Sujalam Sufalam Initiatives- GDS Network
The Project envisages the social and economic empowerment of the small and marginal farmers especially strengthening of 1000 marginal Farmers to improve their livelihood so as to enable them to get Rs. 50,000/- as additional income in three years with the support of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust through the able guidance and support of GDS Lucknow. We do accompany and mentor the Small and Marginal Farmers to improve the farming, use of new technologies to enhance economy. Motivating the Farmers to adopt Agriculture Cycle, new intensive crop pattern, reduced use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, promotion of organic farming, preparation of compost and organic pesticides, SRI method of paddy cultivation, tree plantation, soil testing etc…
Case Study
Ashirunnisha wife of Mohd. Aleem is a permanent resident of village Bhawpur of Mithwal Block of Siddharthnagar District. She is a small farmer with a land holding of 0.83 Acre and with a yearly income of below INR 20,000 only. Her husband is migrated to Mumbai due to poor financial condition of the family and for some extra income generation.
She was shortlisted under Tata & GDS supported programme Sujalam Sufalam by DISA for the enhancement income through technical farming in the year 2015. In past years the land was only used for paddy and wheat cultivation which gives them very minimum profit margin in a year. With the support of DISA she learns about crop cycle and other suitable crops for her land. She replaced Wheat with Gram in Rabi Season and earned much better profits than wheat as the price of Gram was around INR 100 to INR 110 per Kg. whereas the price of wheat was INR 14 per Kg. While sharing her experience on Gram farming she told that, Gram was cultivated in that area around 15 years back and it was very successful crop in those days but in recent years it was a failure as there were so many diseases (wilt) and incest (pod borer). Because of these problems there was a negative impact on the crop and people were stopped cultivating it. She adds it’s because the farmers in those areas are unaware about the seed and soil treatment through Trichoderma. DISA follows a very specific package of practice for each crop and it is promoted by the organization for maximize the output for each crop. Seed treatment, soil treatment and line showing are the basic and minimum practice fallowed under any crop intervention by DISA.
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She cultivated Gram in 0.25 acre and got around
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140 Kg
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Total value of product is
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140 Kg
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Total cost of cultivation
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Rs.2162/-
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Net Income
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Rs. 10438/-
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She became convinced of the new farming technique and has expressed her deep conviction about increasing the area of Gram cultivation up to 0.5 acre form next year. She also had preserved the seed for next year. She is very grateful to GDS, Tata Trust and DISA team for the technical imputes and timely support and guidance all throughout the year. We hope that the very example of Ms. Ashirun Nisha will encourage many other small and marginal farmers to practice the basic package of practices and seed treatment for the better cultivation of crops and increase their incremental income year by year.