Strengthening technology delivery System through Empowerment of Village organizations

Village level organizations and leaders play an important role in the decision-making process with respect to technology adoption and spread in a community. Often the village level leaders are constrained with issues such as lack of adequate knowledge, poor communication skill, poor accessibility to right technology sources, exploitation by input dealers and prevalence of conflicts due to local groupism among farmers. The present study was conducted among 207 farmers, who were office bearers or active members of formal village organizations (FVO) belonging to five districts of Tamil Nadu, India. Bureaucratic protocols and inadequate financial resources were the major constraints in the functioning of FVOs, while communication skills and knowledge for development schemes & ICT tools were the major capacity development needs perceived by the members & leaders of FVOs. It was also found out that FVOs can be integrated with overall agricultural development of the village and surrounding areas if the leaders and members involved in the technology delivery mechanism as partners and properly utilized by the extension functionaries.