Kisan Chaupal

 (Bihar Krishi Vishwavidyalay Kisan de Dwar)

 Process  Considering the importance of smallholders in agriculture and the complexity of resource poor rural families, the university started “Kisan Choupal: on April 28, 2012 in collaboration with 20 Krishi VIgyan Kendras (KVKs) and 8 constituent colleges of the university. Since then the university is organizing Kisan Choupal every Saturday with theme. “Bihar Krishi Vishwavidyalay Ksano de Dwar-Kisan Choupal. BAU is the first in India to start this type of innovative programme.

Mandates of Kisan Choupal

Kisan Choupal is organized by the KVKs and the Colleges with the following mandates:

• To strengthen linkage between scientists and farming community and provide scientific information at farmers’ doorsteps.
• To revive the tradition of Kisan Choupal existing in the ancient times to help farms solve their problems on their own at their place.
• To collect feedback and/or researchable issues from farmers’ fields and communicate to the researchers for further formulating research priorities.
• To provide area specific/demand driven information of farmers at their doorsteps.
• To Bring about convergence between different agencies working for at grassroots level.
• To motivate the people with these of scientific and technical videos on farming practices.
• To create awareness about and popularize the ongoing government schemes for agricultural development
  • Participation

Table 1 : Participation of farmers and extension functionaries in Kisan Choupal for the last five year

Since April 28, 2012 more than 473741 participants including farmers, farm women and rural youth were benefitted by Kisan Choupal. The extension functionaries of the line departments also played a major role in converting interest of the farmers into action.

Impact of Kisan Choupal : Over the past few years, Kisan Choupal has left indeble print in the history of agricultural extension and technology transfer. Impressed with the effectiveness of this innovative extension method, Deputy Director General, Agriculture Extension, ICAR has recommended all the KVKs across the country to utilize Kisan Choupal approach in their respective areas. The Choupal has enabled the farmers to directly interact with the expert scientists to get solution to their agricultural problems thereby strengthening he farmers-scientists linkage. In addition to it, more than one lakh farmer friendly publications of the university such as Krishak Sandes, Kisan Samachar and other extension literature on agriculture and allied enterprises were distributed during the past year through Kisan Choupal mode. The Kisan Choupal is widely accepted by the farmers of Bihar as they acquire first-hand knowledge regarding various management practices for each and every crop. Some of the farmers were also motivated and moved toward agri-based entrepreneurship development. The productivity level of several crop have also increased due to this practice.