Pioneering New Approaches to Rural Agri-Entrepreneurship Skills Development in Jharkhand, India

Jharkhand has a large proportion of marginal and small landholders (84 percent), who mainly practice rain-fed, single-crop subsistence farming, cultivating a low-yielding variety of paddy. A vast majority of these rural producers are unable to transition to high-value commodities. The average landholding per farmer is 1.17 hectares. Of the 3.43 million hectares of cultivable land, only 2.23 million hectares (65 percent) is being farmed leaving nearly 35 percent of cultivable land fallow. Small livestock rearing and fish farming in catchment farm ponds, tanks and reservoirs could be important potential sources of livelihood for these rural households. Collection and sale of non-timber forest produce (NTFP) contributes substantially to incomes of forest dwellers and inhabitants of hamlets surrounding forest areas, who are mostly disadvantaged and landless communities belonging to particularly vulnerable tribal groups. This note explains the skilling and rural agri-entrepreneurship approach, process design, learnings, and the way forward of the JOHAR skilling initiative