New Delhi, Dec 13 (PTI) The Better Life Farming Alliance (BLFA), led by global life sciences firm Bayer, on Monday said it has tied up with JEEViKA, the Bihar government’s livelihood programme for poverty alleviation.
Bayer in a statement said the partnership aims to empower the state’s small and marginal farmers by scaling up its agri-entrepreneurship model.
Leveraging technical expertise and synergies across the smallholder ecosystem built in the support of the World Bank, this partnership will transform agriculture in Bihar by improving farm productivity and incomes, it said.
Bayer CropScience CEO and Managing Director D Narain said that through this partnership with JEEViKA, BLFA aims to strengthen the local agri value chain and market linkages to benefit over 2.5 lakh farmers across Bihar.
“We intend to equip smallholder farmers with agronomy advisory and know-how to enhance their productivity and prosperity and advance sustainability in agriculture,” he said.
The partnership also aims to support and empower women smallholders by scaling accessibility and gender-smart interventions.
This will collectively promote self-employment among the youth in rural areas and bring in much-needed reliable agri-advisory, which is otherwise inaccessible to many smallholder farmers, he added.
JEEViKA Chief Executive Officer D Balamurugan said that agri-entrepreneurs are often selected from within the cadre of village resource persons (VRPs) who champion agriculture development in neighbouring villages.
This promotes self-employment of the qualified youth while bringing reliable agri-services to the farmers who have otherwise poor access to such services.
“We appreciate private sector partners coming forward to scale this model to serve a larger number of the farming community in project areas across Bihar,” he added.
Together, BLFA and JEEViKA will expand ‘single-window systems’ by forming agri-entrepreneur-run support centres in the region, the statement said.
Under this partnership, about 500 Agri Entrepreneur Service Centers will be set up to support 2,500 villages and over 2.5 Lakh farmers across the state, each centre serving a cluster of 5-8 villages.
JEEViKA will support the centres through their community-based extension programme and provide access to their agri-entrepreneur ecosystem.
Better Life Farming (BLF) is a global, multi-stakeholder alliance, which works with partners across the agrivalue chain to support smallholder farmers in developing economies to increase crop yields and farm incomes.
Launched globally in April 2018, the BLF Alliance has global partners that include Bayer, IFC and Netafim.
In India, the BLF Alliance works with additional local partners, including Yara Fertilizers, DeHaat, AgriBazaar, Big Basket, Axis Bank and Tata Trusts, for developing a comprehensive agri ecosystem. PTI LUX HRS hrs
