Situation of agriculture and target farmers:
The project location is peri-urban location which has huge demand for vegetable production and marketing. The area is also a rain-shadow area receiving 500 mm or less annual rainfall. As a consequence of watershed activities taken up, water potential in the project villages which was low, has considerably increased. Due to increased water potential, the general productivity in agriculture has increased in the project villages due to enhanced irrigation and cultivation of crops for more than one season. Though productivity has increased, the cost of cultivation has also increased proportionately due to the adoption of green revolution technologies (high inputs agriculture) which includes high levels of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, thereby reducing the net income substantially. Being small and marginal farmers these farmers are at a risk of indebtedness as most of them do not have the monetary resources to continue spending on expensive chemical inputs pesticides. Moreover by following high input chemical fertilizers will degrade soil quality and relying on chemical pesticides will destroy the local agroecosystem, which is the basis for agriculture. Destruction of a balanced agroecosystem will further increase farming costs and indebtedness among the farmers in the project village.
Project Location
5 villages in Purandhar Block of Pune village viz., Kumbharvalan, Ekhatpur-Munjawadi, Khanavadi, Shindewadi, and Dhalewadi.
Project objectives:
To support 100 farming families to adopt ecological agricultural practices for reducing their cost of cultivation and increasing their net incomes in both kharif and rabi seasons. In this project, we expect that the project farmers will be shifting from conventional / chemical agriculture to ecological agriculture.
Important outcomes:
Important activities for the first year:
Farmer group formation:- All the 100 farming families will be formed into groups. The success of adoption of ecological agriculture will depend upon the successful mobilization of farmers into groups.
Capacity building:- Ecological agriculture is a knowledge intensive process. This will require a lot capacity building activities through training and exposure visit to nearby demonstration plots exclusively established for this purpose.
Establishing experimental learning plots:- These plots will be used for observation and learning process for farmers. All ecological agricultural practices which are suggested will be integrated into the demonstration plot.
To Know More About This Project Call Us On 7770098779.
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