Profile of Krishi Janani’s Farmer-Member Network (Jan 2017)
Our last update on Krishi Janani’s farmer-member profile was in Sep 2016. How has the network grown since then? Are there any changes in the composition of the network?
Here are the numbers and charts from Krishi Janani’s membership database as of Jan 10, 2017.
Member Profile
New members are still being added at the same rate as before — 100 new members per center per month. This growth is more rapid than what we anticipated. As a result, we are expecting to hit a major landmark in March 2017. Each of the two centers that opened in June 2016 will hopefully sign up their 1000th member at that time! :-D
The centers will start expending their energies differently at that point. Instead of focusing on adding new members, the centers will shift their attention to creating more interaction opportunities and building relationships with existing members.
Farm Profile
- Small Farmers: :)
Percentage of small farmers (under 5 acres) have grown at the expense of medium (5–20 acres) and large (20+ acres) farmers. Krishi Janani’s members are 63.3% small farmers (was 59% before), 33.8% medium farmers (was 36.7%), and 2.8% large farmers (was 4.2%). - Organic Farmers: :(
Farmers who self-identify as fully organic has decreased as our membership has grown. It already was miniscule at 1.5%. Now it is even less at 0.97%!
Farmer Profile
- Farmer Age: (new)
A new data point has been added to the mix. Majority of our members (58.8%) are in the 40–60 age bracket. The surprise was the second-place holder — not the 60+ age group (10.9%) that we had assumed, instead it is the 20–40 age bracket (29.1%). - Farmer Gender: :(
Compared to the previous report, our gender numbers have gotten worse. Women farmers clock in at a paltry 7.2%, compared to the 9.1% from before. Despite our earlier intent to improve this ratio, we have not executed anything specific in this area because of competing priorities. We hope to fix this when the centers’ focus shifts to interactions and relationships soon.
