Anwesh Kumar Sahu of Sonepur district in Odisha is now earning ₹40,000-50,000 a month on less than three acres of land whereas his father was getting only ₹50,000 year from the same land until 2017. The difference, Sahu has adopted poultry and animal husbandry while his dad did paddy cultivation on share cropping system.

Sahu, 26, a B Tech graduate in mechanical engineering, decided to start a small poultry farm in 2017 with technical guidance from local Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK). His turnaround tale is part of a compilation of 75,000 success stories from 1400 villages across the country where farmers have doubled their income in last six years, that the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has put together.

“When the call to doubling farmers’ income was given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ICAR decided to take up two villages under each KVK across the country where the task was to meet the target through frontline demonstration of technology,” says AK Singh, Deputy Director General (extension) of ICAR.

He describes how KVKs have silently done an excellent job in delivering technology.

Sahu said living in a remote village, nearly 40 km from district headquarters, has not been a constraint as he wanted to do something new and on his own. “From the beginning I was interested in livestock and poultry. I have built an incubator and now am managing everything from breeding, rearing and marketing. Even, recently we have developed a new breed in poultry,” Sahu said, adding that his main income comes from poultry, but some additional revenue also come from goat farming.

Guiding progressive farmers

The KVK of Sonepur, which also helped a woman farmer Suprava Dani in doubling her income by taking up mushroom and dairy farming, has been guiding all progressive farmers who reach out to them, besides taking up technology demonstration in their field.

According to the latest estimate of the income of agricultural households conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) during the 77th round (January-December 2019), the average monthly income per agricultural household, from all sources, was estimated at ₹10,218 when compared to ₹6,426 in 2012-13. In other words, the farm income had risen by 59 per cent till 2019.

The NITI Aayog report on Doubling Farmers’ Income by Ramesh Chand (2017) had stated that in some cases, growth in output increased farmers’ income, but in many cases, the farmers’ income did not increase significantly with the increase in output.

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