With available marketing facility and the high income, farmers in Chhattisgarh are now becoming more inclined towards taking up horticulture crops.
Farmer Medni Verma of Ganiyari village in Tilha block and Gautam Chandrakar of Rampura village in Abhanpur block 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 Rs 3 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 percent 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 Rs 80,000 profit.
The Horticulture Department has given Rs 30,000 grant to him for banana cultivation, besides Rs 30,000 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.