The Million Farmers School: An innovative Agri-extension Approach

Farming sector is a backbone of Indian economy and the government of India put and important goal of doubling farmers’ income till 2022. In line of this ambitious goal the Million Farmers School (TMFS), an innovative programme initiated by the Department of Agriculture, Uttar Pradesh since November 2017. This seeks to address the weaknesses of agriculture extension system and strengthen the same in order to promote resilient farming systems, enhance productivity and production, thereby improving the lives of farmers. This cannot be achieved without providing timely information and knowledge to farmers about scientific methods of farming, newer varieties of improved seeds, appropriate agronomic practices and available market opportunities. With these objectives in mind, a situational analysis was carried out by the department and found that drastic improvement was required in the agriculture extension system in order to achieve the aforesaid objectives. A new model of extension was conceptualized based on structured curriculum, campaign mode and capacity building exercises. Twice every year, the Department of Agriculture deployed its entire extension machinery to conduct more than 15000 training modules for the farmers across the state for providing information and practical knowledge to more than a million farmers in one edition. The curriculum contained information on not only agriculture but also allied sectors like horticulture, animal husbandry& dairy, fisheries, agriculture marketing etc. Five such training editions have been conducted and more than 5 million farmers have been benefited from this innovative model. This was the largest extension exercise in the field agriculture and allied sector. This has also turned out to be a low cost, high return technique which can be easily replicated. It was evident that 88.7 per cent participants were satisfied with the knowledge of trainers, 95.5 per cent participants were satisfied with impact of knowledge circulated in TMFS, 98.7 per cent were fully/partially picked the technologies, 80.2 per cent participants showed their interest to attend the such trainings in future, almost all were interested to share the knowledge with friends and gaining benefit in order to enhance their knowledge and productivity in various agricultural activities. 73.8 per cent participants answered that they became aware with various government schemes only after attending the TMFS.