Training to Farmers

What is the Training to Farmers scheme?

Training to Farmers is the farmer extension component of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu. Under the maize component of the Integrated Scheme for Oilseeds, Pulses, Oilpalm and Maize (ISOPOM), the department trains 50 farmers per batch at Rs 300 per farmer for a 2-day course on maize production.

Training to Farmers is not a cash benefit. Training to Farmers is a service: the rupee figures published are what the department spends per farmer or per batch to run the course, not what a farmer receives. The training itself is free to attend.

Why the state funds it. Every other input subsidy in the department's list; seed, gypsum, Rhizobium, plant protection equipment, micronutrient spray; is wasted if applied at the wrong stage or the wrong dose. A gypsum subsidy paid to a groundnut farmer who broadcasts it at sowing rather than at pegging buys nothing. A Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus subsidy paid to a farmer who sprays in midday sun buys nothing, because ultraviolet light destroys the virus. Training is the cheapest line in the department's budget and the one that determines whether the expensive lines work.

What training is available, and at what rate?

The department funds training through several parallel heads. The rates published in its scheme documents are:

Note the spread. A maize farmer's 2-day training is costed at Rs 300; an oilpalm farmer's at Rs 800 across two days; a 3-day Karnataka study visit for maize contract farmers at Rs 2,250 per head. The differences reflect travel, duration and whether a research station is involved, not the relative importance of the crop.

Who is eligible for farmer training, and who is excluded?

A farmer can attend if:

• The applicant cultivates the relevant crop — maize for the maize training, pulses for the pulses training, oilseeds for the oilseeds training, paddy or millets for the cereals cluster training.
• The land lies in a district covered by the programme running the batch. For maize, ISOPOM covers Coimbatore, Dindigul, Erode, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Namakkal, Perambalur, Virudhunagar, Theni, Villupuram, Vellore, Salem, Pudukkottai, Madurai, Sivagangai, Trichy, Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi.
• The applicant is registered with the Agricultural Extension Centre in the block.
• The applicant is an agricultural labourer, in the case of the cereals cluster training, which explicitly covers "50 farmers / agricultural labourers".
• Reservation applies. ISOPOM components assure 24 per cent of seats to SC and ST farmers and 20 per cent to women farmers and women's groups. Under the cereals programme a 30 per cent flow to SC and ST is assured, and Farmers Training Centres assure 30 per cent to SC and ST farmers.

A farmer cannot claim if:

• The applicant does not cultivate the crop the batch is being run for. A paddy-only grower is not eligible for the maize batch, though the cereals cluster training is open.
• The district is outside the programme's coverage. Farmers Training Centre village-based training, for example, covers the state except Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruvallur, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur and Chennai, where separate arrangements apply.
• The batch is full. Batch sizes are fixed at 30 or 50 depending on the head, and the block's annual target caps how many batches run.
• The applicant expects the published rate as a cash payment. It is not. Only the Farmers Training Centre stipend of Rs 20 per day and the Rs 2,000 study tour assistance are paid towards the farmer's own costs.

How to apply for farmer training in Tamil Nadu

1. Visit the Agricultural Extension Centre in your village and meet the Assistant Agricultural Officer. This officer holds the block's training calendar and the target number of batches for the year.
2. Say which crop and which training you want. The heads are crop-specific and budgeted separately, so "I want training" produces a slower answer than "I grow maize in Erode and want the 2-day ISOPOM maize batch".
3. Register with chitta and adangal or patta and Aadhaar, so that your name enters the batch list against the block's target.
4. Claim your reservation if it applies. Produce a community certificate for the 24 per cent SC and ST allocation, or record your status as a woman farmer for the 20 per cent flow. These are quotas within the batch, not separate batches.
5. For Farmers Training Centre courses, approach the Assistant Director of Agriculture (Farmers Training Centres) of your district rather than the block office. FTC runs village-based training, training of convenors, peripatetic training and method demonstrations.
6. Attend the full batch. Two-day and three-day courses are certified on completion, and partial attendance normally does not count against the batch record.
7. Ask about the demonstration attached to the training. Several heads pair a training with a field demonstration. The Farmers Field School combines a 40-hectare IPM demonstration with training for 30 farmers, and the pulses and oilseeds IPM heads pay Rs 12,315 and Rs 22,680 respectively per 10-hectare demonstration "towards the cost of inputs required to lay out the demonstration and training".

