Small farmers who dominate Indian agriculture have seldom made profits from agriculture. Improvements in yields and enhanced marketable surpluses hardly transform into better monetary returns owing to absence of value addition, weak value chain system and weak market linkage. But of late, farmer producer organisations are helping small farmers to process their harvests providing better linkages to markets.
In this issue we have included experiences of farmers, farmer producer organisations and institutions that are promoting value addition. You will find that most of the value addition processes are not only simple, but less cost intensive, bringing in enhanced returns to the farm families. We hope these experiences will interest and inspire many farmers to practise value addition, preventing them from distress sales.
We look forward to your feedback, as always. We remain deeply indebted to you all for your commitment to promotion of LEISA.
4. Editorial
6. Litchi processing – A promising value addition
Alemvati Pongener, S K Purbey, Vinod Kumar, Vishal Nath, S D Pandey and Abhay Kumar
11. Secondary Agriculture – Empowering tribals of Central India
Niraj Kumar, Mohd. Zahid and Prasanna Khemaria
16. Adding value to Mahua in pandemic times
Yogarajan, Lalit Mohal Bal, Dinesh Kumar and Ayushi Soni
19. In the news
22. Value addition of MFPs – Potential tool to empower tribal community
Archana Bhatt and Vipindas
26. Value addition for better returns
Ayyagiri Ramlal, Dhandapani Raju, Madhulika Singh, Ajay Kumar and Ambika Rajendran
28. Farmers Diary
30. New Books
31. Sources
32. Value addition – Marketing small farms smarter
Anithakumari P
