Organic Certificate Course
Transcription
Organic Certificate Course
Learning the Organic Way Organic Certificate Course (This note describes about a Three Month Organic Certification Course jointly initiated by the JNKVV, Jabalpur, C&A Foundation and Action for Social Advancement. This has been done under the aegis of the Organic and Fairtade Cotton Secretariat, a multi-stakeholder initiative in M.P for improvement of organic cotton value chain. The initiative was to address the poor supply of trained human resources at the ground level to guide producers about organic farming following scientific ways. The first batch of the course was supported through generous funding support by the C&A Foundation, the JNKVV for their faculty and infrastructural support and members of the OFCS in developing the curricula and teaching to the students. The first batch comprises of 30 students, mainly from the rural areas with farming background. There are eight girls in the first batch of the students). There is a likelihood of the government of Madhya Pradesh providing financial aid to the JNKVV and other Agriculture University of the state for the continuation of the course in future). ‘It may not be unique but probably first of its kind and our commitment towards development of skills inventory as part of human resource infrastructure development will continue through public and private partnership model’ –with these words, Dr. Rao Director Research Services, Jawaharlal Nehru KrishiVishwaVidyalaya (JNKVV) welcomed all the students, Faculty members and representatives from C&A Foundation and Action for Social Advancement (ASA). Tracing the history of events on 15th November, 2016 in the auditorium of JNKVV campus, Dr. Rao said that the concerted efforts took less than six months from the stage of discussion to rolling out a first three month Organic Certificate Course (OCC), starting from 15th November, 2016 to 12th February, 2017. Genesis of OCC The conventional farming had helped the country not only to produce enough food for own consumption but also generated surpluses for exports. However, the increasing population and income continues to put pressure for food and also for raw materials for industry. The modern system of farming, it is increasingly felt, is becoming unsustainable as evidenced by declining crop productivities, damage to environment, chemical contaminations, etc. The necessity of having an alternative agriculture method which can function in a friendly eco-system while sustaining and increasing the crop productivity is realized now. Organic farming is recognized as the best known alternative to the conventional agriculture. NGOs continue to spearhead the organic movement in our country. The major weaknesses of organic agriculture are absence of linkages between the farmers and markets and absence of financial support from the governments. While it is important to link farmers with the market, it may also be required to take a stock of the situation of human skills’ inventory with respect to organic system of farming.Needless to say it is minimal in nature with no scientific standardization to it. ‘Field Extension Officers (FEOs)’ have been trained on conventional ways of farming and plays a very critical role between the company and farmers by providing advice and support to the farmers from land preparation, seed selection, pesticides & fertilizers application, soil & water testing to best farm practices. It was realized that on similar lines, Organic FEOs shouldbe developed by targeting local youth. They mostly learn in an informal way, i.e. they acquire skill at the work-place, when they help their parents, relatives and employers etc. They come through the informal system due to socioeconomic circumstances of the family and the compulsions of earning a livelihood rather than attending a formal training. Very few opportunities for skill development are available for the above referred groups (out of school youth & existing workers especially in the agri sector). Most of the existing Skill Development programmes are long term in nature. Poor and less educated persons cannot afford long term training programmes due to higher entry qualifications, opportunity cost etc. With this background and key gaps in perspective, Action for Social Advancement (ASA), Bhopal, C&A Foundation and JNKVV with the support of Directorate of Farmer Welfare & Agriculture Development (DFW&AD) decided to launch a three month certificate course in the campus of JNKVV. OCC is one of the key initiatives identified by Organic &Fairtrade Cotton Secretariat (OFCS) promoted by C&A Foundation, to fulfill the demand for well trained and qualified professionals on Organic way of farming. An agreement has been signed between ASA as part of OFCS & JNKVV to conduct this certificate course and DFW&AD has agreed to extend its support for subsequent batches of the certificate course at JNKVV. The first batch has been fully funded by C&A Foundation to take care of boarding and lodging cost of candidates and JNKVV on its part has provided institutes’ infrastructure and faculty’s time. Course Module & Pedagogy The three month course is a fully residential 12 credit programme and will evaluate the students