Paralakhemundi: Sarathi Sabar, a marginal farmer from Kinoda village of Laxmipur gram panchayat under Rayagada block in Gajapati district, had to migrate to other states in search of work after each Kharif season.
Being the sole breadwinner of a five-member family, Sarathi had to leave his village every year in search of work because the earning from selling farm produces from his two acres of land failed to meet his family expenses.
However, he no longer has to migrate. He struck gold with a farm pond dug up in his farmland in the 2019-20 fiscal. Now he is earning enough to lead a decent life.
Kinoda village is 50 km away from the district headquarters and has an undulating topography. Here the land is covered with red soil. He used to cultivate ragi and paddy in one acre each of his total two acres of land.
The farm produces would fetch him just Rs 7,000, which was not enough to feed the entire family. As a result, Sarathi would have to migrate after every year after harvesting Kharif crops.
Yet, he would find it very difficult to run the family. Fortune smiled on him in 2019-20 as a farm pond was sanctioned in his favour during an awareness programme by the MGNREGS functionaries of the Soil Conservation department in his locality.
The farm pond was dug at a cost of Rs 60,600 under the scheme MGNREGS. During the digging of the farm pond, Sarathi, his family members, daily labourers and Dharitri WSHG having active job cards were engaged for the digging work.
The work was carried out under the proper supervision of Dharitri WSHG. After construction of farm pond, Sarathi adopted Integrated Farming System (IFS) for sustainable agriculture (cereals, pulses, vegetables and fishery) for additional income throughout the year.
He started to cultivate vegetables such as tomato, cucumber, pumpkin, brinjal, ladies finger, beans, cauliflower as well as cabbage in his remaining land on the periphery of the farm pond.
He also took up bund plantation activities and planted coconut, banana, papaya and drum stick trees interspersed with pineapple on the four sides of the pond which went a long way in improving his financial condition.
For his farm pond, he was supplied with 750 fingerlings for pisciculture. Besides horticulture and pisciculture, he also cultivated pulses like green gram and black gram and oil seeds during the Rabi season.
According to Sarathi, this year he earned a profit of Rs 30,000 from pisciculture and Rs 35,000 from bund and vegetable cultivation as well as oil seed cultivation. Meanwhile, he has been regarded as a progressive farmer in his locality.
“The integrated farming system in a small piece of land has changed my days for better. My earnings have multiplied. Everyone in my family is working in the field and we are living a happy life,” he added.
A NITI Aayog team had recently visited Kinoda village to explore the outcome of the project and were pleased to see how a fish-pond has transformed Sarathi from a marginal farmer and migrant labourer to a progressive farmer.
The team also praised the Gajapati district administration for implementing such types of projects during the Covid-19 pandemic to provide livelihood support to rural people.
Most importantly, the project has been qualified for the semifinal of prestigious SKOCH award, 2020, for introducing IFS and was appreciated at National level for promoting sustainable agriculture practices and generating employment opportunities in the district.
Appreciating Sarathi for his ability to change his future with his dedication, Gajapati district Collector Anupam Saha said, “Such type of farm pond projects has been taken up in large scale in Gajapati district as per direction of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in order to generate more and more man-days and provide livelihood support during Covid-19 pandemic period.”
“A total of 1,699 farm ponds were sanctioned for Gajapati district in the financial year 2020-21, out of which 1,258 projects were geo-tagged, 576 projects were completed and 666 projects are under progress. The remaining 457 farm ponds will be completed till the end of this year,” informed Project Director, Watershed, Paralakhemundi, Rabindra Kumar Sahu.
PNN
