Farming system and interventions to increase the farm income in Namakkal district

With a view to develop models for bringing about doubling the farmers income in agriculture and socio-economic transformation among the villages in a sustained manner in Namakkal district, three villages viz; Ganapatipalayam, Ondikadai and Moolakadu were selected from Mohanur, Namagiripettai and Vennandhur blocks respectively. Baseline survey was conducted along with Focus Group Discussion with each fifty farmers of those villages selected randomly. Village level Benchmark survey was conducted by use of secondary data collected from the Village Administrative officer. Based on the survey results, series of training programmes on scientific farming practices, pest and disease control by bio agents and post harvest technologies were imparted. Also fifteen technical interventions has been introduced with 163 farmers in the village to increase the income of farmers. The results indicated that agriculture is the prime occupation of almost all the three villages and livestock farming is the subsidiary enterprise. Also the marginal farmers are more (62%) followed by small farmers (29%) and large farmers (9%). It was found from the results that a considerable increase in income level was noticed by reduction in input cost and increase in income by improved seed varieties, soil test based fertilizer application, protected agriculture, integrated farming and crop residue recycling practices. The increase in average annual income of farm families seen from 1.22lakhs to 2.10 lakhs with marginal farmers, 1.35lakhs to 2.60lakhs and 1.53 to 2.67 lakhs with large farmers.