1. MANTHAN TOPIC- BOOSTING AGRICULTURAL
PRODUCTIVITY
Responsible companies in the age of globalization
Initiating CSR in agricultural field.
Team Details:
Devam Ghose Soumya Rout Soumya Sahoo Subhrashis Das Rahul Rao
IIIT-Bhubaneswar

2. Agricultural Scenario in India
• The sharp rise in food grain production during India’s Green Revolution of the 1970s enabled the country to
achieve self-sufficiency in food grain and stave off the threat of famine. Agricultural intensification in the 1970s
to 1980s saw an increased demand for rural labor that raised rural wages and, together with declining food
prices, reduced rural poverty.
• Sustained, although much slower, agricultural growth in the 1990s reduced rural poverty to 26.3 percent by
1999/00. Since then, however, the slowdown in agricultural growth has become a major cause for concern.
• The Government of India places high priority on reducing poverty by raising agricultural productivity
• Government failure is a major concern in agriculture because the
high risks involved make help and facilitation necessary. Like any
other business enterprise, agriculture is subjected to high risks
because of the volatile nature of the factors involved.
• Thus government/corporate facilitation is essential for sound
agricultural development.

3. CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Towards Agriculture
 Over the last years an increasing number of companies worldwide started promoting their Corporate Social
Responsibility strategies because the customers, the public and the investors expect them to act sustainable as
well as responsible. In most cases CSR is a result of a variety of social, environmental and economic pressures.
 CSR frequent in empowering civic amenities, etc of rural population but none in direct pure agricultural practices
and our existing CSR agriculture initiatives’ outreach is very low.
 This engagement of the Indian economy(CSR) concentrates mainly on a few old family owned companies, and
corporate giants such as the Tata and Birla group companies which have led the way in making corporate social
responsibility an intrinsic part of their business plans.
 CSR efforts by corporates are only confined to their surrounding communities of business, empowering civic
amenities of its employees, of rural population, etc but hardly in direct agricultural methods.

4. A Central body/council mandating CSR in agricultural operations
CSR COUNCIL
AGRICULTURE
GOVERNMENT
• Introducing fully functional CSR initiatives in agriculture fields
• There has to be adequate backing by the government.
• Central body instituted by the government implementing the CSR
initiatives in agriculture by corporations diligently.
CSR Council Structure
CSRProgramme
Trained Company
Officials
Skilled
NGOs/SHGs
Government
support
Some important objectives -
• Improving agriculture training/education of farmers.
• Improving productivity by promoting scientific research and
adopting sustainable practices
• Checking internal corruption within the whole setup.
• Equity of manual labour distribution.
• Modernization of agriculture.

5. PROPOSED AGRI-CSR COUNCIL OVERVIEW
Council structure
• Board consisting of senior social
activists, corporate experts,
representatives from agricultural
department, bureaucrats.
• Council roping in prominent
NGOs, SHGs in consultation with
concerned corporate houses.
• Council must be having proper
and righteous rapport with
major part taking corporations.
• Active promotions and
encouragement in agricultural
CSR initiatives by council.
• Consisting of a team of lobbyists
between corporate houses and
government body.
Corporate Houses taking part..
• Main motto should be everything
regarding agriculture based CSR.
• Agriculture based CSR activities to
come under the guidance of Agri
CSR Council .
• Chief source of funding is
supposed to come from the
corporate houses.
• Should work in tandem with other
NGOs .
• Have the benefit of taking credit of
the overall agriculture based CSR
activities.
• Hence better public image.
• Have the responsibility of
connecting with the grassroot
levels of agriculture production
and streamlining their activities.
Salient Features
• Gives a fillip to the overall
implementation of agricultural
benefits.
• Somewhat it is outsourcing of
agricultural activities by the
government.
• Eliminates the involvement of
middlemen and brokers
traditionally formed in a
government-run system.

