Farmer Preferred Farm Policies

Title: Prioritizing farmers goals as an aid in designing pro-inclusive, equitable agriculture policies
Amit Saha, Dairy Economist
Email: a.saha.ifcn@gmail.com

Abstract: The need to accelerate growth rate in agriculture to atleast 4 percent and sustain it is at its highs for the nation. However, design of policies that are based on the principle of improving the productivity of the agriculture enterprises without considering the goals / objectives of the primary or end user is very likely to fail. Hence, a participatory approach to first prioritize farmers goals and to use it as a criteria to develop agricultural policies is the foundation for a sustaining agriculture policy framework.
Key words: Farming system, inclusive growth, goal programming, policies.

Methodology: Based on 3-times point survey of a cross-section of sampled farmers, the goals of the farmers are prioritized and ranked using AHP. On the basis of the weightings assigned to these goals, optimum farm plans are determined using stochastic frontier efficiency estimation and goal programming technique. Based on this benchmark optimization plans, policies for targeted achievement or adoption of desired technologies to meet the goals of inclusive growth, food security and equitable income is determined.
Agricultural policies in terms of support in the input / output transactions need to adhere to minimizing the deviations from the farmers goals, for him to adopt a new technology or practice so as to achieve the overall objective of achieving the desired growth rate.

Findings: The analysis revealed the weighted goals of the farmers categorized based on landholdings. The goals optimized farm plans helped in determining the level and type of policy support needed to achieve the projected growth rate for sustainable, equitable and inclusive growth targets for the region.