Hill agriculture is different from agriculture at plains, in respect to land type, altitude and climate, in addition to lack of infrastructure and fragmented land holding. Due to lack of employment opportunities hill farmers are leaving agriculture and migrating to plains. Lack of industries and marketing infrastructure has made it more difficult for farmers to excel in farm business. Farmers Producer Company (FPC) has emerged as a new agri-business model and is working in hilly areas it too. With an intention to find out the effectiveness of hill based FPC for enhancing livelihood wellbeing and empowering women farmers in hills the present study was conducted by selecting an women farmer based Organization, Mahila Umang Producer Company (MUPC) of a group of hill rural women. An ex-post facto research design was used. Difference in difference research design was used to calculate the actual impact of FPC. To measure the livelihood wellbeing an index were prepared by following the standard protocol. The study was conducted in Almora district of Uttarakhand from 37 randomly selected members of MUPC and 20 nonmember respondents from the same locale. The MUPC was found effective in enhancing income and empowering hill women. Joining the FPC has improved the hill women’s livelihood in terms of economic, human, and political dimensions.

There is a growing optimism that the farmers' organizations can act as a potential driving force for enhancing farmers' income. India has witnessed a positive growth of producer organizations in terms of types of organization, numbers and members. The Producer Company is a special case of producer organization that is registered under Section IXA of the Companies Act, 1956. A need was felt at that time to have an independent farmers’ organization which enables incorporation of producers into such an institution like the companies which will be controlled by them, having welfare and business outlook at a time while not compromising the sustainability issues. That creates the milieu for the genesis of Farmers’ Producer Company (FPC) in India. The FPCs are fundamentally farmer-owned and farmer-governed micro-enterprises which can be considered as hybrids between cooperative societies and private companies. The way of participation, membership and organization is similar to that of a cooperative, while the incorporation into corporate law allows greater flexibility and professionalism in their business actions. Till date 1048 FPCs are registered in India. In this article attempt has been made to review the issues of FPC, current status and future prospects. Forecasting the growth of FPC has been done up to the year 2020 utilizing Grey Model. Emphasis has been given to critically analyse the status, prospects and potentials with future outlook of 2020 concluding with strategies and policy needs.

Farming system research (FSR) is on-farm research that brings cutting-edge agricultural technologies to growers to enhance farm production, family income, and livelihood status. In 2007, an on-farm study was started on FSR in central India, and the effect was assessed after 5 yr (2012-2013) of implementation by comparing adopters and nonadopters of FSR-based promoted technologies. Further, in 2018-2019, the status of adoption of introduced technologies was also assessed. The study revealed that improved practices such as pre-sowing irrigation, high-yielding varieties, and crop protection measures collectively improved the system productivity of the adopters by 28%; the improved productivity was mainly due to increased yield of blackgram (Vigna mungo L., 157%), groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L., 34%), and wheat (Triticum aestivum L., 12%). Adoption of ration balancing and healthcare practices promoted under the FSR project accentuated the milk yield of farm animals (200 L yr -1 cattle -1 ) of adopters. The farm diversification and sustainable production practices under the FSR-based interventions increased family income of adopters by 35% (US$1,517.7 yr -1 ) and employment by 42%. Adopter households averaged a 33.76% higher return per unit of investment than nonadopters. The estimated change is primarily due to the non-neutral technological change. The findings of the study Abbreviations: FSR, farming system research; FYM, farmyard manure; VIF, variance inflation factor.

Nutrition status of people is decided by the dietary habits of people of a region and it has substantial implications for the quality of life of its population. In this background, a study had been undertaken with the objective of understanding dietary habits with special reference to dietary diversity and nutritional status among rural population. The study is based on the primary data collected in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh during the year 2014-15. The body mass index, one of the indicator of nutrition status reveals about 10 per cent men, 20 per cent women, 30 per cent boys and 35 per cent girls were coming under underweight and remaining fell in overweight category. Nutrition awareness among the female groups was better than male groups and anganwadi workers were the key informants. The actual consumption of all the food groups were about 50 per cent less than the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) across all the categories. Home produced milk consumption was near to RDA and market depended pulses were more deficient in their consumption. The Individual Diet Diversity Score (IDDS) ranged from 7.6 to 8.0; womens’ dietary diversity score was slightly less than men, similar was the case with children. Simpson Index of Dietary Diversity (SIDD) ranged from 0.69 to 0.77. As evidenced from this study, household production enhances food accessibility, hence, promotion of diversified cropping pattern could be a right strategy for enhancing nutritional security in rural areas. Further, this study suggests to target men as well women for sensitization and awareness programme about importance of food and nutrition to achieve nutritional security of all in particular women.

Training is essential not only to increase productivity, but also to keep workers of an organization motivated and inspired. In this study, the effectiveness of trainings conducted by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) during 2017-18 in which 901 Scientists, 506 Technical, 519 Administrative and 313 Skilled Support Staff (SSS) from 106 ICAR-Institutes across 26 States/UTs participated was assessed by HRM Unit, ICAR HQs, New Delhi during 2018-19. Study revealed that the pooled perceived training effectiveness index (PTEI) was 3.86, referring medium effectiveness of trainings. The mean PTEI score was the highest for SSS (3.94) followed by Administrative staff (3.90). Overall, most of the participants (58.83%) reported medium degree of effectiveness of the training programmes. Behavioural changes and changes in practices as a consequence of exposure to the trainings are evident from the findings. The study revealed that perceived effectiveness was significantly associated with age, gender and duration of training programmes. Some observed constraints by the trainees were inadequate infrastructure at Institutes, sometimes lesser relevancy of few topics and lack of practical exposure. The major suggestions were inclusion of more practical sessions, follow up programmes for trainee-trainer meet, and increasing the duration of the trainings in few cases. The trainings organised by ICAR should continue for all staff categories to bring about desirable changes in competencies.