Contract Farming in Odisha: Prospects and Constraints

Publication Date :07-Feb-2013

Contract farming is one of the illustrated examples of the impact of globalization and liberalized economic policy in the agriculture sector. While the farm sector is facing an identity crisis amidst growing dominance of the industrial sector, contract farming helped to create a new hope in this scenario. It established a link between the farm sector and the corporate sector too. This way it created new prospects for the agricultural sector, and added to the dignity of the farmer. However, the actual practice was often not so farmer-friendly. Rather it was an arrangement to best exploit the farmers’ lands in the interest of the contracting agency. Innocence and ignorance of the farmers,absence of a strong farmer-security mechanism, and tactfully drafted legal papers favoured the other side very much. And the result was quite obvious; farmers suffering in many ways, long-term socioeconomic and environmental threats perceived, and marginality of farmers getting increased.

REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF MAIZE CULTIVATION IN NABARANGPUR DISTRICT

Publication Date :26-Nov-2013

Since the last 10-15 years, hybrid maize cultivation has taken over the traditional crops of the Nabarangpur district to a large extent. The main area of maize cultivation comes under the Umerkote and Jharigan Blocks. RCDC has been concerned to see that this cultivation expands at the cost of both the ecology of the area, and also the social and socioeconomic strength of the area. Large areas of good forest have been cleared for this cultivation, and use of pesticides has increased environmental pollution in the area threatening the very health of the farmers. Moreover, the innocent farmers do not understand that despite an encouraging cash flow the cultivation doesn’t actually offer a good return in terms of net gain. Since RCDC doesn’t see such kind of a practice to be a sustainable development option, hence it was decided to conduct a small study on the real dynamics of maize cultivation in the region, and for this purpose Umerkote and Jharigan blocks were selected for the survey.

Study on actual use of FRA recognized land at individual and community level

Publication Date :02-Dec-2013

This study on “Actual use of FRA recognized land at individual and community level” is an outcome of series of case studies, information collected through RTI, other sources like govt. convergence guideline & literatures, discussion with village communities, community federation, campaign group and CSOs, and its detailed analysis.

Mahila Sashaktikaran Pariyojana

Publication Date :14-Mar-2014

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