Glimpse of cultivation worldwide

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World Agro Market Information Resources

Global Agro Market Information

AMIS  : Agricultural Market Information System

A G20 initiative.

Global agricultural market information system

     http://statistics.amis-outlook.org/data/index.html

     http://www.amis-outlook.org/

AMIS Aims to -

Enhance food market outlook information

Improve agricultural market information, analyses and forecasts

Report on abnormal international market conditions

Collect and analyse policy information,

Promote dialogue and responses, and international policy coordination;

Build data collection capacity in participating countries.

Indian Agro Market Information

National Agricultural Market Atlas

http://gisserver.nic.in/agmarknet/Default.asp?stat=1024&hitcnt=%22%20&%20hit%20&%20%22

Check Agricultural Market Prices Online, India

http://agmarknet.nic.in/

Do we need structural reform in education system?

One education does not suit all.

We have created a template of education system based on our own idea of what an ideal educational curriculum and growth path should be and we want everyone belonging to different economic strata of society to follow the same path. Whether they are kids of millionaires or underprivileged children they are supposed to go through the same education structure. This phenomenon of standardization is more visible at elementary and secondary education level. Sheer number of children to be educated makes an excuse for standardization of education.

What makes us think that educational needs of poor underprivileged segment is same as prosperous segment of society, while their priorities and their skill needs are way different from each other. Their average educational lifespan might significantly differ; they might need a different curriculum, different educational structure and different style of teaching. Are we trying to pave a path for children of a incredibly poor migrated family living in squatter of city up to the graduation and post graduation and doctorate level, can he or she afford to invest so much of their life time earning education while their parents are struggling for their livelihood throughout their life and searching for a descent place which they can call home? Isn’t it that the educational needs of these special kids are way different from the middle and higher income segment of society? Don’t they need a kind of education which will allow and help them earn some money to fulfill their personal needs and help sustain and support their family while they are getting educated? This is something which standard education system fails to provide. School’s prime focus has remained on providing knowledge while what these marginalized kids need is skills which they can immediately put into practice and help uplift their socio-economic profile, they can’t wait to get a job or start their own business till they graduate from an engineering college. They have to act now to get out of that mess; they can peruse their education at any point later in life in their area of interest to further enhance their skills.

Talking of middle class segment, look at the majority of first-generation entrepreneurs who choose to become an entrepreneur due to increasingly tempting business opportunities of modern world and technological advancements in-spite of any family history of business or entrepreneurship, but majority of them are apparently lost or clueless about how to move forward. What an irony, throughout the education ladder these kids were prepared for corporate job and they choose to become entrepreneur and found themselves struggling and lost in the big business world, dominated by family business houses, whether a business house of a small shopkeeper or  empire of well known business family. Take a case of any city in India, majority of middle segment business owners have only basic elementary education from generations to generations, and they are surprisingly doing well, they didn’t feel the need of further formal education so they voluntarily dropped out from the school, their parents taught them the skills they needed to run the business, they inherited the knowledge which was needed to run the show. They would have never learned these skills in the schools with present education structure, because present education system doesn’t treat them as a special niche group at elementary and secondary education level who need customized education. Hence the first generation entrepreneurs feel lost while business houses run their business smoothly.

Imagine the growth potential of individual and communities with the targeted education, imaging the growth potential of a kid who gets targeted training in his family business (whether its pottery, metal works, furnishing or anything else, at elementary to secondary education level which he is witnessing through generations, and compare it with the collective loss of potential due to flat “good for all” education structure. Loss seems to be monumental. It’s time that the fundamental structure of education need to be revived and should become increasingly skill oriented starting right from the elementary level. 

Rural Development Schemes in India

Some of the Schemes launched by Government of India (GoI) at present and in Past under deferent department and mission for Rural Development are listed below with the website link or relevant resources. 

