With the help of SRFSI, as the farmers become prosperous with the adoption of ZT crop, the society treats them as a change agent and with the regular visit of scientists to the poor farmers’ field, especially poor female farmers, the well-off farmers change their mindset and extend them due regards. It is the experience of Smt. Sulochana Devi, Smt. Lalita Devi and many more.

– Bihar Agricultural University (BAU), Sabour

About Bihar Agricultural University (BAU):

Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour established on 5th August 2010 is a basic and strategic institution supporting more than 500 researchers and educationists towards imparting education at the graduate and postgraduate level, conducting basic, strategic, applied, and adaptive research activities, ensuring effective transfer of technologies and capacity building of farmers and extension personnel. The university has 6 colleges (5 Agriculture and 1 Horticulture) and 12 research stations spread in 3 agro-ecological zones of Bihar. The University also has 21 KVKS established in 20 of the 25 districts falling under the jurisdiction of the University. The degree programs of the university and its colleges have been accredited by ICAR in 2015-16. The university is also an ISO 9000:2008 certified organisation with International standard operating protocols for maintaining the highest standards in teaching, research, extension, and training.

The Bihar Agricultural University was established with the objective of improving the quality of life of people of the state especially farmers constituting more than two-thirds of the population. Having set the ultimate goal of benefitting society at large, the university intends to achieve it by imparting word-class need-based agricultural education, research, extension, and public service.

Key learnings and reflections:

A doorstep solution like “Krishi Gyan Rath” can help farmers provide practical knowledge and strengthen faith as it is prepared by experts and scientists. It also plays a pivotal role in motivating the farmers to adopt the latest agricultural technologies, like CASI technology, weed management in ZT- Wheat/ Maize/ DSR, package, and practice of different cereals/pulses, scientific crop production, etc.
The scheme like, “Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav” where scientists select villages and remain in touch with them and provide information to the farmers on technical and other related aspects in a time frame through personal visits, meeting, messaging, video, etc, proved to be an innovative initiative that helped promote the direct interface of scientists with the farmers to hasten the lab to land process. The scheme provided farmers with required information, knowledge, and advisories on regular basis. The technologies developed and refined by Research Institutes, Agricultural Universities, private and other organizations are accepted and adopted to various extents by the farming community.
With the inception of the SRFSI project as ZT-Wheat/Maize/DSR become more popular in Purnea, the district manager of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) came with validation of CASI technology at farmers field in the district by crop cutting experiment program. It also initiated a discussion on the adoption and outscaling activities of CASI technology for inclusion in the policy.
As a continuation to farmers-oriented extension mechanism like “Kisan Chaupal” which was launched by BAU in 2012 and organized by Agricultural College/Farm Science Centre (KVK), the SRFSI project helped organize different meetings for farmers in selected nodes and other villages of Purnea district in view of out scaling of ZT and more adoption of CASI. Scientists associated with Kisan Chaupal visited and discussed at length the new technology of agriculture in general and CASI in particular apart from other packages and practices of different crops with the farmers.
With the realization of the importance of CASI technology in the present scenario and acknowledging the effort of SRFSI, the Government of Bihar amended the policy and announced a subsidy of INR 2000/- per acre for the cultivation of ZT crops. Apart from this, the subsidy has also been granted on farm machinery including CASI machine (Zero Tillage/Seed-cum-Fertilizer drill/multi-crop planter up to 9 tines), Laser Land Leveler, etc.