Scaling-Up Land and Crop Management Solutions for Farmers Through Participatory Integrated Demonstrations “Seeing is Believing” Approach

Farmers’ distress is noted across the country and it can get worse with the impacts of climate change as the small farm-holders in tropical regions are most vulnerable to impacts of climate change. At present farmers’ yields are lower by two to five folds than the achievable potential yields. Further, farmers receive only 30–40% of the price what consumers pay as the current value chains are inefficient and long. As a result, farmers’ incomes are almost half as that of city households (Rs 40,925 rural vs. Rs 98,435 urban per capita). Given the choice, large number of farmers would like to come out of agriculture and youths are shying away from agriculture (National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), Situation assessment survey of agriculture households in India (70th Round: July 2012–June 2013). Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, New Delhi, 2013). To achieve the sustainable development goal of no poverty (SDG 1) zero hunger (SDG 2) and good health and wellbeing (SDG 3) there is an urgent need to transform agriculture in India as well as in other developing countries in Asia and Africa. For scaling-up technologies such as improved cultivars, soil, water and nutrient management technologies, income-generating micro-enterprises particularly undertaken by women and youths to benefit farmers for increasing productivity and incomes “Seeing is believing “principle is a well-tested and proven tool to build the capacity of the farmers. Results from various scaling-up initiatives benefitting >10 million farmers in India, China, Thailand, and Vietnam are discussed and drivers of success are identified and way forward for scaling-up is discussed in this chapter.