Farm Innovators – A compilation by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (2010)

This publication by ICAR on “Farm Innovators-2010” brings in a paradigm shift towards participatory technology development. Apart from innovations and scientific package of practices developed and transferred from R&D institutes, innovations in the form of grassroot level technologies and methodologies developed by some of the innovative farmers and rural youth have also been accepted across the system.

Valuable ideas and techniques generated by them largely go unnoticed owing to lack of proper documentation and opportunities for wider dissemination. The report attempts to widely share such innovative technologies and methodologies and recognizes the scientific talents behind such grassroot level innovations. The KVKs across the country played a key role in searching and documenting these innovations of practical importance.

The innovations were analyzed for their scientific logic and further screening was done at national level for selecting innovations with sound scientific base and wider applicability in the country. The subject was discussed and guidelines formulated for documenting innovations made by the farmers/rural youth at the district level.  The guidelines include seven major and 35 sub-parameters such as nature of the innovation, process of technology development, replication and promotion.

With these parameters a proforma was prepared and circulated to all KVKs with suitable instructions for collecting data following which they identified, interviewed, verified innovations in action and collected data. The data were tabulated and analyzed.

Out of 196 farm innovations received 139 were finalized under eight thematic areas - Crop Improvement (13); Crop Production (16); Crop Diversification (8); Crop Protection (14); Farm Machinery (61); Water Management (8); Livestock and Fisheries Management (10) and Post Harvest Technology and Value-addition (9). These 139 selected innovations have been documented and presented in this publication in an uniform format giving details of innovators, innovations and their applications illustrated with suitable photographs. 

Download the report here