“Smallholding and its Big Bang story”

Agriculture involves many decisions: what to plant, which inputs to use and how, when to plough, harvest & how much to keep for consumption in the household, how much to sell to raise cash. The life of a smallholder farmer attached to that tiny piece of land on which they grow their crops or raise their animals. They had to wake up early in the morning to do the chores and had to work till the sundown. Largely a small farmer is not able to afford to hire any help. So, most of the time the whole family has to participate in farming. In many cases, they work season to season basis and not financially independent. For growing the crop they had to borrow the money from lenders and pay it back after harvest. But most of the time access of credit is challenging task for them.

According to a report over 50% of India’s small and marginal farmers are unable to borrow from any source. The report also reveals that of the 124 Mn of small and marginal farmers, only 36 Mn borrow from formal sources. On the other hand, it is extremely challenging the government to reach such a large number of smallholder and marginal farmers with relevant technologies and farm support schemes. For the development and growth of such a vital segment there is a need to build strong and close connection with these farmers and shifting this sector from being a social to a business one.

On the other side there is a misbelief that small farms are poor farms, which is not true, and ability of small farms are being overlooked. A revelation for this is a study which shows that Small farms predominate in rich countries such as Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland. Some developing countries have witnessed great gains in development, stimulated by smallholder agriculture. As small farms are often more productive, per hectare, than large farms when agro-ecological conditions and access to technology are comparable. Small farms also provide more employment per hectare than larger industrial farms. Fact is that about two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 500 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. Smallholder make decisions and take both risks and profits.

As they are small farmers, they usually do not have heavy machinery available to them for cultivating, spraying, and harvesting. Therefore, the output could be significantly lower than the farmers who can afford all the machines. Moreover, their access to the market and tools for forecasting about weather and crops is also limited, so the life of a small farmer is hard and extremely laborious.

A real impact could be achieved only when smallholder farmers are treated as entrepreneurs and empowered to become self-sufficient. They should not be depend on donations and gifts. What they need is a clear linkage along the value chain, from resources, to production, processing, marketing and, ultimately, consumption. When these links are in place, we can tackle the challenges smallholder farmers face. With this support, they have the potential to feed themselves, their communities and the world. More importantly, they will have the ability to make farming a reliable and attractive business that can leads to secure income and a better life

Today smallholder Farmers are in a need of professional advice, access to inputs, finance and credit storage. If the correct advice, technological education, access to knowledge, right forecast about weather, irrigation techniques , guidance regarding management of crop disease, crop-eating pests, enough storage capacity and strong financial support is given to framers even a two acres should be enough land to give a profitable produce, when farmed smartly.

In addition, a powerful marketing is a crucial chain in the link that ultimately makes the farmer profitable. For this agenda, not just the government but private and public sectors of the economy need to collaborate and invest in rural infrastructure, building technologies, agriculture research and extension. When all move towards one direction will create a new big bang theory of “SMALL FARMER SMART FARMING” in agriculture and could take another step towards sustainable green growth of not just a country but of whole world.