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Type : Other Article

LINKAGE MECHANISM OF PERI-URBAN AGRICULTURE : A CASE STUDY

A. K. Singh & R. Roy Burman

Abstract

Peri-Urban Agriculture (PUA) occurs surrounding the cities partly on urban and mostly on adjoining rural land. It includes various production systems such as crops, horticulture, livestock, aquaculture and the related ones mainly to meet daily demands of consumers in the city. In peri-urban areas, pressure on land is high and intensive production methods are applied using and reusing natural resources and urban wastes to yield a diversity of agricultural products. The proximity of peri-urban agriculture to central markets and consumer centres confers to this type of agriculture specific opportunities that often set in apart from rural agricultural production. Such opportunities include lower transportation and handling charges on route, enhanced capabilities for capitalization on land, stronger trend towards resource use, cropping patterns intensification and proximity to inputs and services such as waste treatment facilities, waste recycling and reuse possibilities. There are concerns as well typical to these areas as competition with other users over scarce resources, environment pollution of higher degree and reduced labour availability and higher wages. Sensing the importance of the issue, the present study was conducted at peri-urban Kanpur area as a part of Food & Agriculture organization (FAO) funded case study project entitled “An Appraisal of Profitability and Sustainability of Farm Enterprises and related Technologies in Peri-Urban Kanpur”. In order to support the peri-urban agriculture, the state government officers viz. Deputy Director Agriculture, District Agriculture Officer, plant Protection officer, Sub-Divisional Agricultural Extension Officer (exclusively for peri-urban farmers) and Assistant Development Officer and multipurpose worker (Farmer Assistant/Kisan Sahayak) are entrusted the responsibilities for agricultural development in the area jurisdiction. There is good network of banks spreading in the peri-urban areas of Kanpur. However, farmers require more monetary assistance for the establishment of productive units. The government has started credit card scheme for facilitation of easy credit access. In the peri-urban Kanpur (Kalyanpur, Sarsaul and Bidhnu blocks) this scheme started in 2000-2001 with 2472 credit card holders, which doubled in 2001-2002. This scheme may prove as boon for the illiterate, innocent and distantly located farmers. There are three main technical agricultural institutions viz. Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology (CSAUA&T), Indian Institute of pulses Research (IIPR) and National Sugar Institute (NSI) for state government/central government engaged in providing technical information and advisory services to the farmers. The number of seed and fertiliser sale centres has increased manifold from 10 in 1989 to 1983 in 2002. Similarly, the number of insecticide sale depots has gone up to 32 in 2002 as compared to 2 in 1989. Recent trends show that private shops have become the major supplier of agro-chemicals. There are many NGOs in the peri-urban Kanpur engaged in education, health and community upliftment programme.

Keyword: Peri-Urban, Linkage, Extension, Farming.

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