|
Bhawanipatna (Kalahandi):
On
16th May when the entire nation was eagerly watching
the TV or listening to the radio reports for election results
visiting farmers from Madanpur-Rampur, Lanjigarh and
Bhawanipatna blocks in the SRI village Kanakpur were eagerly
waiting to see the result of crop cutting from a plot of Shri
Thabira Budhia. On 16th May around 12 noon in the
presence of several staff of Agriculture Department, volunteers
from SVA and the visiting farmers from different blocks of
Kalahandi district crop cutting was conducted in a random plot
of 25 sq. mt. in the field of Shri Thabira Budhia. Every one was
eagerly waiting to see how much would be the harvest. After
threshing and winnowing when the grain were weighted it was
found to be 27.6 kgs. But that was also not comprehensible for
most of the farmers. When some of the well educated farmers
converted the figures and found that it was 11040 kg per ha. or
4468 kg per acre it was simply unbelievable for all the farmers.
Most of them stayed stunned for a while, but when the crop
cutting was done in front of them and they all participated in
threshing and winnowing they had nothing to disbelieve even
though the figure was beyond their imagination. It was a big
surprise for all the farmers as well as the government
agricultural staff. Not surprisingly for all the farmers the
crop cutting result was more interesting than the election
results of the State or the Centre!
Shri
Thabira Budhia has applied only farm yard compost, magic compost
and some vermi compost which was supplied by the Agriculture
Department. Because of profused tillering growth he could not do
weeding for more than three times but in spite of that the crop
came up very well and he is expecting a harvest which he had
never imagined before.
Not
only Thabira but most of the farmers in Kanakpur are having
similar crops under SRI during this season. Kanakpur is taken up
as the SRI village under RKVY and supported by the Agriculture
Department. For the mobilization of farmers and the training
part the leading voluntary organization SVA is providing support
to the SRI farmers. So far more than 500 farmers from different
blocks of Kalahandi district have visited the SRI fields in
Kanakpur village and it is likely that thousands of farmers will
adopt SRI during next kharif and summer seasons.
P.S.
On 17th May from another plot of Thabira
Budhia crop cutting was done and the yield recorded was even
higher at 12400 kg. per ha. Per acre the figure will be 5018 kg!
Higher yield from hybrid crops:
One
farmer Shri Meghanad Budhia of Kanakpur village had tried a
hybrid seed under SRI and crop cutting in his field has shown
that the recorded yield was 14400 kg per ha. The figure will be
5828 kg per acre which is much higher than the MTU-1010 variety
grown by others. But the other side of the story is that Shri
Meghanad Budhia had to pay exorbitant price for the seeds and he
had to use heavy doses of chemical fertilizer and pesticides.
Considering the cost of production and the yield almost all the
farmers in Kanakpur prefer to use high yielding variety rather
than using hybrid variety and take unnecessary risks.
(Reports from Sushil Gahir and
Smruti Ranjan Naik, Bhawanipatna)
18/05/2009
|
