“During last winter, I have yielded a good vegetable crop from WADI cultivation and earned around rupees 30000. This return helped me to repay my outstanding loan and save some money in bank”, says Dumburu Pujari, a marginal farmer from Koraput.

Dumburu belongs to Bondaguda village of Khudi Panchayat in Similiguda block of Koraput. His family comprises of one daughter and two sons. Farming being the main occupation, he gets little income from his small landholding.

Among other villagers, Dumburu was motivated to adopt WADI plantation in his own land with the support of focus area development programme (FADP). He received 40 grafted mango saplings as input support for initiating WADI plantation.

With the help of family members, he made a boundary fencing of the land and planted the mango saplings as long term investment. Being a job cardholder, he applied for work under MGNREGS and using the labour payment he showed some vegetable, ginger and turmeric seeds for seasonal intercropping in the mango plantation field for livelihood.

In last winter, the vegetable crop yielded good result and he got a return of Rs. 30000 from intercropping vegetable cultivation. Besides, from ginger and turmeric cultivation he earned Rs. 18000. With this sizeable return he repaid the outstanding loan amount; has installed a drip irrigation for watering the plants; and deposited the remaining amount in his saving bank account for future consumption purpose.

Now Dumburu is quite optimistic to double his income by adopting different crop cultivation practices and approaches. His efforts has proved him to become a source of inspiration for the villagers as well as the neighbouring villagers of Khudi Panchayat.  This was possible due to his keen interest and enthusiasm to adopting new approach in agriculture and of course little bit technical guidance and boost from CYSD programme team.