Farmers’ Club – A grass root level information forum -- by Dipak Nath & Britan Rahman

Farmers’ Clubs are grass root level informal forums of farmers. Such Clubs are organised by rural branches of banks with the support and financial assistance of NABARD for the mutual benefit of the banks concerned and the village farming community/rural people. With the enhancement of the programme, other agencies like NGO, VA, KVK, and SAU etc. are also now included as agencies included in the formation and promotions of Farmers’ Clubs (FCs). National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) encourages banks to promote Farmers' Clubs in rural areas under the Farmers’ Club Programme, earlier known as “Vikas Volunteer Vahini (VVV) Programme”. The Programme was launched by NABARD in November 1982 to propagate the five principles of “Development through Credit”. NABARD’s policy support for Farmers’ Club Programme lays stress on linking technologies with farmers’ club members and also facilitating market access through the mechanisms like- Capacity building of members of Farmers’ Clubs including leadership training, Linkage with technology/markets, Self Help Groups (SHGs)/Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) formation, Forming Federations of Farmers’ Clubs/Producers’ Groups/Companies. NABARD supports recurring expenses of Farmers’ Training and Rural Development Centres (FTRDCs) set up by institutional agencies. NABARD has set up a Farmers’ Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF) to be used to facilitate transfer of technologies and market linkages especially through Farmers’ Clubs besides need based support for formation of Producers’ Groups/ Companies, Federations of farmers’ Clubs etcThe broad functions of the Farmers’ Clubs as envisaged are – 1) Coordinate with banks to ensure credit flow among its members and forge better bank borrower relationship; 2) Organise minimum one meeting per month and depending upon the need, there would be 2-3 meetings per month. Non-members can also be invited to attend the meetings; 3) Interface with subject matter specialists in the various fields of agriculture and allied activities etc., extension personnel of Agriculture Universities, Development Departments and other related agencies for technical knowhow up gradation. For guest lectures, even experienced farmers who are non members from the village/ neighbouring villages could be invited; 4) Liaison with Corporate input suppliers to purchase bulk inputs on behalf of members; 5) Organise/facilitate joint activities like value addition, processing, collective purchase of inputs and farm produce marketing, etc.; for the benefit of members; 6) They can also sponsor / organise SHGs, Undertake socio-economic developmental activities like community works, education, health, environment and natural resource management etc; 7) Marketing of rural produce and products.All Institutional Agencies (Commercial Banks, Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks) and all grass root level organisations (NGOs, PRIs, State Agricultural Universities, KVKs, ATMA, and Post Offices etc.) are eligible to form Farmers’ Clubs. Farmers’ Club is an informal forum in the villages.  It can be promoted in a village/ cluster of villages, generally in the Operational Area of a Bank. While Farmers’ Club should have minimum of 10 members, no upper limit in the membership is envisaged. Every Club would have three office bearers - One 'Chief Coordinator/Volunteer/ President, the other 'Associate Coordinator/Volunteer/Vice President. The office bearers would be elected by Club Members on a democratic basis for a term to be decided by the Club. The office bearers should be residents of the area of the operation of the club. No NGO/FC promoting agency representative can be office bearer of the club.

Steps in the formation of  Farmers’ Clubs: 1) Bank branch can promote the clubs directly or engage Farmers’ Club promoting agencies like Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), Agriculture Universities, NGOs, Corporate, etc.; 2) All grass root level organisations (NGOs, PRIs, State Agricultural Universities, KVKs, ATMA, Post Offices etc.) are eligible to form Farmers’ Clubs; 3) Selection of a village/ cluster of villages suitable for launching Clubs in the operational area of the bank branch; 4) Identification of a few progressive farmers and borrowers with good track record of proper loan utilisation, aptitude and capacity for team work. (Success of the Club hinges on the right choice of members); 5) Encouraging the members to select a Chief Coordinator/Volunteer/President and an Associate Coordinator/Volunteer/Vice President and a Cashier. This will ensure collective leadership and continuance of the Club; 6) Providing orientation training to them with the help of NABARD (Regional Office / DDM or trained officers from the bank) before launching; 7) Encouraging members to convene monthly meeting regularly, guide them to have meaningful discussion and take necessary follow up action; 8) Motivation of the members to identify credit and non-credit needs (training, socio-economic, village infrastructure, etc.), preparation of a plan of action and accordingly arrangement for expert talks, counselling, need-based activities, etc. with the help of Government Departments and other agencies concerned; 9) The FC member should maintain Membership Register, Meeting Register, Minutes Book and Books of accounts; 10) Identification of a performance parameter and measurement of the Clubs’ contribution annually is important; 11) Use of the Club as a tool in aid of branch not only in the matter of credit and recovery but also in facilitating promotion of SHGs, micro credit, Financial Inclusion and convergence of services is important; 12) Regular source of income and consistency in their activities is the key to sustainability of FCs. Sustainability of Farmers’ Clubs may be ensured through creation of a corpus at the club level through measures such as: 1) Token membership fees (to be decided by members); 2) Monthly savings (to be decided by the Club members); 3) Service charge for Self Help Groups (SHGs)/ Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) loans recommended to banks @0.5% and 1%. (This is suggestive and the club members can decide themselves.); 4) Commission/incentive for selling insurance products (as per negotiations with individual insurance companies); 5) Commission for acting as Business Facilitators/Business Correspondents (to be negotiated with individual banks); 6) Any other charges for services provided to other agencies like Government, Corporate Bodies etc).The broad objective of setting up Farmers’ Clubs would be to achieve prosperity for the farmers with overall agricultural development in its area of operation by facilitating credit counselling, technology counselling and market counselling. Over the years, the vision of Farmers’ Clubs has undergone a change and the role expected to be played by Farmers Clubs have been enlarged to enable them to facilitate transfer of technology, propagation of seed village concept, strengthen agricultural extension services, undertake collective purchase and distribution of inputs, production and marketing, capacity building of members, to act as Business Facilitators (BFs)/Business Correspondents (BCs) for banks, formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs), Joint Liability Groups (JLGs), Producers Groups/Companies, Federations of Farmers’ Clubs, undertake community related works, and assume the role of a leader.

