Ms. Radhika wife of Mr. Chetram Maurya lives in Parsa Devtaha village in Sirsiya Block, Shrawasti. They have a family of 6 members and their main source of income is agriculture. They own a piece of land which is 0.25 acres in size and has 0.8 acres of rental land. The village is situated near a forest therefore; they are worried about wild animal attacks. They also lack basic necessities like clean drinking water, electricity, proper roads and toilets due to their remote location. Even though they face challenges like lack of good resources, lack of proper irrigation and not having access to updated information, Radhika still uses traditional method to grow crops like rice, wheat and maize.
Sujalam Sufalam Interventions
A member of the GDS field team arranged a meeting in the Parsa Devtaha village to talk about growing valuable crops. They discussed a method called multi layered cultivation. Radhika’s family was at the meeting. They were interested in the growing onions using the technique called Machan cultivation. They took part in the training sessions about growing onions and learned how to set up a Machan structure. They decided to grown onion in their 0.25 acre land. GDS provided Radhika’s family with Lalima variety onion seeds. Radhika prepared a raised bed for onion plants and moved them after 38 days. They also built a Machan structure in theironionfield. She purchased bottle gourd seed from market as variety guided by GDS. Onion crop taken approximately 110 days to be mature. She started harvesting and selling the onion produce in the weekly local market. They got 23 quintals of Onion and 22.6 quintal bottle gourd. They got an average Rs. 18-20 per kg for onion and earned Rs. 41,400. Thus, they sold bottle gourd by Rs. 12-15 per Kg and got approximate Rs. 29,300. The total cost of cultivation was Rs. 22,200. Net profit was Rs. 48,500. Seeing the production of onion & bottle gourd, family members and neighboring farmers appreciated Radhika’s decision.
After intervention
Now Radhika has has purchased a used hand pumping set for irrigation from her earnings. She has decided to grow vegetables in every season through which they can earn Rs.1200-1300 per week. During the last Kharif season, she had cultivated groundnut in about 0.5 acres of land.