Ministry of Rural Development-MoRD (http://rural.nic.in/)

Department of Rural development-DoRD (http://drd.nic.in/)

• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) (http://nrega.nic.in/netnrega/home.aspx)
• Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY) (http://sgsy.gov.in/)
• Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) (http://pmgsy.nic.in/)
• Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) (http://iay.nic.in/netiay/home.aspx)
• National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) (http://rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/right-information-act/06NSAP(F).pdf)

Department of Drinking Water Supply-DoDWS (http://ddws.gov.in/sites/upload_files/ddws/files/pdf/IECPlanwater2010-11.pdf)

• Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) (http://tsc.gov.in/RuralSanitationNew/HomePage.aspx)
• National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) (http://indiawater.gov.in/imisreports/nrdwpmain.aspx)

Department of Land Resouces-DoLR (http://dolr.nic.in/)

• National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) (http://dolr.nic.in/Nlrmp.htm)
• Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) (http://dolr.nic.in/iwmp_main.htm)

 Bharat Nirman (http://www.bharatnirman.gov.in/ )

• The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), (http://pmgsy.nic.in/)
• Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Program, (http://wrmin.nic.in/writereaddata/mainlinkFile/File620.pdf)
• Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, (http://rggvy.gov.in/rggvy/rggvyportal/index.html)
• Indira Awas Yojana, (http://iay.nic.in/netiay/home.aspx)
• National Rural Drinking Water Program and (http://indiawater.gov.in/imisreports/nrdwpmain.aspx)
• Rural telephony. (http://cca.ap.nic.in/ruraltelephony.html)

By- Anoop Jha

Thin line between development works, social service and exploitation

By - Anoop Jha

A case of tribal communities and regions

We need to question our own intention of doing right and doing good thing to others. May be what we think is right for someone or some community might not be that good for them as we assume.

Who is to decide what is good for whom? Is it the job of government? or maybe the Highbrow society? Or socially, politically and intellectually established individuals with their idiosyncratic ideology and philosophy having their own idea of utopian society? Is it the job of little advanced segment of society to decide what is good for not so advanced segment of society?


[Handpicked Books]

What could be the hidden intention behind doing good to others or some community or some region, which we call development work or at times social service?  Let’s take the example of tribal community and tribal region. Is it the shear innocent intention of sharing existing wealth and knowledge to unprivileged or unexplored segment of society or is it to exploit the untapped potential of the previously unexplored tribal region for our own advantage, is it a sincere effort to understand and document the needs and social pattern of these tribal communities or is it just to get commercial advantage by exposing these hidden communities to mainstream society, is it to help them learn utilize their own resources more efficiently or the hidden intention to exploit rich tangible and intangible tribal resources.  Is it to provide them better health, better opportunities and better lifestyle or is it  just shear gratification of doing social service.  Has that road been built to connect those hidden tribal communities to the mainstream society and to provide them new age opportunities and facilities or the intention is to extract the tribal wealth of region and exploit the heritage and culture value in form of tourism and all. 

Shy and conservative tribal communities throughout the world need very little for their living; they are an autonomous society in themselves.  They have been adapted to their environment in course of evolution and their local environment usually provides them all they need- food, shelter, social interaction, entertainment, spiritual satisfaction. Now there are few choices to make. One is to let this situation of apparent equilibrium of autonomous tribal community go ahead as usual and second to interfere and change the equilibrium either for their good or for own advantage which seems to be the case most of the time. This is a sensitive and tender issue has to be dealt with much thought and compassion. Social behaviors, norms and needs of tribal communities are mostly way different then the mainstream, so simply imposing the rules of mainstream society on the said communities might not do justice to them. For example the concept of formal education might be something totally alien to many tribal communities, so simply introducing the primary and secondary education system to those communities might not be a good idea just because we want everyone in the country to be literate, may be they simply don’t need a formal education, may be they need a different kind of skill orientated education, may be they need an education system totally different from mainstream society.  There are many such issues to address and subject of discussion.

Until they all arrive at a consensus, role of government in the mean time can be to protect the tribal communities and regions from external commercial invaders,  and provide them the health infrastructure with emergency facilities.   

Rural market urban goods – Why rural commodities haven’t succeeded to make niche position in urban market

By – Anoop Jha

Breaking the inertia of urban business dominance over rural communities

In the developing countries like India, when it comes to consumer needs the urban rural gap seems to be disappearing, which was not the case a decade ago.  The rural reliance on urban goods have been an increasing phenomenon in recent past due to higher standard of living, increased affordability, choosy customers etc. Take for example a very essential commodity of daily needs i.e. “Milk”, which is supposedly product of villages due to usual abundance of cattle, buffalos and cows, but imaging the growing dependence of rural population on “packaged milk” which is produced in some remote dairy farm and travels thousands of kilometers before being consumed in this particular village, which is quite ironical. 

