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(The Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) is the district level Farm Science centre established by the Indian council of Agriculture Research for speedy transfer of Technology to the farmer’s fields. The aim to reduce the time lag between generation of technology at the Research Institutions and its transfer to the farmer’s fields to increase productivity and income from agriculture and allied sectors on a sustained basis.) In order to achieve this goal, following four mandates have been envisaged in the design of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra.

1. Collaborate with the subject matter specialists of the state Agricultural universities / Scientists of the Regional Research Stations (NARP) and the state Extension Personnel in “on- farm testing”, referring and documenting technologies for developing region specific sustainable land use systems.
2. Organize training to update the Extension Personnel within the area of operation with emerging advances in agricultural research or regular basis.
3. Organize long-term vocational training courses in agriculture and allied vocations for the rural youths with emphasis on “learning by doing” for generating self employment through institutional financing.
4. Organize front - line demonstration in various crops to generate production data and feed back information.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reorganized the importance of speedy transfer of technology right from the research laboratories to the farmer’s fields right from the start of the green revolution phase in mid sixties. A number of extension education programmes like National Demonstration Project, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Lab to Land Programme, Operational Research Project and National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) were started and they played an important role in bringing the research scientists face to face with the farmers. The scientists helped to transfer the technology. These programmes greatly contributed towards increasing the agricultural productivity in different parts of the country.

In 8th Five year plan (1992), all the extension education projects of the ICAR were integrated and merged with the KVKs as per needs of the farming community. The KVKs are now changed with the responsibility of :-

Testing and verifying the technologies in the Socio – economic condition of the farmer’s and identifying the Production Constraints.

1. Promptly demonstrating the latest agricultural technologies to the farmers as well as to the extension workers of the State development Departments with a view to reduce the time - lag between the technology generation and its adoptation.
2. Getting the first hand scientific feed - back from the fields and passing it to the research system in order to keep the scientists at least with the performance of the technologies generated by them, so that they reorient this research, education and training programme accordingly.
3. Imparting training to the farmers farm women, rural youth and field level extension functionaries by following the Principles of “ Teaching by Doing “ and “ Learning by Doing”,
4. Providing training and communication support to the state department of Agriculture / NGO’s ; and
5. Based on field work and experience, developing extension models to be adopted by general extension system for large scale multiplication.

The Krishi Vigyan Kendra,Balumath,Latehar was sanction in March 2007 and it came under the jurisdiction of Birsa Agricultural University Kanke, Ranchi-6. It is situated at Batumath block away from 34 km of district headquarter on Ranchi Chatra Road (NH 99)

Major Agricultural Problems of the District

Enterprises wise specific / technological problems and constraints of the district

For the rapid development of an area through agriculture, provision of irrigation facility is essential. The district possessing hills and rolling topography cannot be brought under rural command irrigation system. High level bunds, water reservoir projects, large diameter wells and intake wells are the only solution for the area. However, all these reservoirs together, cover an area of about 5% of the total cultivable land. Therefore, farmers of the district are almost entirely development on rains for agriculture, hence mono cropping is predominant. The crop production practices are primitive and traditional.

1. The district gets fairly high amount (1200- 1400 mm) of rainfall but the distribution is highly erratic and 90 % of it is mainly received during the four monsoon months June to September. Even within this period, drought spells of 4 to 6 week duration are not uncommon causing water stress.
2. Soil erosion is a menace and every year fairly substantial area of land is converted into gullies. The problem of soil erosion is getting aggravated due to faulty method of cultivation leading to land degradation.
3. Availability of quality seeds and planning materials continue to be major constraints in farming. Indigenous breeds of livestock on common. The use of improved agricultural implements in the district is almost negligible.
4. The cattle population is generally very poor, short in stature having low milk yielding capacity and low draft power. The genetic stock of other animals like goats, sheep, pigs and poultry is also very poor. There is scarcity of animal’s feeds and fodder. The crop residues are mainly used as animal feed.
5. Unawareness about different agricultural implements used for crop production.
6. There has been very weak linkage between research, extension, education, credit system etc. to agricultural development.
7. Excessive dependence on the rice in all forming situations makes agricultural production highly vulnerable to vagaries of weather. Excessive weed pressure, particularly in direct seeded crops, seriously hampers crops production.
8. Lack of risk taking capacity of the farmer’s due to poverty and on farm resource availability leads to the exclusion of the needed agricultural inputs, in desire quality.
9. Stray Cattle grazing in the Rabi Season severely limits the introduction of Rabi crops, during winter, hence mono cropping.
10. Absently land lordism the land lords themselves are not involved in farming. They employ labour and get the work done. The labour in turn, gets paid a fix amount of wages on the basis of cultivated area which is not linked with productivity and production per unit area.
11. Unawareness about post harvest practices, hence lost of produce and handling storage.
12. Unhealthy attitude towards development projects mainly due to :-

The farmers depend on subsidy.

Their extra vacancy in social customs.

Improper use of available loan.

Lack of trust in extension agencies.

Lack of Plasticity in the agricultural systems and approach pre clued adoption ofmidterm corrective measures.

Thrust areas identified through PRA, Survey or any other method

1. Improvement of soil and water conservation practices.
2. Management of irrigation water.
3. Management of problematic soils.
4. Improvement in crop productivity.
5. Improvement in yield of mono crop rice/paddy.
6. Diversification of traditional rice-based cropping system with appropriate commercialization.
7. Breed Improvement of cattle, pig and goat.
8. Popularization of IPM measures for field and Horticultural crops.
9. Introduction of post harvest & value addition technology.
10. Entrepreneurship development of SHG groups.

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