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 A shift in strategic direction, from a ‘production based push into markets’ towards a ‘demand based pull built on a fork-to-farm’ approach is needed. Explain with reference to Dalwai Committee report on doubling farmers' income. 
(15 marks, 250 words) Answer
The traditional concept of seamless farm-to-fork connectivity is related to food supply systems which promoted a push model from farms to market end. The model assumes that the market will absorb all that was supplied. Here the focus had been on increasing the production (output). However, even when farmers produce some crops abundantly in some years, if there is minimal real growth in demand in the market, they are not able to achieve high returns. Clearly, the production approach does not accord importance to value realisation from post-production activities.
The focus has now shifted to the income approach. Increasing the net income of farmers necessitates efficient monetisation of production, without which there would be no benefit for the farmers.
‘Fork-to-farm’ approach:
New ways of thinking are emerging for ensuring better monetisation of farmers’ produce. The government is seriously reviewing the post-production policy regime along with facilitating better understanding of what the markets demand. The existing production activities need to be restructured to be market led and take into account the rapidly changing consumption patterns and dietary habits. This points to the need for promoting “fork-to-farm” signals (demand and price), rather than a “farm-to-fork” push. This would be possible by first ensuring food security and thereafter promoting the production of that particular segment of activity which has a demand in the market. 
Steps needed:
The fork-to-farm approach to augment farmers’ income needs innovative thinking by shifting priority focus to post-production management and the agricultural marketing system. There is need for creating an enabling environment for post-production activities such as harvesting, preparing harvest for market, transportation, storage, pledge loan processing and marketing. The DFI Committee (Dalwai Committee on Doubling Farmers' Income) has observed that, rather than an increase in the MSP, a more straightforward and beneficial means of raising farm incomes could be reforming the marketing system of agricultural produce, while also taking steps to facilitate linking of the farmer to the markets (LFTM).
Challenges:
While this is a step in the right direction, it is also fraught with various challenges and constraints, including the preponderance of small and marginal holdings, the absence of a major breakthrough in technology, inadequate investment in rural infrastructure and capital formation, an inefficient system of marketing of the agriculture produce, huge post-harvest losses, and lacunae in the transfer of technology to farmers.
Conclusion:
Adopting the Fork-to-Farm strategy will ensure the greater return to farmers and hence be a major step towards doubling farmers' income. However, success of this strategy depends on backward information flow of demand to farms through Information Communications Technology (ICT) systems and widening farmers' market to national or even global markets, with necessary institutional and logistics support.