PREAMBLE

When the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi declared that “India lives in Villages” he meant farmers form the backbone of this great Nation.  This continues to be the truth even today.  Notwithstanding many complex problems, the agricultural growth/Food production recorded a remarkable progress.  This was possible due to various factors like production of high yielding varieties, improved management practices, improved/advanced processing technologies etc.  In recent decades farming communities face innumerable problems.  While wide publicity is given by various media on alarming situations on certain failures in farm sector, unfortunately reports on successes are seldom brought to the notice of the farmers and public.  Unless, the awareness is created on potential areas of success the farmers would continue to be apprehensive and lose enthusiasm on farming.  In this context, the CPCRI has developed a well conceived capsule to highlight the successes achieved by the farmers themselves in their income generation through adoption of the proven technologies over the years.  Highlighting the individual farmer’s achievement and his/her own perception on the impact of technologies that benefited to improve his livelihood will be the main feature of the capsule.  This capsule titled FARMER THEN … AND NOW will be on the CPCRI website from 2^nd October, 2005, the Gandhi Jayanthi Day, with fortnightly updates.