Overcoming poverty through Organic farming – Pramila Oraon

19 Dec 2019

Mrs. Pramila was married at an age of 15 in a poor family. Her family has 7 members including 3 children. Although her family owns 1 acre of land, the produce is not adequate enough to meet her family round the year need. This situation compelled her husband to migrate to Assam to work as a labour in the tea garden to sustain his family. In order to produce more from this her land she applied chemical fertilizers and pesticides in her farm but to little avail. Despite of application of chemical inputs with high investment, she couldn’t get a better yield from her land.

She joined the SHG in her village in the year 2016. Looking after her interest and passion for organic method of cultivation, the VO of her village select her as AKM (Krishi Sakhi). Through DAY-NRLM she got various trainings like Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) practices, Season wise crop PoP, SCI, SRI, preparation of organic manures, bio-pesticides, botanical extracts, plant spacing, nursery raising, trellis method, seed treatment, soil health management, crop planning etc.

Soon after the training was imparted to her, she decided to adopt sustainable agricultural practices in her own land first. She took up bitter gourd cultivation in an organic way through an investment of Rs. 7900 in 50 decimals of her own land. In her field she has utilized 3000 kg of Farm Yard Manure and has applied 200 litres of Dravya -Jeevamrut and has adopted Machan Method with a height of 4 ft. She has maintained optimal spacing of plant to plant of 60 cm and Row to Row of 60 cm and has planted 2800 saplings. She harvested 15 times and got a yield of 5220 kg of bitter gourd. The produces are sold in the local market with little bit higher price and she earned Rs. 78300 and earned a net profit of Rs.704000 within a span of four months.

Looking after the success of her own farm, she started mobilizing other women farmers from her villages to take up non-chemical method of cultivation through showing them her own demonstration field. She has developed a skill of preparation of Ghan-Jeevamrut in a different way than the recommended method of preparation.

So far, with the support and training by SRLM, she has mobilized 33 women farmers to adopt organic cultivation of rice and vegetables covering an area of 9.9 acres spreading over four patches of land. Now, Mrs. Oraon is working on certification of these 9.9 acres of land under PGS-India Organic certification process. Currently, she is earning Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 50,000 per year as profit from her small patch of land.

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