Farmer Training

The adoption of Agricultural technology for increasing crop yield and land productivity is greatly facilitated by training and adequate dissemination of knowledge.
RCF sought to bridge the gap between Research Scientist and the farmer by by setting up dedicated training facilities at Nagpur and Thal. The programmes are designed to cover both general aspects as well as region specific aspects of farming technology. In addition, means of supplementing farm income through subsidiary occupation as well as the upcoming technologies of food processing are also discussed. These institutes are equipped with the latest audio-visual aids, classrooms and also hostels providing residential accommodation to the farmers. Special programmes for farm women have been designed to enable them to contribute equally towards Agricultural productivity. Special focus is given to farmers from SC/ST categories.Support for our Green Madurai Farmer Educational TrainingThe continued creation of a sustainable agricultural system that includes our land, our food — our health – and our community, will be in the hands of the small but growing group of motivated young farmers that are starting small-scale, organic, direct-market farming operations around the country. These young farmers have the pas­sion, intel­lect and strength to over­come the hur­dles placed before us by the grad­ual industralization of agriculture over the past 25 years. To ensure that these farm­ers suc­ceed, they must have access to oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn and expe­ri­ence the best man­age­ment prac­tices of organic farm­ing as well as how to plan and oper­ate finan­cially prof­itable busi­nesses. The Organic Farm School has taken on this mis­sion and has suc­cess­fully pro­vided its stu­dents with a com­pre­hen­sive edu­ca­tion in how to start and oper­ate a small-scale organic farm.Our sup­port comes from pri­vate and pub­lic sources: indi­vid­u­als, foun­da­tions, busi­nesses and grants from the Indian Depart­ment of Agriculture. For the past three years, we have been build­ing the farm infra­struc­ture nec­es­sary to sup­port our land stew­ard­ship activ­i­ties and small farm busi­ness activ­i­ties. This includes stu­dent hous­ing, work­spaces, tools, green­houses, trac­tors, imple­ments, fenc­ing and an irrigation system. While a basic and functional system has been put into place, infrastructure is expensive and in farming – most costs are ‘front end’ costs. We have many improvements to better demonstrate best practices planned and a fundraising effort is underway to accomplish them.