The Prime Minister Dhaanya Krishi Yojana or Also Known As (PMDKY) is an ambitious agricultural program of the Indian governing body that aims to deal with all forms of problems affecting the farmer. Its main objectives include increasing agricultural productivity, improvement of the agricultural processes from farming practices to the living standards of the farmers in the country. Having prioritized some areas including crop diversification, irrigation, post-harvesting technology, and financial enhancement, the PMDKY aims at transforming the agricultural industry and achieving food security to the country.
Objectives of PMDKY
- Assuring High Yields: One of the goals of the programme is to apply modern technology and hybrid seeds in farming so as to result in higher yield and, therefore, higher profits.
- Sustainable Agriculture: The program encourages the farmer to use environmentally friendly methods of farming such as, organic, IPM, and efficient use of water in order to maintain the soils and other resources.
- Develop Post-harvest Infrastructure: Under PMDKY, there is an attempt to enhance storage, cold chains, processed units to prevent post-harvest demerits and reasonable market returns for the agricultural produce.
- Promoting access to credit: The scheme also concentrates on extending both short-term and the long term institutional credit to farmers thereby easing their ability to get finances without resorting to expensive sources of credit.
- Promoting Farmers’ Income: The PMDKY specifically targets small and marginal farmers, rural women farmers and youth farmers and the project intends to empower them through entrepreneurship activities to be financially independent.
Implementation Strategy
PMDKY will be taken under the coordination of the central and state governments along with agri-institutions, and private players. The scheme will target 100 districts with low productivity and can be defined by the following characteristics: The size of the agricultural land is moderate; the proportion of credit availability is low. Following are the key aspect of an implementation strategy:
- Crop Diversification: In order to modify the current set up of the farmers that are practicing monoculture system of farming and in a bid to promote production of pulses, horticulture products, value addition and to check soil decadence, it is important to diversify crops that are grown.
- Canal and Channel networks: Extending irrigation canal and channel that will harness and distribute water to the areas in need in an efficient way.
- Effective Post harvest technologies: means development of better storage facilities, cold chains and processing centres to reduce spoilage and keep the perishing food products for a much longer time.
- Agricultural Education: The enhancement of farmers and other stakeholders through training and provision of capable skills and knowledge in agriculture practice such as proper management of the soil, pest management and others that would ensure efficient utilization of the available resources.
- Financial support: granting low-interest and subsidizing loans to farmers through embracing new farming technologies.
Expected Outcomes of PMDKY
The proposed scheme has the potential to bring a drastic change in the agriculture of the country. It focuses on critical challenges and intends to implement the scheme by offering specific interventions to achieve the multiple beneficial objectives that affect the lives of farmers, rural communities and the country’s economy.
Enhanced Agricultural Productivity
Among all of these objectives, the first and main goal of PMDKY is to grow the agricultural sector. The scheme has this capacity to revise the farming methods, high-yield crops, and efficient means of irrigation with the goals of increasing the yields. This will concurrently bring about food security productivity and at the same time boost the income of farmers by the returns on their produce.
Improved Soil Health and Sustainability
It includes organic farming, integrated pest management and conservation agriculture are among the farming practices. These practices are aimed at increasing soil health as well as redundancy in the use of chemicals and increasing the levels of bio-diversity. Thus, therefore, in the long-run, sustainable production of agriculture will be achieved to improve agriculture ecosystem and Farming systems.
Reduction in Post-Harvest Losses
PMDKY’s intervention strategy therefore strategically seeks to enhance post-harvest infrastructure which entails constructing stores, cold stores and processing facilities. With reduced post-harvest loss, the farmers will be in a position to offer their produce at better prices in the market and are also in a position to reduce loss in this stage. This will improve the efficiency of agricultural supply chain because buyers and sellers within the chain will be easily accessible since they will have the necessary tools for connection.
Increased Financial Inclusion
It is a plan formulated to assist farmers with both the long-term and the short term credit facility in order to have constant access to capital. This will enable them cut on borrowings from quack money lenders and also support the use of advanced farming inputs. Improving the financial sector will ensure higher financial flow of funds to the farmers that shall culminate into better economic stability for the farming communities and promote entrepreneurship in the farming sector.
Empowerment of Marginalized Farmers
Its interventions are directed towards the small and marginal farmers, rural women and young farmers. The scheme will therefore enhance the rights of these marginalized groups through encouraging entrepreneurship and independency by creating new prospects of growth. This will help in the integration of the agriculture sector for the welfare and development of the rural people.
Creation of Rural Employment Opportunities
It could be estimated that the implementation of PMDKY would result in a number of employment opportunities in rural areas. It is also proposed that, apart from construction of irrigation structures, various other activities under this scheme will entail the involvement of people with certain skills and semi-skilled personnel. This will contribute to dealing with unemployment especially within the rural areas, and the resulting trend of people moving to urban centres in search for employment.
Strengthening Food Security
PMDKY will directly contribute to the goal of attaining high levels of food security in pulses and cereals production for the country. Due to enhancement on matters concerning crop diversity and yield, the scheme will enhance consistent production of crops. This will assist in the enhancing food security as a way of trying to minimize on the importation of such foods and also feed the people of the country.
