Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department Secretary Bishnupada Sethi was overwhelmed to see the splendid flower power of the Rose Garden at Patnagarh in Balangir district when he was on a four-day visit to the district last week.
He was amazed to see the flourishing Rose Garden having come up with chicken manure. Poultry litter is an excellent source of nitrogen and also contains good amount of phosphorus and potassium. An average tonne of poultry litter contains 27 kg of nitrogen, 27 kg of phosphate and 18 kg of potash. Poultry litter is also a source of organic matter for the soil. Application of poultry litter returns nutrients and organic matter to the soil and helps in building soil fertility and quality.
Sachidananda Meher from Rakhiguda of Patnagarh has his Saras Poultry Farm with a bird capacity of around 80,000. He has set up the farm under the Commercial Agri-Entrepreneurship through KSK. He is rearing birds in the cage system, where droppings fall through the bottom of the cages and are collected and stored underneath in a deep pit.
Meher is using the droppings in the rose garden with great success. Sethi visited his farm and appreciated his entrepreneurial initiative to successfully use droppings in the rose garden.
Such practices can be emulated by other farmers to use poultry litter as fertiliser for crop production in areas where a supply of litter is available, said Sethi.
Under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana, a pilot project has been taken up recently to popularise use of poultry litter in crop fields. Poultry litters would be provided to farmers free of cost at their doorsteps and they would be trained on application procedure of poultry manure in crop fields so as to convert waste into wealth, said Sethi.
The State Government needs supporting transport manure to a convenient place for farmers to collect for application in their farmland would significantly minimise environmental impacts of the poultry industry, said the entrepreneur.