Nice guys always get the girl

New research suggests that nice guys really do finish first when it comes to getting the girl. According to psychologists, traits such as selflessness and altruism have become part of our genetic make-up because they were attractive to mates. They believe that as humans evolved, qualities such as being fittest and strongest were usurped by other qualities – such as offering a helping hand in bringing up the children. "The expansion of the human brain would have greatly increased the cost of raising children so it would have been important for our ancestors to choose mates both willing and able to be good, long-term parents," the Telegraph quoted Dr Tim Phillips and colleagues from the University of Nottingham and Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, as saying. "Displays of altruism could well have provided accurate clues to this and so led to a link between human altruism and sexual selection."The study, which investigated whether altruistic behaviour evolved as a result of sexual selection, involved 70 identical and 87 non-identical female twin pairs.They completed questionnaires relating to their own levels of altruism by answering questions such as "have you given money to charity?" and "have you dived into a river to save someone from drowning?".They then asked them if they would find the same qualities desirable in potential mates.Statistical analysis of their responses suggested that, in our evolutionary past, those with a stronger mate preference towards altruistic behaviour mated more frequently with more altruistic people.That means that altruistic genes would be more prevalent than selfish genes."These results are consistent with a link between human altruism towards non-relatives and sexual selection and throws an exciting new light on the puzzle of altruistic behaviour – which appears, at first sight, to be at odds with evolutionary theory," Dr Phillips said.

Dreamcatchers!

Scary but true! There are those who claim to be able to enter our dreams and manage them. Anuradha Varma meets some dream creators Can you enter a person's dream? In Inception, actor Leonardo di Caprio, who plays an industrial spy, steals secrets when his victims are asleep by penetrating their dreams. The dream snatcher can even sow the seed of inception for an idea.While the movie's fiction, it may be grounded in fact. The New Scientist reports, "In the movie, the dream-snatchers use a drug called somnacin and a dream machine to upload a scenario into someone's sleeping mind. This fictional dream machine is called a Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous device. A device does already exist that can effectively read someone's mind. A functional MRI scanner takes snapshots of brain activity, and then the software recreates images of what the subject was looking at. The researchers say it has the potential one day to be able to record someone's dream." It reveals that dreams occur in both rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM sleep.However, while sceptics abound, believers back up the theory. Mystic and tarot reader Veenu Sandal believes she can cure people through their dreams, using the technique of telementation, beaming out thoughts to positively influence them. She says, "All thoughts and experiences are stored in a person's brain. It's like watching television. Sometimes, the person wakes up and I have to start all over again. It's an invasion of privacy and I do it only with permission." Entering another's dream can have interesting results. Recalls Veenu, "A man passed a park three days ago and saw a couple getting romantic. In his dream, I saw him embark upon an affair with a colleague." She gets best results between 1 am and 2 am. Healer and psychic Venugopalan, aka Maitreya, believes free will plays an important role and an individual can reject a forced scenario if he wishes, even while dreaming. Transferring thoughts into a person's mind is about connecting, even fusing with the other's energy. He says, "If you go deep into a person's dream, you can program his thoughts."Even Goa-based healer Patrick Sanfrancesco related, during a talk, how he wove a dream about cops busting a club, after the parents complained that their son was turning a compulsive gambler. After three nights of this, the young man stayed home! Controlling dreams isn't a new trend. In fact, Tibetan Buddhists use dream yoga to get nearer to the Absolute, through lucid dreaming, by comparing the illusion to the transitory nature of life.In a lucid dream, a term coined by Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden, one is aware that one is dreaming. In his Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, published in 1913, he describes his experiments with dreams. He writes, "I dreamt that I was lying in the garden before the windows of my study, and saw the eyes of my dog through the glass pane. I was lying on my chest and observing the dog very keenly. At the same time, I knew with perfect certainty that I was dreaming and lying on my back in my bed. And then I resolved to wake up slowly and carefully and observe how my sensation of lying on my chest would change into the sensation of lying on my back."Dream researcher and psychologist at Harvard University, Deirdre Barrett has recommended, "You can tell yourself at bedtime that you want to dream on a particular topic — that you want to be lucid in your dream, realise you're dreaming. People who have had bad nightmares may want to script a different outcome, a kind of mastery dream to replace the nightmares." Enjoy more power over your dreams!