once every month. The course curriculum was developed by involving different faculty members, field experts and practitioners. The pedagogy has been designed keeping the background of students and the market demand in mind. The students will be trained from the basics of organic farming to the entrepreneurship development and try to serve the following purposea) To build capacities of 12th and above passed on Organic practices b) Local level employment and need based consultation on Organic practices c) Building links & managing relations with farmers by providing quality solutions to their problems The detailed course structure is shown as annexure I. Candidates & Selection A good seed under right environment/conditions, more often bears good fruit. This hold true with the trainee also. We ensured that right candidates are selected and undergo the training. This will not only help in improving the quality of training but also the output. ASA, lead the following process from identification of candidates to their final selection. The selected students for the first batch have gone through two levels of screening which included initial •JNKVV has given consent to host OCC in their campus & signed agreement with Agreement ASA with JNKVV •Finalized application format • Content developed Communicat •Releasing advertisement in leading Agriculture newspaper ion for •Mail communication with concerned OFCS members Inviting Applications • Community platform through community meetings • Received applications entered into master file Data Entry & • Scrutinized & Analyzed all Applications Short Listing •Organized short listing workshop on 24th October, 2016 at JNKVV and communicated to all applicants of Candidates screening based on minimum qualification & prior relevant Profiling - Gender Male experience followed by interview in JNKVV on 24th October 2016. In all there were 71 applications from three different Female states of MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and the top 30 made it to the first batch. As the adjacent chart suggests 30% 30% of applicants are female candidate and close to 97% 70% come from rural areas. Similarly, the batch has a healthy mix of experience & fresher, under graduates, graduates and PG from different educational background. GeneralBelow P.G. Higher 3% Secondary but above 8th 11% Qualification Till Sr. Secondary 40% Agricultur e P.G & Graduates 12% Localisation Villages Urban 3% Graduate 34% 97% Way Forward While this may be the first step, different stakeholders will continue to engage with the programme and strive to take it to the next level. ASA will not only continue to work along with different civil society organizations and try to mobilize candidates for the successive batches but also work on placement and entrepreneurship aspect of the candidates. Similarly, JNKVV will continue to pursue long term interest in the course and its continuity within their campus through submission of formal request with the department of Agriculture, MP. Annexure - I # Module A Concept of Organic Farming 1 B Organic Plant Nutrient Management 3 C Organic Plant Protection 2 D Organic Crop Production Practices 3 E Organic Certification 2 F Entrepreneurship Development 1 Total Credit 12 Annexure - II ENROLLED CANDIDATES for BATCH - 1 S. No. Name of Applicant Father's/Spouse's Name District 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 DevvratBagari ManojJaiswal BhuraBatke Kuldeep Bagri Keshav Das Kushwaha Pankaj Kumar Mishra Mina Marandi Kapoor Singh Chauhan DevendraBilwal Anil Chicham Hansraj Bagri ChandreshPaliwal PriyankaKewat Mangal Singh Kulste BaliramYadav Uma Shankar HeeralalJaiswal RamkrishnaBatke Jagdeesh Bagri ShyamlalKushwaha Ramanuj Mishra BhagatTudu Jay Singh Chauhan JaimalBilwal Garbhu Singh Chicham Suresh Singh Bagri ShyamlalPaliwal RaghuwarSharanKewat Vishwnath Singh ChintaYadav Panna Betul Betul Panna Tikamgarh Shahdol Jamui Chhatarpur Jhabua Mandla Panna Damoh Shahdol Umriya Umriya 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 DhaneshwarBediya Shail Kumar Nanda RanchodKharadi Rahul Kumar Prajapati Ragini Singh Bhanmati Singh GulabYadav Ramprakash MadhoBediya Maikulal Nanda BheriyaKharadi ManoharlalPrajapati Shaymalal Singh Man Singh ChintaYadav Harideen Singh Yadvendra Singh ShyamSundarGolhani SwarnikaNapit SheetalSahu RishabhGolhani PraveshYadav SurajBali Singh Vinod Kumar Golhani RamdhaniNapit RampyareSahu HemrajGolhani RajdharYadav Ranchi Mandla Jhabua Tikamgarh Anuppur Anuppur Umriya Jhabua Umriya Seoni Umriya Umriya Seoni Tikamgarh 30 LaljiYadav HarilalYadav Shahdol Annexure – III LIST of ATTENDEES # Name Organization 1 Prof. V S Tomar JNKVV Vice Chancellor 2 Dr. S.K.Rao JNKVV Director Research Services 3 Dr. P K Bisen JNKVV Director Extension Services 4 Dr. GirishJha JNKVV Head, Agronomy & Course Director 5 Dr. P K Mishra JNKVV Dean Faculty 6 Dr. M L Kewat JNKVV Professor 7 Dr. S B Nahatkar JNKVV Principal Scientist & ADR (HQ) 8 Dr. K KAgrawal JNKVV Principal Scientist 9 Mr. DeepaK Pal JNKVV Business Associate 10 Ms. IpshitaSinha C&A Foundation Programme Officer 11 Mr. Somnath Roy ASA Coordinator OCC 12 Mr. Manas Mohan ASA Coordinator OFCS & Many More from JNKVV Designation Annexure IV Coverage in Print Media