Community farming provides new life

“I used to work as a daily labourer and a coolie earning less than Rs. 500 a month. It was absolutely impossible for me to run my family with that meager money; I was not able to provide a square meal to my children on daily basis. But now I have cattle, aluminum roofed house and also a bicycle of my own. Not only this I have job a job card, got my son married”, says 45 year Shyama Pangi of Dadhiapodor of Koraput district. He is not only a successful farmer of his area now but is also the president of the Farmers Federation there. For the last 6 years he & member federation is busy farming a 10 acre of community land together and the profit they get from that makes their life more smoother and sustainable.

Shyama’s life went on a catapult when he along with some of his fellow farmers were pulled to attend a training programmme conducted by CYSD – Prayas, Koraput in his village. The training inspired him so much that he gathered the farmers who were with him at the training to form a farmers group with the help of CYSD. All of them together leased an unattended land from a widow of their village at Rs. 3000 per year. “CYSD people help us in soil inspection of that land and provide us the initial seedlings to sow’’, shared a seasoned Shyama. The 7 farmers of the group divided the land equally between them and start cropping. Shyama cultivated cabbage, onions, and green chilies in the first year and earn around Rs. 1200 that season from his vegetables. This inspired him to do more different vegetables like brinjal, coriander etc. next year in a seasonal rotation. They watered the land from the nearby pond that they dug and the men recently have installed a water pump also. It’s not just vegetables; they also do a bit of fish farming in the pond too. All this training has been given by Koraput Prayas, says Shayama.

This year the group along with the village SHG group has invested money on floriculture and cauliflower farming. And each member has earned quite a lump sum profit out of it. Shyama personally got a profit of Rs. 4500 from flowers and Rs. 9800 from selling cauliflower in the near by areas. Shyama’s elder son has also joined his group. His daughter goes to school. And he is planning to have an asbestos roof for his home.

After being trained by CYSD, the farmers’ Federation now plans to open a poultry farm and a post- processing of paddy waste mill with the village SHG group to have more avenues of earning. ‘We are now well off but the different training and help that we get from CYSD make us self sufficient and aspire for more’, says a confident Shyama who is now planning to install a solar power plant in his village.