Low-Cost farming project -Organic farming

Deendayal Bahuuddeshiya Prasarak Mandal, Yavatmal is working with 3855 farmers from 107 villages in order to mitigate the prevailing agrarian crisis in the region through a team of seven full time field level social workers, 5 researchers, and 36 village level volunteers.  The efforts involved two parts, namely, dissemination of low cost farming practices and developing or improving low cost input practices and dissemination methods. The activities involved soil testing, carrying out village level meetings, cluster level workshops, individual meetings with farmers, farm tours, making various low cost and agro ecologically healthy agricultural inputs with farmers, making a plan for the farmers’ cultivation practices by carrying out visits to his/her farm, and a documentation of various details of the farmers’ practices. The farmers observed a reduction in investment in pesticides and fertilizers (an average of 3300 rupees, a total of around 18.2 lakh rupees) and an average increase in yield by around 25 %. The total increase in the documented income of the 558 farmers due to the adoption of the low cost practices is around 88 lakh rupees. Farmers witnessed a reduction in the total number of required sprays, increased presence of bees, an arrival of friendly bugs in the farms after six to eight years, and arrival of earth worms in a few cases after eight years. The overall trend of the outcomes of the adopted practices of the participant farmers showed a movement towards reduction in the investment in agriculture, a reduction in the dependence on the centralized market and an increased self-reliance, revival of agro-ecological indicators, and thus a march towards getting rid of the agrarian crisis.