lac cultivation has become an additional source of income for the forest dwellers of Gariaband district.
The tribal families dwelling in the forest areas, along with agriculture, have been cultivating lac on the Kusum trees on their land, with which they were getting additional income of about Rs 12,000 per year. Ramkeshav Negi, Birbal Singh Negi, Tulsiram and other villagers of Mainpurkala said that they were cultivating lac in a traditional way on the 30-40 kusum trees on their land, but they were not getting much income from it.
Now, after having training from forest department, they are cultivating lac through scientific method and hoped that they would get more income in comparison to last year. According to sources, climate is favourable for lac cultivation in Gariaband district where sufficient number of kusum trees was available.
In view of that the forest department, under the Swarna Jayanti Rozgar Yojana and lac Development Project, had formed self help groups with minimum 10 farmers under BPl in each group, who were having minimum five kusum trees on their land. Now, there are 19 SHGs in Mainpur and 27 in Indagaon, who have been imparted training in scientific method of lac cultivation.
In the projects being run under the Swarna Jayanti Rozgar Scheme, the beneficiaries have been given free seeds for lac cultivation. looking to the benefits the District Forest Produce Cooperative Society of Gariaband forest division has been encouraging more and more beneficiaries for lac cultivation.