6. IMPLEMENTATION-
• Corporate houses are to be the main executioners of
the agricultural activities.
• As a part of CSR, corporations must help in
channelizing labor demand supply with respect to
NREGA.
• Synchronizing NREGA dedicated to agricultural work ,
thus giving labour supply to small, mid level farms.
• Corporate tie ups with agriculture research firms so
as to concentrate on a more macroscopic domain.
• To eradicate corruption in subsidy schemes from
govt. corporates along with NGOs/SHGs with wide
outreach must be linking the subsidies and the
beneficiaries.
• Corporates must intervene in petty land disputes ,
encroachments.
• Agri CSR council must rally for setting up for with
highly specialized fast track courts for land disputes
branching through all levels of a block and linked to
the revenue courts of various level.
Corporate
houses
Agri CSR
council(Govt.)
Enhancing
other
conducive
factors
Improving
Agriculture
Output

7. IMPLEMENTATION…
• Council to ensure adequate CSR activities are taking place.
• Corporate CSR organizations must adhere to their sanctioned agri initiative.
• This has to be done like any other social service taken up by corporations.
• Stipulated amount of activities is to be done for a particular corporation.
• Trained company officials along with the corporate recruited NGOs are to
help the beneficiary.
• Act as a link between NREGA and local farm employers so as to maintain
labour shortage
• Implementation to be followed under both company and government
norms.
• The CSR central body is to be either passed by a bill or to be instituted by
the government as a society.
• Corporates in return would be immensely benefited by the government
through various perks, etc.
• Primary aim should be to boost the agricultural production.
• Agricultural research institutes is to closely work with the CSR activities.

8. Primarily the council should..
• create a self-sustaining model of livelihoods.
• Infuse technology heavily as far as agriculture is concerned.
• Be involved in implementing Good NGOs for linking govt subsidies with
farmers and farm holders thus sidetracking the chain of middlemen and
brokers in subsidy grants .
• Since Mostly farming is affected by petty land disputes,land encroachments
among both small and mid level farms. This has to be dealt with highly
specialized fast track courts branching through all levels of a block and linked
to the revenue courts of various level rather than referring to costly legal
procedures.
• NGOs/SHG to be directed to set up free legal aid clinics for land disputes
areawise.
• Also to encourage to stop petty thefts in agriculture
• CSR to replace most of the govt workers involvements in executing policies.

9. CHALLENGES
• Govt/Corporate’s initial skepticism .
• Difficult on part of Govt to go implement corporates into this initiative.
• Lack of lucrative funding may lead to back outs.
• Model needs an extensive and articulate planning.
• In spite of having such life size successful examples, CSR in India is in a very nascent stage.In the informal sector of the Indian
economy, which contributes to almost the half of the GNP and where approximately 93% of the Indian workforce is employed,
the application of CSR is rare. On the contrary, the fight against poverty, the development of education, as well as the
conservation of the environment are not existent in most of the Indian enterprises
• Lack of international CSR guidelines .Critics believe that CSR programs are undertaken especially by multinational companies to
distract the public from ethical questions posed by their core operations.
• Most corporations will see this as a philanthropic activity, but it should be a kind of national duty towards agriculture benefits.
BENEFITS
• Improved Financial Performance- An recent study has found that “Stake holder balanced companies showed four times the growth
rate and eight times employment growth ,when compared to companies that focused only on shareholders and profit maximization.
• Enhanced Brand Image and Reputation- A company considered socially responsible can benefit both by its enhanced Reputation with
the Public as well its reputation within the business.
• Increased sales and customer loyalty- A number of studies have suggested a large and growing market for the products and services
of companies to be socially responsible
• Reduced Regulatory oversight- Companies that demonstrate that they are engaging in practices that satisfy and go beyond regulatory
compliance requirements are given less scrutiny and more free reign by both National and Local Government Entities.

10. APPENDIX
• Gross Capital Formation in Agriculture 2011 , Bharti & Vijay, NABARD.
• Agricultural Census, Government of India. (2012). All India Report on Agricultural Census
2005-06
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – the societal responsibility of companies,
in.reset.org
• Indian Agriculture, Tejas,IIM-B
• World Bank2002 “Social Capital and Community’’