What the training actually covers

The department and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University publish extension material that maps to the training syllabus. For maize this includes maize cultivation practices, improved production technologies in maize, and drip fertigation in maize. For paddy it includes selection of quality paddy seeds, System of Rice Intensification, IPM in paddy, control of major pests of paddy, the paddy leaf colour chart and technologies for Kuruvai paddy cultivation.

Two subjects deserve particular attention from anyone attending.

Pesticide handling. Most trainings that accompany a plant protection equipment subsidy cover dilution, nozzle selection, spray timing and protective clothing. Manual knapsack sprayers are the commonest route to pesticide exposure among Indian farm workers, usually through a leaking tank worn against the back or a dose mixed by eye.

Stage timing. The single largest yield gain from most trainings is knowing when to apply an input rather than what to apply. Gypsum at pegging rather than sowing for groundnut, NPV on young larvae in the evening rather than on grown ones at midday, and nitrogen split by the leaf colour chart rather than by habit are all decisions that cost nothing and change the harvest.

Other extension support alongside training

• Farmers tour; Rs 2,000 towards a study tour for a batch of 30 members.
• Awards to farmers on Farmers' Day; prizes to 10 best farmers based on performance, each worth Rs 150.
• Crop yield competition; open to farmers across the state except Chennai and The Nilgiris on payment of an enrolment fee of Rs 100 for paddy and groundnut and Rs 50 for other crops at state level. State-level first prizes are Rs 25,000 for paddy and groundnut and Rs 15,000 for other crops.
• Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA). The district-level extension body that coordinates training, exposure visits and demonstrations across departments.

Why farmers miss out on training

• Never registered with the Agricultural Extension Centre, so their name is not on the list when a batch is scheduled.
• Wrong crop for the batch being run that quarter.
• District outside the programme's coverage for that particular training head.
• Batch already full; seats are fixed at 30 or 50.
• Expected a cash payment. The published per-farmer rate is the department's cost, not a transfer, and disappointment on this point is common.
• Attended only part of the course, so the completion record is incomplete.

Help and grievance

• Village level: Assistant Agricultural Officer at the Agricultural Extension Centre.
• Block level: Agricultural Officer, Deputy Agricultural Officer and the Assistant Director of Agriculture, who is also the Block Technology Team convenor.
• District level: Joint Director of Agriculture at the Collectorate, and the Assistant Director of Agriculture (Farmers Training Centres) for FTC courses.
• Online: the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare portal at tnagrisnet.tn.gov.in, and the Uzhavan mobile app.

Departmental training is free to attend. No intermediary is authorised to charge a fee for a seat in a government farmer training batch.

How to check your application status

Training to Farmers has no online application-tracking number, because registration itself is a name entered against a block's annual batch target, not a form submitted to a portal. There is no acknowledgment slip and no ticket ID to look up. Checking where your registration stands means following it back to the office that holds the list.

1. Go back to the Agricultural Extension Centre. The Assistant Agricultural Officer who registered you also holds the block's training calendar for the year. Ask directly whether your name is on the list for the next scheduled batch of the training you registered for.
2. Ask which batch number you have been placed in, not just whether you are registered. Batches run through the year against a fixed annual target, so being registered does not mean a batch is scheduled soon; the officer can tell you the expected month.
3. For Farmers Training Centre courses, follow up with the Assistant Director of Agriculture (Farmers Training Centres) at the district level rather than the block office, since FTC keeps its own calendar separate from the ISOPOM and cereals programme batches.
4. If a batch has already run and you were not called, ask the Agricultural Officer or Deputy Agricultural Officer at the block whether the batch was filled, cancelled, or deferred. Batches can lapse if the block does not reach the minimum count of 30 or 50 registrants.
5. Check the tnagrisnet.tn.gov.in portal or the Uzhavan app for any general advisories or district-level training schedules the department has published, though day-to-day batch status for an individual farmer is not tracked through either of these online.
6. Escalate to the Joint Director of Agriculture at the district Collectorate only if the block office gives no clear answer after repeated visits, since this office oversees the block's targets and can confirm whether a batch is due.

There is no SMS or call-centre status check for this scheme. The block office's own register is the only authoritative record of where a farmer's registration stands.