Socio-economic aspects and identification of problems faced by farmers under Farmer FIRST Project in Fatehpur District of Uttar Pradesh

Integrated approaches towards agriculture development is required for a sustainable and long-term growth. A project entitled “Integrated approaches for food, nutrition and livelihood security of rural household in Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh” under Farmer FIRST was implemented in three villages viz., Karchalpur, Mirai and Kharouli village of Devmai block of Fatehpur district. A survey was conducted by the project team to assess the socioeconomic condition and problems faced by 300 farmers through structured questionnaires. Results revealed that majority of farmers belonged to middle age category with small family size, major occupationbeing agriculture with small land holdings. Survey also showed that mobile phones have become an important ICT tool for farmers to access the information. The major crops grown in the villages were rice, wheat, mungbean, urdbean, vegetable and maize, pigeonpea, chili and mustard. Results indicated that problems of diseases like Yellow Mosaic Virus in urdbean and mungbean, insect problem in chickpea and lack of quality insecticide and quality seed for normal and late sown wheat were the major problems faced by the farmers. In horticulture crops, major problems faced by the farmers were unavailability of quality planting material and quality seed and problems of insects and diseases. Similarly in case of livestock rearing, major problems were FMD, lack of AI facility and absence of milk cooperative societies for the sale which was affecting the income of farmers. Based on the problems identified, suitable interventions such as providing quality seed of disease resistant high yielding varieties, setting up of milk cooperatives, cultivation of summer pulses and vegetables were undertaken in the project area to address the problems and to enhance the income of farmers.