Improving livelihoods through adoption of best practices – Rinku Devi
Married at an early age of 15, Rinku Devi of Khagaria was taking the entire responsibility of her household. Like most women of her age in the village, she accepted this as her destiny. One day she was contacted by some women who came in the CRP drive to form new SHGs in her village, she was approached to become an SHG member which required her to attend the group meeting and save Rs.10 every week.
To Rinku Devi it looked like an arduous task, she was not able to understand what good this small amount of Rs.10 would do. Her in-laws were very sceptical about the SHG and hesitant in allowing her to go out and attend the meetings. Her husband, however, was always supportive and asked her to join the SHG. She joined SHG formed in her neighbourhood called Jay Maa Saraswati Jeevika.
Later, Rinku Devi was selected as a Livelihood CRP, as a Krishi Sakhi. Being the Krishi Sakhi, Rinku Devi got the opportunity to attend the training programmes, exposure, and setting up demonstration field. Her initial fear was to venture out in the fields and teach other women. She adopted most of the practices like growing vegetables in trellis, which was more remunerative than vegetables done in traditional methods on the field. The advantage of trellis is that it allows cultivating a new crop, either in the form of nursery or sowing of new seeds or transplantation of seedlings underneath the trellis only. She used the land below the trellis to grow seedlings and cultivate small duration greens like coriander and spinach. Vegetable cultivation is done for 8-9 months in a year.
Rinku Devi, with the help of her husband, developed the vegetable field into an ornamental garden. The multiple trellis system provides support to creepers, and land below the trellis is used for leafy vegetables and some time for raising nurseries. Her field looked like an ornamental garden, with several crops in a single piece of land. Also, she uses organic practices such as the use of homemade formulations for fertigation and pest and disease control. With 1 Katha land (0.15 acre), she develops Machan (trellis) every year and earns about Rs. 40-60,000 from different vegetables, seedlings and green salads as well as greens like coriander and spinach cultivation. The vegetables give more fruits on a trellis and fetched more price because of good appearance. Earlier the same piece of land was used for growing brinjal and potato giving around income of Rs. 18 20,000.
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