STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION WORKSHOP – MILLION FARMERS SCHOOL IN UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA: EVOLUTION, IMPACT AND WAY FORWARD
Panel at the consultation
The Million Farmers School (MFS) program, also popularly known as the Kisan Pathshala, is an agricultural extension training program, that was launched in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India in December 2017, by the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The training, each comprising a 3-5 days module, is conducted at the village level across all blocks and districts in the state aimed at bringing knowledge on new agricultural technology and information about government schemes designed to benefit farmers, at their doorsteps.
Four such MFS trainings have been organized and conducted across the state since its launch. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) undertook an evaluation of the impact of MFS on the agricultural knowledge of farmers in UP and organized a one-day stakeholder workshop in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh on September 12, 2019 to share the results and findings of the study. The event was jointly hosted by IFPRI, the Government of Uttar Pradesh, and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and was graced by the Hon’ble Minister of Agriculture, Government of Uttar Pradesh – Mr. Surya Pratap Shahi – as the Chief Guest.
After an opening remark by Dr. Shahidur Rashid , IFPRI on the origin and importance of agriculture in historical times and the times to come, the guests and participants from diverse sectors of the agriculture and development fraternity contributed to meaningful discussions and deliberations on the genesis of the program, its impact on farmers’ knowledge and the existing extension system in the state, and the way forward for the program. The workshop was impressively well-attended by a wide array of guests and participants from the development fraternity, including policymakers, researchers, policy planners, professors, government officials, civil society members, students, and media personnel.
The report qualitatively assesses the indirect impact of MFS in revitalizing and rejuvenating the existing agriculture extension framework in the state of Uttar Pradesh and quantifies the direct impact of the program on the agricultural knowledge outcomes of farmers who attended the training vis-à-vis those who did not. Based on analysis of primary data collected through a state-representative survey of 1336 households in 64 villages across 16 districts in the state, the report finds that agriculture-related knowledge of farmers who attended the training was 6 to 14 percent higher than that of farmers who did not attend the MFS. The differences in knowledge outcomes are observed across spatial and social dimensions, with relatively larger impacts seen for those belonging to less-developed regions and disadvantaged social groups. An important aspect of the findings of the report focuses on farmers’ perceptions of the program regarding the content, its comprehensibility, usefulness, and novelty to them – all largely indicating positive reception of the program among farmers.
Representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the World Bank expressed great enthusiasm toward the program and the study conducted by IFPRI. They shared valuable insights on how the initiative could be taken forward in the state and unanimously encouraged IFPRI and the Government of Uttar Pradesh to widely disseminate the report which documents the origin, design, and implementation process of the program, and its findings of the direct and indirect impacts of the program, for facilitating replication of the model in other states in India to revive their existing agricultural extension mechanism in a cost-efficient way.
Ms. Srivalli Krishnan, Senior Program Officer at BMGF, complimented the state machinery in the success of the program and made numerous suggestions such as digitization of course content, use of multimedia for dissemination, and informal recognition of efforts of the state officials to encourage better implementation in future. Dr. P K Joshi, former Director, IFPRI, South Asia Region (SAR) suggested programmatic tweaks such as bundling of government schemes and linking farmers to markets to further improve the program’s outcomes and re-emphasized devising dissemination strategies for scaling up the program and taking it to other states in India.
“We intend to expand and extend the program with greater invigoration in the future, as should be the case with any well-founded and beneficial initiative”, said the Hon’ble Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Shahi, in his concluding remarks to the session. He welcomed the recommendations made in the report and by participants at the workshop for making the program more efficient and assured the gathering that best efforts would be made to incorporate these as far as feasible in future editions of the program.
Both IFPRI and the Government of UP see in many of the participating organizations and institutions, potential partners to collaborate with for better development outcomes in UP. With joint efforts toward these objectives, the state can make considerable progress towards raising economic performance up to its potential.
