A delegation of farmers from Bastar who are engaged in cultivating bananas led by Sukma MlA Kawasi lakhma met Chief Minister Raman Singh in the Chhattisgarh Assembly premises on Tuesday. The farmers informed the Chief Minister that about six to seven villages in Sukma district have farmers cultivating bananas.
It was informed by them that banana cultivation is taken up in about 250 hectares of land which includes saplings of fruit variety grown using tissue culture. Due to seasonal uncertainty and storms, banana crops are destroyed in the farms which leads to huge losses for the farmers.
The farmers informed Singh that they have now adopted modern farming techniques for banana cultivation after acquiring loans and seeking guidance from the Horticulture Department. The farmers demanded that sufficient quantity of bamboo be provided to them so that they can support the banana plantation and prevent them from falling down during a storm. They demanded to receive bamboo at concessional rates.
The Chief Minister immediately asked Principal Chief Conservator of Forest to take necessary action in this regard. Incidentally, with available marketing facility and the high income, farmers in Chhattisgarh are now more inclined towards taking up horticulture crops. Farmers Medni Verma of Ganiyari village in Tilha block and Gautam Chandrakar of Rampura village in Abhanpur block near Raipur have made banana cultivation their source of financial prosperity and are taking full benefits of horticulture crops.
Moreover, the Horticulture Department has been providing drip irrigation facility to the farmers engaged in horticulture crop cultivation. Verma said that last year he earned a net income of Rs3 lakh from cultivation of tissue culture banana. Earlier, he had been cultivating paddy, from which he was getting less profit, but since last 6-7 years, he has been cultivating horticulture crops.
Verma has total 19 hectares of land on which he has been cultivating horticulture crops in 1.920 hectare. Encouraged with the continuous income from it, he was planning to increase the horticulture crop cultivation area by 5-hectares. He said that under the National Horticulture Mission, community pond was constructed in the village from which he was getting irrigation facility. Besides, he got 75 per cent grant for installation of drip irrigation equipment.
With the use of modern irrigation sources production has increased, he added. Similarly, Gautam Chandrakar of Rampura village said that he has been cultivating banana since last five years, with which his income has been doubled. He said that he has only 2-hectare land. Earlier, he had been sowing paddy in the land, but the income was so less that he was facing problem in running his family.
later, with the information provided by the horticulture department, he started cultivation of banana in one hectare area, from which he got Rs80,000 profit. The Horticulture Department has given Rs30,000 grant to him for banana cultivation, besides Rs30,000 grant for bio fertilizer production. Under the community borewell digging scheme, the National Horticulture Mission dug tubewell, because of which the banana crop gets sufficient water.
He said that a plan has been mooted to do horticulture work through bio system, with which more profit could be earned from less area. Moreover, the farmers in Chhattisgarh developed mangroves in an area of 5,154 hectares during the past two years while taking advantage of the grants offered under ‘Fruit Development Programme’ of State government’s Horticulture and Range Forestry Department.
Under the programme, during financial year 2012-13 till December 2012, the farmers took up mango plantation in an area of 2,537 hectares. The State Horticulture Department offered a grant of an estimated Rs1.50 crore for carrying out the plantation. It may be recalled that the under the ‘Fruit Development Programme’, the State Government also provides 25 per cent grant on bank loans taken by the farmers for farming of mango, bananas and papaya as per parameters underlines by NABARD.
Similarly, those farmers who are not desirous of taking loans from banks are offered 25 per cent grant under ‘Fruit Development Scheme’ as per NABARD parameters.