Proceeding of International Agriculture Innovation Conference

Abstract

Human beings cannot survive without agriculture and hence agriculture is the backbone of the economy of a country. Unlike other sectors small farmers in agriculture sector is facing many issues relating to the availability of land area for farming, production, storage, and supply chain, difficulty in getting a fair price due to the presence of intermediaries, delay in getting payments, timely financial support and access to latest technology in addition to issues relating to quality of seeds and organic manoeuvres, natural disasters and rising labour cost.

Most of the small farmers are belonging to the pro-poor community having small land holdings. Agriculture innovation is fundamental to the management of agriculture development in providing sustainable income and earnings to the rural population who engage in farming activities. This study attempts to present a conceptual model for sustainable agriculture in developing countries especially targeted towards the households living in rural areas. Major objective for developing the model is to facilitate a sustainable household income to the small farmers in non-urban areas through employment generation in farming and associated activities and also to motivate poor people with small landholdings to come under the farming network. The study does not cover cash crops and is confined to food crops only. The study focusses on production of safe to eat food crops as getting certification of organic products will take a long time in the normal course. This model addresses the development of household farming activities through a system approach. A sample survey among farmers and discussion with experts in agriculture were conducted as a prelude to the attempt for developing the model.