India has one of the world's largest agricultural research networks, churning out a good deal of new technology. But the majority of farmers still practise traditional farming, for want of adequate transfer of the new technology to the fields.
A recent National Sample Survey report on farmers revealed that over 60 per cent of them lack access to new technology. In reality, a sizable chunk of others, too, do not get to know all that is new and useful for them.
Person-to-person flow of information remains the most common mode of dissemination of farm know-how. As a result, the extension machinery has come to be viewed as a speed breaker in agricultural development.
This is reflected in the recent mid-term appraisal of the 10th five-year plan, which has presented agriculture as a virtual drag on the economy.
Though the reasons for this are several, the most significant among them are the widening schism between technology developers and state extension workers, and the inherent disabilities of the state extension machinery.
Most of those occupying high positions in the extension services are themselves not fully aware of the latest technologies, having passed out of agricultural colleges and universities many years earlier.
Field-level workers usually complain of lack of transport and other facilities to visit scattered villages. The number of villages to be covered by each worker is normally too large to manage.
That apart, most of the new technology is being generated by the institutions that are under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, a central government body, while technology transfer is a state subject.
The mandate of the ICAR does not go beyond displaying the effectiveness of the new technology through a few field-level demonstrations. The state agricultural universities, which are supposed to integrate agricultural research, education and extension, have proved incapable of doing so.
In any case, most of these universities are in poor financial health for want of adequate funding support from the equally resource-starved state governments.
Of course, a few attempts have been made in the past to address these issues through programmes designed specifically for technology transfer. But their outcome was far from satisfactory.
The failed experiments included operational research projects, the country-wide lab-to-land programme and the institute-village linkage programme undertaken as part of the World Bank-aided National Agricultural Technology Project.
Moreover, state extension agencies have experimented with different knowledge-spreading approaches like field demonstrations, farmers' fairs and the TV (training-and-visit) method of extension.
These too have failed to achieve the desired results. The time now seems ripe therefore to experiment again and involve the private sector in this task by offering suitable incentives.
The concept of facilitating the setting up of agricultural clinics by farm graduates, for disseminating technological knowledge among farmers, seems a well-conceived step in this direction. So also the programme for setting up kisan call centres with toll-free telephone numbers.
Besides, all agro-based industries should be encouraged to take up technology dissemination projects, or to combine technology transfer with their raw material procurement operations through contract farming.
The bottom line for all this is regular interaction between agricultural scientists and extension workers, on one hand, and the extension workers and the farmers, on the other.