HARIT PRAYAS’s Success Saga

This is the story of Ashok Ahirwar, s/o Kishori Lal, a dalit farmer, who lives in our project village Raseena,  situated in the Babina Block of Jhansi.

Raseena is a remote village, 32 kilometers from away from Jhansi district. The public transport, auto, goes to Rassena, twice in a week only. It hinders the connectivity of the poor and marginalized community members with rest of the world.

This village has approximately 300 households. 50% of the population is schedule caste. The main source of income for the schedule caste community is agriculture and labour. Most of the Dalit farmers are marginalized farmers (0.50 decimal to 5 acres). The agricultural plots have red soil and the land is not much fertile. For irrigation farmers are dependent on monsoon only. A few farmers have wells for irrigation purpose. The chief Rabi crop is wheat and the main kharif crop is ground nut.  The average production of wheat is 10-12 quintals/acre.

Raseena is one of the project villages of the Harit Prayas. One and a half year ago, team Harit Prayas of Jhansi Catholic Seva Samaj (JCSS) started rapport building with the community members. After a series of meeting with community members one farmers’ club was formed namely, Jai Bajrang Kisan Club. It has 13 members. In monthly meeting farmers discuss the method of organic farming and its benefits. The cluster coordinator facilitates the meeting.

Just before the Rabi season a small demo plant on vermin compost was established in the village. The name of the beneficiary was Ashok Ahirwar.  He is the member of Jai Bajrang Kisan Club. Ashok, a hard working farmer, happily got the small demo plant establish at his farm land. After a month he had 50 kg vermi compost with him. He had also received trainings organized by JCSS on organic farming with help of K.V.K, Jhnasi, under project Harit Prayas. Ashok practice, whatever he learnt. He went for 100% organic farming and did not use even an iota of DAP & Urea, in 1 bigah of land. As a result the wheat produce was increase. But most important thing is the input cost decreased and the production increased and he sold the organic wheat at the price of INR 1400/- per quintal. On the other hand market price for wheat is INR 1000/- per quintal (sold by small farmers at door step).

Following is the table showing the profit Mr. Ashok made due to organic farming, with help of project Harit Prayas…………..

Increase in Livelihood: Cost-Benefit analysis

It is quite clear from the comparative analysis in the above table that the increase in the income of a dalit farmer is 115.05 %. The PMF of the Harit Prays mandates that 627 HHs (Agriculture) will have 25 % increased production (5% in 1st year, 15% in 2nd year and 25% in 3rd year) so that ‘food security is ensured leading towards reduction in migration. Here, we have a case story of Ashok Ahirwar (a dalit farmer) whose income increased up to 115.05%, in Rabi crop, due to project Harit Prayas and efforts of Harit Prayas team of JCSS.

The contact number of Ashok Ahirwar is 09451921187. May some farmers of other project be interested in learning/getting motivation from him!

Market linkages: Glocalisation (Globalisation + Localisation)

      Mr. Ravi Jain, a local businessman at Babina block, bought the organic produce and gave 8 quintal of wheat order in advance.

      It is often seen that if the farmers’ product gets its due rate in the market it become a pull factor and motivate other farmers to join the caravan.

      Having good credit of a farmer in his/her nearby villages, with proper advertisement of organic farming in local area also helps in getting higher prices for organic yield, as happened in the case of Mr. Ashok Ahirwar. So even without complex process of certification, which is not practically suitable for the poor and marginalized dalit farmers, one can get the higher price for organic yield at local market.

 

 Courtsey : HARIT PRAYAS Jhansi team

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