Project Detail

Survival Strategy-Alternative Agriculture System.

Eastern part of the Sangli District is a remote, undulated, drought prone area and people?s livelihood base was stressed through recurring risks of high credit rates, poor infrastructure facilities, poor availability of right types of seeds and lack of access of resources by people from government schemes. Due to Green Revolution effect, people had been led to believe in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to increase productivity. Gradually people had lost faith in agriculture due to high expenditure on buying chemical fertilizers and pesticides, low yields, improper information about the usage and low rainfall. The farmers were taking agriculture as secondary occupation, leading to large-scale migration and small farmers in order to set off losses indulged into working for rich farmers for lower payments.

The project fell under the Land Development focal area to promote organic farming methodologies in 5 villages of drought prone area of Sangli district. The aim of the project was to create awareness and motivate the farmers for adoption of indigenous organic farming techniques, leading to better profitability and soil-productivity by introducing various simple methods like vermi-composting, bio-degradable farming waste, NADEP, organic compost, slurry making, etc. Also, it incorporated introduction of simple, low-cost farmer-friendly practices, i.e. green-manuring, seed priming-germination practices, supportive irrigation facilities like drip/pot irrigation, contour bunding, trenching and enhancing ground water recharge and conservation of soil losses.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Institute of Rural Credit And Entrepreneurship Development

Country:

India

Area Of Work:

Multifocal Area

Operational Phase:

Phase 2

Grant Amount:

US$ 16,642.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 2,560.00

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 2,849.00

Project Number:

SGP/GEF/IND/OP2/02/MS06

Start Date:

3/2002

End Date:

8/2003

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Project Characteristics and Results

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

The NGO had been approached to tie-up on the organically produced foods; in fact they had, at local levels made commitments for the produce at higher price. Coupled with small organic pits rather NADEP, the farmers further made cost savings. Simple soil and water conservation methods proved to be beneficial to the communities.

Policy Impact

The NGO has also been able to penetrate this technique into the government local bodies, Panchyats and the agriculture departments.

Capacity - Building Component

The NGO was also able to penetrate this technique into the government local bodies, Panchyats and the agriculture departments. They along-with the communities trained more than 150 persons at different levels. The NGO was approached by various government departments, as many as 12 times, as resource persons, talking on the results of the vermin composting. They had made local publications. More than 10-12 local level trainings had been imparted by the NGO.

Notable Community Participation

Using farmer friendly ways of working, the NGO, through the use of Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) initially took up vermi-composting with 50 farmers in 5 villages. All the 50 farmers had harvested crops for the previous 2 seasons and had also shared 1-2 kg earthworms to other farmers free of cost as their contribution to further the program.

Project Results

The project started in March-April 2002. Considering all the background, the organization started with awareness and confidence building of the farmers about low-cost, alternative agricultural technologies. Learning-by-doing raised the confidence of the people. The farmers intercropped different crops like Gavar as vegetable, Maize as fodder, Chavali as nitrogen fixer, sunflower and Marigold as insect repellents. The cotton varieties were chosen from composite to hybrid varieties. With the above experience, the farmers? intercropping practices, soil enriching, pest repellent and other low cost measures were eye-openers to the government officials. There had been almost 50% reduction in the expenditure on labour cost as weeding cost were minimal

Using farmer friendly ways of working, the NGO, through the use of Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) initially took up vermi-composting with 50 farmers in 5 villages. Then more than 106 farmers took up the program and this figure multiplied every season and year. The program also went to 3 more villages with farmers exchanging and sharing results. More than 8 farmers took to commercial production of vermin-composting and collectively produced more than 7000 kgs of vermin-compost which was sold to the neighboring farmers for more than $ 3000. Most of the farmers had adopted the techniques first time. They started using this not only to the food crops but also on a large- scale to the horticulture crops. They all felt that cost of production was considerably lowered, which added to their profits and helped in improving their overall livelihoods. Small drip irrigation systems had also been a relative success, but the adoption had been slow.

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