Urban  dominance over rural  business 

There might me many reasons behind this particular scenario of using packaged milk in spite the availability of local fresh milk like - readily available - on demand goods, local small storage facilities for perishable goods, direct linkages to urban market, awareness to quality of goods, similar hierarchical product packaged for different affordability group, either manipulated by monopoly of big dairy owner or trying to break the monopoly of local milkman who at times manipulates with the quality of milk, availability of goods to cater to seasonal bulk demand etc. etc.

 
Question is, why the urban commodities have been able to penetrate the rural market but rural products except agro products have only been limited to the small urban cultural markets, like, Pragati maidan, Delhi Haat, seasonal artesian mela etc. Are there any utilitarian perception attached to the rural goods in urban context or has it become a showpiece item to be decorated in the drawing room or to be worn on occasional events or is it that urban merchants are way smarter than the rural counterparts? Is it that rural community has been deprived of knowledge of cunning and manipulating business skills of urban nature, which seem to be a common survival practice expansion strategy of urban businesses?  Is it that rural business lack the skill set to sell their product in quantum. Is it that intermediate agencies involved in the urban rural dynamics are taking the advantage without rural community being aware of such possibilities?  Whatever it is, this issue can be dealt with little business motivation, rural community participation, capacity building and involvement of public agencies.  

Policy makers and administrators need to strengthen and expedite urban rural forward-backward linkages along with providing business education, training related to workmanship, strengthening local art and craft, teaching ethical value of quality control, asking for community participation to benefit rural market. 

Pro-poor Regional Planning: Strategic proposal

By- Anoop Jha

Mainstream Socio – economic Integration of poor and underprivileged

Impact of Regional Planning is slow but it is long-lasting. It is directly related to growth of region hence it has to be inclusive for downstream befits. It has evolved to cater to a much larger population base. It shapes the socio-economic future trends of the region and even the nation. There are different strategies which can and should be adopted as part of the Regional Development Plan and Regional Tourism and transportation Plan. Some of the pro-poor strategies for regional planning are as follows –

Social Integration of poor and underprivileged strata of society

Reviving and reinforcing local art, culture, history, of the region   

Promoting local Artisans, craftsman and artists,

Establishing Service and food processing industries

Creating zonal art, craft, food-grain, Wholesale and retail markets as active and vibrant nodes

Networking nodes through all weather road

Small scale industries

Training

Storage facilities

Hospitality

Natural eco tourism, Food and eateries 

Rural tourism

Culture trekking

Nurturing talent pool

Resource mobilisation,

Micro financing and community based program 

Perception of space – a function (f) of season

Seasonal variance in Perception of space

Technically there is unlimited space around us. Space in terms of perception is the space surrounding us in our field of view, what we are concerned here is the finite perceivable space by people which might vary as per surrounding built mass, undulating terrain, presence and intensity of light, environmental conditions, seasonal variation, etc. 

when it comes to seasonal variation it can be divided into primarily two parts winter and seasons other than winter. Winter provides a unique opportunity to experience a different kind of environment in terms of perceiving space around us which is because of presence of Fog and Mist, it is an exhilarating experience to walk in fog, or observing surrounding from window in winter during fog, it is so mysterious in its own sense, since the field of view is limited due to thick fog there is an element of surprise, you are curious to know and see what is beyond the visibility of fog, the same landscape that is dry and monotonous in summer is so attractive, versatile, ever-changing and inspirational  that you want to capture the that moment and view frame into your memory. This is all because winter provides perception of finite space, a limited field of view. 

An unexplored solution for sustainable Urban Planning- Study of traditional rural settlement patterns

By- Anoop Jha

Traditionally rural settlements have a very distinct informal character which is always fresh and delightful which is somehow missing in our contemporary cities no matter how well it is plan. That human aspect and scale that we find in rural settlements is increasingly being lost in the rigidity and functionality of new urban planning.

[Handpicked Books]

Villages and rural communities are there since time immemorial. They have evolved and learned there planning lessons from their own experience. Every Village appears to be uniquely adapted to region, its local micro ecology and culture, it has evolves in a course of time accommodating changing requirements and absorbing the growth.

Study of rural morphology can be a source of inspiration for the Urban Planners. It can throw a light on sustainability principals which can be further replicated in urban setting with required modifications. There is a serious need to understand the logic behind the specific spatial form and variety of existing rural settlements and what makes it more human, and whether we can learn something from these and use it in next generation of urban Planning.

Some of the satellite images taken from different parts of India showing rural morphology-