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Pune: Agrowon, the world’s first and only daily dedicated exclusively to agriculture is published from Pune, in India’s Maharashtra state. It has editions from Kolhapur, Nashik, Mumbai, Aurangabad, Solapur, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Nanded, and Akola. It is a Marathi newspaper launched in 2005 by the Sakal group of publications with Daily Sakal as their flagship.
It was launched by the then Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on April 20, 2005, while its web edition was launched by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
A daily newspaper dedicated only farmers and farming was a concept of Mr Abhijit Pawar, the Managing Director of the group. There were skeptics and doubting Thomases who wondered if such a stand-alone farm daily would survive even for a year. It did survive, for more than 15 years, and has proved to be a commercial success. It has a paid circulation of 1. 5 lakh copies per day.
This newspaper normally has sixteen pages of ‘tabloid’ size, also known as ‘compact’ size. Unlike most other tabloids in India and other countries, however, Agrowon does not offer light-hearted, ‘popular’ or sensational reading material. In that sense, it competes with the contents of serious, general-interest broadsheet daily newspapers. What is more, it has emerged as an educational center.
The daily has an editorial team of 35. Most of them are farmers who have been trained in agriculture-related science and technology. The staff members have continuous interaction with the faculty of the four agriculture universities, farm-related institutes, organizations and successful progressive farmers in Maharashtra. The journalists of Agrowon have developed expertise in various areas of farming to the extent that the newspaper is regarded informally as the fifth agriculture university in the state.
According to Mr Adinath Chavan, its editor since 2009, the credibility and reputation of the Agrowon has been built up meticulously over the years. Its journalists and the contributors have been trained to understand that the farmer-readers trust every word of Agrowon. They follow the advice given to them through the columns. Wrong advice can cost the farmer very dearly. It can affect adversely the consumers. This is unlike other newspapers which do not have such issues at stake.
Similarly, the proper advice about the farm practices has benefitted the readers immensely. It is perhaps the only newspaper that publishes the names and mobile numbers of the experts and successful farmers. The readers preserve the clippings and build up a network that leads to the prosperity for the small and marginal farmers.
Chavan says the daily covers 24,000 villages in the state, and has
430,000 active users of its website and Facebook account. It has established itself as ‘Mitra
Global Shivaracha,’ (a friend of global
farming).
Almost every day, there is a success story relating to
agriculture, covering complex issues in simple Marathi. These include issues
relating to the government’s policy on remunerative prices, import-export, offline
and online marketing, farm science, and technology.
It is the only newspaper in Marathi that has, for
example, covered extensively two major issues affecting rural Maharashtra: The
central government’s plan to ban 27 pesticides. This was available on the
government’s official website on May 27, 2020, but print and broadcast media
gave only a casual, cursory coverage. Only the Agrowon devoted more than its
full three pages informing the farmers about its implication for them and also
the consumers of farm produce. By contrast, English newspapers (both
general-interest and business) showed more concern for the multinational
pesticide companies.
Agrowon began covering the recent attack of locust swarms before billions of these insects reached Rajasthan, passed through Vidarbha, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi states. It was important for the farmers because this was the most devastating attack after 27 years and they were certain to devastate sprawling farms in these states. In Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region- the jurisdiction of the Agrowon- this was the period hit by a heatwave besides the COVID 19. It was a tough battle for the journalists of even major national broadsheet English newspapers. For a 16-page tabloid, it was tougher to accommodate coverage of these concurrent calamities in the simple local language, but the Agrowon managed so well. I did not have to read any other English broadsheet to get the feel of the happenings around the state.
The daily covers important national and international news and features only briefly. But it devotes considerable space to the political news concerning village panchayat, tehsil, and zilla panchayat. Its focus is more on success stories of farmers and the rural economy in general. It has promoted organic farming much before the union finance minister announced that the government would promote Subhash Palekar’s zero budget natural farming.
I have been reading this newspaper since its inception
as a reader interested in the rural economy. I often wondered how a newspaper would
get enough contents every day concerning agriculture. Soon I realised,
however, that mine was a typical urban, white-collared concern.
The editorial team has built up a strong network of grass-root reporters and sub-editors not necessarily qualified as print journalists from a media school. It has now a team of feature writers drawn from the faculty from agriculture colleges and universities. More importantly, it has identified progressive farmers and activist NGOs dedicated to the issues of environment, and Maharashtra’s rural life who can write on these topics.
The editorial team has built up a strong network of grass-root reporters and sub-editors not necessarily qualified as print journalists from a media school. It has now a team of feature writers drawn from the faculty from agriculture colleges and universities. More importantly, it has identified progressive farmers and activist NGOs dedicated to the issues of environment, and Maharashtra’s rural life who can write on these topics.
Besides agriculture, horticulture, and floriculture, there are topics related to almost every issue related to rural development. There are success stories of even illiterate men and women, young and old overcoming the unforeseen calamities. If I could keep my spirit high during the three months of COVID-19 induced lockdown, it was mainly because of these success stories that assured the readers that the future was bright for the people of the state.
The success of the daily has been attributed not merely to the contents
of the daily, but also to the daily’s activities related to the farmers and
farming. These activities include Sarpanch Mahaparishad where Sarpanchs
of the 7500 villages attend, Regional
agri expo, and the soil enhancement conference. The Agrowon has launched
a digital app for the farmers. It was well-received in the state as five lakh of
the apps were downloaded.
Unlike other newspapers in the Sakal stable, Agrowon,
has an early deadline to enable printing schedules of its other publications in
Pune and other centres in Maharashtra. The editorial staff enjoys job
satisfaction not experienced by newspapers elsewhere in the country. The Agrowon
journalists are very well received wherever in the countrywide they go. Its
journalists may not enjoy the glamour of the general-interest newspapers, but they
receive the respect of millions of farmers in the state.
There are two examples of rare gratitude demonstrated by the farmer-readers to this daily. They were very poor small farmers who followed the advice from the column’s of the Agrowon. They and their family members raised the crops so successfully that they had a success story from penury to prosperity. Each of them constructed impressive bungalows for them. In gratitude, each of them named their bungalows after the newspaper, Agrowon in Marathi, अग्रोवन.
There are two examples of rare gratitude demonstrated by the farmer-readers to this daily. They were very poor small farmers who followed the advice from the column’s of the Agrowon. They and their family members raised the crops so successfully that they had a success story from penury to prosperity. Each of them constructed impressive bungalows for them. In gratitude, each of them named their bungalows after the newspaper, Agrowon in Marathi, अग्रोवन.
Sakal Media Private Limited
Since 1985,
the Sakal’s Chairman and mentor is Mr. Pratap Govindrao Pawar. He is on the
board of many renowned companies in India and abroad. He was president of MCCIA
(Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture) during 1998-2000 and
President of INS (Indian Newspaper Society) during 2001-2002. He is associated also
as Trustee/Chairman with many social, educational, charitable institutions
since 1970.
Son of a farmer (and
brother of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Sharad Pawar), he was instrumental
in including ‘agriculture’ to the Maharatta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and
Agriculture—the first chamber of commerce and industries in India to cover
farmers’ business under its sphere of activity.
Editor Director: Shriram Jayasingrao Pawar
Chief Editor: Rahul Motiram Gadpale
Printer, Publisher, and Editor: Adinath Dattatray
Chavan
Corporate Headquarters:595 Budhwar Peth, Pune 411002
--
Prof Kiran Thakur
Department of
Journalism
FLAME
University
