Despite natural calamities like floods and associated water logging problems, several small farmers like Koila Devi of flood-affected areas in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, are managing to earn a decent living from the produce of their agricultural land, thanks to the help from Science and Technology-based interventions like flood resilient farming practices and related technologies facilitated by central support project, TARA scheme of DST India.
Such support at the systemic level has helped and empowered the 64 years old from the village Rakhukhor of Jungle Kaudiya block of Gorakhpur district to cultivate 20 crops in a single year, thereby raising her annual income by 30 percent.
But just a few years ago this was not possible. Like many farmers’ in northeastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, floods and associated water logging for more than three to four months affected her agricultural produce severely each year. Apart from this, the rising cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides reduced her income over the years.
“She had been scouting for alternative income options when help came in the form of Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG), Gorakhpur, UP, a core support group under the TARA Scheme the Science for Equity, Empowerment, and Development (SEED) Division, DST,” said an official from the Science and Technology Ministry.
GEAG provided her with technical support on effective farming planning like gradient-based cropping system, multi-layered farming with time and space management, appropriate crop combination, raised bed low tunnel poly house, and appropriate utilization of weather advisory.
A total of 36 model farmers and more than 2200 other small and marginal farmers have adopted flood resilient techniques of farming developed along with 9 community institutions on cluster level during the last two and half years with facilitation and handholding support under the Core support projet being implemented by GEAG.
“This has shown a new direction towards flood-resilient livelihoods and also transformed the flood-risks into an opportunity with socio-economic gain. Since the inception of the project in 2018, proper facilitation and handholding support for adopting these resilient farming technique packages compatible with local situations has increased the average income of small and marginal farmers by 37.5 per cent by lowering the input cost (30-35 percent) in the farming system,” said the official.
Such S&T-based interventions has also encouraged Koila Devi and many of her ilk in the region to take up additional activities like managing millet processing unit as a group enterprises in the flood-prone area, thus boosting their income.