Saturday, July 19, 2014

Vegetable cultivation changed life – Premi Garasia

Smt. Premi Garasia w/o Shri Rama Ram a tribal lady farmer of village – Jhamar (Abu Road) owns 1.0 ha irrigated cultivable land and grew maize and wheat for dietary requirement and sold surplus in the market. From existing cropping system, she hardly earned Rs. 21000-25000/- per annum. This income was not sufficient to satisfy her family’s requirement.  Her husband was suffering from serious disease and she spent all the income on treatment of her husband and also borrows money from money lender. She was debtor but now she is role model of village- Jhamar. After NAIP intervention, in zaid 2008 she took okra in 0.2 ha and bottlegourd in 0.05 ha area.  She sold vegetables in Abu Road Vegetable Market and earned Rs. 60000/- in that year. By this earning in lean season she became more enthusiastic and decided to cultivate vegetables round the year for more economic return and prosperity. She took 0.5 ha land on lease in the village. She cultivates vegetables in 1.0 ha area and put 0.5 ha area for cereal crops, fennel and castor.  In these crops she also adopted hybrids and HYV’s. In her words “I earn net income of more than Rs. 3.0 lakh per annum.  Today I am prosperous and have prestige in Garasia Community. I spent Rs.3.0 lakh on treatment of my husband and married daughters. I received ATMA award also. NAIP sub-project changed my life.” She also motivated neighboring farmers for vegetable cultivation and promised them that she will market their vegetables at higher price. By her efforts all the 112 farm families of Jhamar village are growing vegetables round the year. Smt. Premi   procures vegetables from farmers and sells in Abu Road Vegetable Market. She developed a market channel.  She purchased 2 mobile phones in the year 2009, one for her and another for her daughter. As per demand in the market she call her daughter for particular vegetable and her husband and daughter carries vegetables from the Jhamar village and fetch good price of vegetables.  By this way farmers of Jhamar are also getting higher price of their produce.

Prosperity due to cotton cultivation – Bheru Singh

For Bheru Singh, a small farmer of a village, Jharna (Mavli-I), NAIP provided good opportunity to became rich farmer. He has 1.5 ha agricultural land and hardly fulfilled needs of family by growing maize and wheat with traditional practices. According to him he never produced surplus more than 3-4 q wheat and 2-3 q maize in his life prior to NAIP.  By the use of HYV’s and scientific cultivation practices, he is produced 50 q surplus wheat and maize. He had never seen such bumper production and never dream of it. Looking to the bumper yield of maize and wheat he desired for cash crops. Under NAIP, support was provided to him for Bt. cotton cultivation. He cultivated cotton crop in 0.12 ha area and harvested cotton worth Rs. 20000/-. Thereafter, he adopted cotton cultivation in more area. Now he raises cotton seedlings in polyhouse prior to monsoon and transplant in the field after onset of monsoon. Looking to the success of cotton crop more than 250 farmers adopted cotton cultivation, whereas earlier no farmer was cultivating this crop. Due to adoption of cash crop and quality seed along with improved cultural practices he became prosperous and his annual income from agriculture is more than Rs. 1.8 lakh.

Quality seeds and crop diversification brought prosperity to Dharm Lal Gadari

A small farmer of village Bhimal (Mavli-I) Sh. Dharm Lal Gadari S/o Sh. Nathu Ji Gadari has 3.2 ha fragmented land with one open well. Due to fragmented and undulating land holding he cultivated only 3.0 ha land in kharif season and 1.5 ha in rabi season. Before NAIP intervention he grew maize and wheat. After fulfilling his family requirement he hardly sold cereals worth Rs. 20-25 thousand in a year. To fulfill his family’s need he purchased 5 buffaloes by taking loan from money lender and bank. But NAIP brought prosperity to him through seed replacement and crop diversification. After NAIP intervention he first time replaced seed of wheat with HYV Raj-3077 and harvested 11 q wheat from 0.2 ha (1 bigha) land whereas earlier he could harvest only 4-5 q wheat from same piece of land. Looking to the potential of improved varieties, he introduced hybrid maize in 0.2 ha and harvested 8.5 q maize whereas earlier productivity from same piece of land was only 3.0 – 3.5 q. He decided to adopt only HYV’s and hybrids of crops in his all fields. 

        Further under water management intervention, he was provided 20 HDPE pipes from the project. This helped him in achieving productivity of wheat 65 q/ha and maize 54 q/ha. He increased irrigated area during rabi by purchasing more pipes from market. He started Bt. cotton cultivation and is harvesting cotton of value Rs. 25000/- from 0.2 ha. With increased income he purchased more buffaloes and now he is having 15 buffaloes. He also purchased all necessary farm implements, bike, dug tube well and constructed new house. His wards are studying at Udaipur.  In his own words “Earlier I had debt, but now I have bank deposit of Rs. 1.0 lakh and my yearly net saving is Rs. 1.5 lakh. Thanks to NAIP for this change.”