non-agricultural workers (Chand 2017). NITI Aayog 2017 identified seven major revenue-enhancing sources of growth. These included: i) improvement in crop productivity; ii) improvement in livestock productivity; iii) resource use efficiency or saving production costs; iv) increase in cropping intensity; v) diversification towards higher value crops; vi) improvement in real farmer prices; and vii) shift from farm to non farm occupations. Co-operatives could play a significant role in six of the seven factors impacting the farm household income (NITI Aayog 2017). Indian co-operatives, however, work in diverse sectors, facing numerous problems. The situation is further compounded by the fact that ‘Cooperatives’ is a state subject under the Constitution of India and state co-operative laws differ greatly in their implementation (MoSPI). In view of this background, a two-day workshop got underway on Doubling Farmers’ Income: Exploring Pathways for Co-operatives in Odisha. The workshop was jointly organised by the Department of Co-operation, Government of Odisha; Verghese Kurien Centre of Excellence (VKCoE); Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA); and International Cooperative Alliance - Asia Pacific (ICA-AP) at the Conference Hall, Odisha State Co-operative Bank (OSCB), Bhubaneswar, (Odisha) on August 29-30, 2019. This was the first in a series of four workshops in consultation with various state governments. The workshop aimed at reviewing the current scenario and contemporary problems facing co operatives in the state of Odisha and finding suitable approaches, policy recommendations, and development. It brought policymakers, bureaucrats, functional experts in the co-operative sector, co-operators, academicians, and researchers on the same platform to discuss, debate, and establish a roadmap for the Odisha government to follow DFI