Why shall/why will a farmer pay for knowledge?

At Seed Savers Club, we mostly work with farmers who are switching to a new model i.e. a new way of farming. This generally involves a fair amount of risk and some investment too.

Most of these farmers have access to basic knowledge through YouTube and some or other peer network. They can always use our free services to learn some basics too.

Then why are farmers paying up to Rs. 5000 in training while travelling long distances and staying away for up to a week?

Most of the successful farmers we have talked to generally fall under two categories,

• They are proper farmers who have spend years on developing their own models with a lot of experimentation on their farms. Generally spending somewhere between 4–10 years in evolving their model.
• They are educated people who have had some other profession and have switched to farming. They have done extensive research to understand various models in practice and then developed their own models in relatively shorter time spans 1–3 years.

Our aim is to make it easier for farmers to adopt a more diverse set of sustainable practices to achieve financial sustainability. We also know well that most farmers are neither well educated and well versed with technology enough to do extensive independent research nor they have the patience to struggle for 4+ years while they develop a model of their own.

A well designed training program allows a farmer to learn whatever either of these successful farmers achieved and hence considerably reducing the risk involved in switching to a new model and improving the chances of them achieving financial sustainability with it.

So why are farmers paying Rs. 5000 and making so much effort for a training program? Because it ensures that the huge investments they will make in this new model yield results. Because this one time fee will yield results for an entire lifetime which is way better than one time use inputs.