At this KVK in Nabarangpur, 50 acres and 2 scientists who double up as accountants, administrators

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“The staff strength is less here,” admits G C Sahoo, programme coordinator at Nabarangpur KVK. It is an understatement. The existing manpower rules provide for six subject matter specialists in each KVK, besides an administrative assistant, computer programmer, lab technician, stenographer, two drivers and two support staff — adding up to 16, inclusive of the programme coordinator and farm manager. The Centre is, moreover, planning to increase the number of subject matter specialist posts from six to 10 for every KVK.

Overworked scientists (Source: Express photo by I Kamleshwar Rao)

In Nabarangpur, however, Sahoo and his two scientists — one with a plant breeding/genetics background and the other, a co-opted soil science specialist — do even all the accounting, administrative and computer programming work. That leaves them with little time to do what a KVK is mandated to: organising frontline demonstrations to showcase the benefits of improved agricultural technologies on farmers’ fields, providing agro advisories/alerts specific to crops grown in their region, and investing in overall capacity development of farmers with a view to update their knowledge and skills. In short, acting as the bridge between research and extension.

“We desperately need an agronomist and plant protection scientist, apart from an administrative-cum-accounting assistant and a computer programmer. I have made representations to the higher-ups,” complains Sahoo. Given that the salaries of KVK staff are 100 per cent paid by the ICAR, it is obvious that the non-filling up of the sanctioned posts have entirely to do with the reluctance to serve in the country’s poorest district.

The virtual non-functioning of Nabarangpur’s KVK is evident from the weeds growing profusely at its 50-acre farm. While Balabhadra Majhi, the Lok Sabha MP from Nabarangpur, wants a soil testing laboratory for every block of the district — “so that my farmers know what crop to grow and how much and what fertiliser to apply” — the KVK’s own facility is unable to offer this service for lack of reliable electricity supply.

Contrast this with the KVK at Baramati in Maharashtra, possibly India’s best and no less due to it being in the former Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s pocket-borough. This KVK — which finance minister Arun Jaitley visited only last week — undertakes testing of over 15,000 samples of soil, water and leaf petioles from farmers’ fields every year, according to its programme coordinator, Syed Shakir Ali. The Baramati KVK also makes available certified seeds and seedlings/grafts of fruit crops, bio-fertilisers, bio-pesticides, chemical and pheromone traps, and farm implements on hire.

An understaffed and dysfunctional KVK at Nabarangpur is striking not just for it being in India’s poorest district — where the need for adoption and diffusion of modern agriculture technologies would presumably be the highest. It is significant also for the fact that this is a district where multinational seed companies from Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta to Bayer CropScience and Limagrain are doing brisk business, as The Indian Express had shown in an earlier report (http://bit.ly/1Pi9ba6). The expansion of the private sector in a space increasingly vacated by the state tells a story in itself.

Nabarangpur mainly grows paddy and maize. “Our focus is on crop diversification and promoting organic vegetable cultivation. We are providing training to farmers in vermi-compost production,” says Sahoo. Now, is this what farmers in Nabarangpur want — even while private firms are aggressively pushing branded hybrid paddy and maize seeds — is a moot question.