Promotion of Eco-Friendly Practices
PMDKY has focused on the aspect of conservation through the practices to be embraced that favours environmental conservation. The utilization of fewer chemicals, use of water and conservation of the biological diversity will make the environment a healthier one. This will also help in improving the capability of agriculture systems to climate change and other challenges in that environment.
Challenges Associated with the Implementation
The new scheme is a good one with a strategic aim to revolutionize agriculture in India. But there are certain factors that act as constraints and barriers to this scheme to ensure that they are effective as required.
Infrastructure Deficiency
A major problem in undertaking PMDKY therefore is the issue of poor infrastructure in most rural areas. These are few of the factors such as poor road network, inadequate storage facilities or means, and restricted access to modern and efficient agricultural implements. Lack of infrastructure hampers the means of getting the agricultural produce, conserving perishable commodities and the practices of efficient farming.
Water Scarcity and Irrigation Issues
The efficient management of water is central for the success of this agricultural plan. The challenge is that most areas in India experience water shortage and thus cannot support the use of improved methods of irrigation. The issue here is in the accessibility of water sources and establishment of techniques for the provision of water supplies that may be used to support irrigation for farmers in arid areas.
Financial Constraints
The objective of PMDKY is to assist the farmers financially, but the distribution of the financial assistance might delay due to paper works and formalities. Smallholder and small plot farmers, therefore, find it hard to borrow credit from the mainstream formal institutions because of lack of collateral and cumbersome formalities.
Adoption of Modern Farming Techniques
Promoting the use of appropriate modern farming practices and high-yielding plant varieties needs knowledge and capacity enhancement. It remains a difficult task to change such farmers, especially from the rural areas, because they lack knowledge and awareness to embrace better practices. This requires good training programs and demonstration projects to be carried out to the farmers as well as constant follow-ups.
Post-Harvest Management
Losses occurring after the harvesting process are one of the chief factors that should be minimized in PMDKY. Nevertheless, access to markets is still a problem, especially in the area of post–harvest handling; factors like cold storage and processing units are hard to come by. To reduce post-harvest losses and enhance the marketability of produce that will help the farmer to cover costs of putting up storage facilities, it is mandatory to put up state of art storage facilities.
Coordination among Stakeholders
To achieve these goal and objectives, effective cooperation with the central and state governments, agricultural institutions and other key stakeholder should be maintained for the successful operation of PMDKY. Co-ordinating these entities in the field can therefore be difficult especially due to the variation in the administrative systems and governance structures of different countries.
Climate Change and Environmental Factors
Any changes in climate disappoint agriculture production in many ways. Such reasons as unstable weather condition, drought, flood, etc, and other calamities affecting the environment are major factors affecting crop yields. These need to give way to climate-sensitive farming approaches and early warning systems in efforts to overcome for instances of unfavourable climate conditions.
Way forward
Infrastructure Development
The government should work towards addressing the issues of infrastructure bottleneck through provision of funds for the development and improvement of infrastructures in the rural areas. This entails increasing the network of road systems, setting up of proper storage infrastructure and availing of efficient agriculture equipment. By doing so, the government is able to improve the transport system throughout the country to ensure that the agricultural produce reach the market in good time and condition, and also allow farmers to adopt better ways of farming.
Efficient Water Management
water scarcity and problems related to irrigation can be solved through proper water management. Government should endeavour on the adoption and popularisation of the effective irrigation methods such as the drip and sprinkle irrigation. More so, there is a need to promote rainwater harvesting, and watershed management with aim at improving water availability in a water-deficit zones. This can be through training farmers on water conservation practices as well as offering incentives for the purchase of irrigation equipment.
Streamlined Financial Support
To overcome some of the challenges that face the farmer, the government should reduce the bureaucratic approach to financing the farmer. The procedures for applying for funds should be less so that the original targets and goals do not take time to be met by a mountain of paperwork. Eligible farmers will have to borrow money from regulated formal structures as opposed to borrowing from the non-regulated sources of formal credit. Furthermore, the farmers would benefit from adoption of financial literacy programs with a view of enabling him or her to make the best of the available financial resources.
Capacity Building and Training
The use of modern farming practices entails one to undergo through some form of training and capacity development. The government should provide training facilities and organize sessions to facilitate the farmer on suitable farming practices, soil fertility management, integrated pest management, and efficient use of inputs. Therefore, through real-life demonstrations and observation of such projects through field visits, farmers need to be encouraged to adopt new technology.
Strengthening Post-Harvest Management
Improvement of post-harvest handling is important to avoid huge losses, and improve marketability of the produce. Cold chains, processing units, as well as advancement storage facilities need to be established and developed by the government. The farmers should also be trained to grade, sort, and package their produce to help reduce post-harvest losses and increase the quality yields which attract better prices in market.
Effective Coordination among Stakeholders
However, it is interesting to note that the effective coordination between the parties is a critical factor to support PMDKY. To achieve these objectives the formation of an integrated task force should be made involving the central and state governments, institutions of higher learning and other relevant private and public partnership organizations. It may be advisable to hold periodical meetings and follow up on the progress in order to solve arising problems and determine whether all members understand the goal set or not.
Promoting Climate-Resilient Practices
The government should therefore encourage the adoption of climate suitable agriculture. This includes encouraging the farmers to grow as many different crops as possible, use crops that are resistant to drought and constructing warning systems for disasters. Insurance solutions to support farmers when they are hit by calamities due to climate change can also be made available to support their income sources.