Success Stories
Small Steps Big Success
Indra Mohan Singh
Village - Malkhachak
Indra Mohan Singh was leading a peaceful and prosperous life in his native village Malkhachak, a small village in Dighwara Block of Saran District, with plenty resources available at his farm. But suddenly one of his legs was severely injured in 2009 in a major road accident and he was bed trodden for about two and a half years. All his bank balances and agricultural set ups were exhausted meeting a series of operations and hospitalizations expenses. Even hoping for a permanent disability, as doctors once said, Indra Mohan Singh was not exhausted at all with all positive thoughts as he has to pull his family ahead and his wife stood behind him as a better half and proved, “where there is will there is a way.”Dr. Sanjay Singh, a man from his neighboring village and a Scientist in RAU Pusa introduced him to Dr. Dayaram, a crusader of Mushroom Revolution in Bihar where he could get his initial training.
He started Mushroom production with only 10 kg of spawn with the help of his wife and his initial incomes were so handsome that he never looked behind. But again, marketing was not so easy for such a perishable item like Mushroom with small capital investment particularly when Shri Singh was still not able to move without support, so he tried making byproducts of Mushrooms and as on now, more than 20 products like Mushroom Pickles, Mushroom Bari, Mushroom Sewai, Mushroom Papad, Mushroom ChanaSattu, Mushroom Morabba, Mushroom Seva (Bhujia), Mushroom Chowmin, Mushroom Dahibara, Mushroom Burfi, etc. go to his credit. Shri Singh bagged a series of Innovators Award including a cash prize of Rs. Ten Thousand by DDC, Saran, cashprize of Rs. Twenty Thousand by Commissioner, Saran. Seeing his performance as an Innovator, Honourable Chief Minister of Bihar, Shri Nitish Kumar, awarded Shri Singh with citation, a plaque and a cash prize of Rs. One lakh through by Jeevika. Today Shri Singh is leading a respectable life.
Where there is a will there is a way
Manoj Tiwary
Village & PO - Affaur, Block - Nagra
District - Saran
Manoj Tiwary, a young energetic and talented student from Affaur village of Saran district decided not to go for any technical degrees despite his father’s pressure over him as Bihari parents often do but to opt for Agriculture as a career and profession. It was not an easy goal for him in the family of all educated background in which he was born but Mr. Manoj Tiwary, with his inner spirit and enthusiasm, could prove the proverb, “where there is a will there is a way.”
With constant endeavors and a rigorous journey in the fields of Agriculture and Education, a raw man with no experience and expertise could establish himself as a Chairman of “Institute of Human Development Welfare and Care,” a non-government organization fully dedicated to the development of the farming community at the grass root level. Now, with certain training on Cultivation and Processing of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants from Jaipur, Rajasthan, Lucknow and Pusa and financial assistance from Rural Innovation Fund from NABARD under the project, “Stevia Cultivation and Marketing,” altogether 60 farmers from 10 Farmers’ Club started growing Stevia and selling the the dried leaves directly in the Patna Market along Green Tea (a product of the NGO with Ajwain and lemon grass). The NGO earned a net profit of 3.5 lakhs in the first year and 5.5 lakhs in the second year; thereby the associated farmers could get Rs. 5000-7000 as an additional income without no extra effort and investment. Again, under NABARD’s FPO programme, Mr. Tiwary started producing pellets and tablets from Stevia apart from powered Stevia under the brand name, Stevioleaf and Herboleaf, which is being used as a supplement of sugar for diabetic patients. Marketing is at hand with overwhelming profits. Now, his parents feel proud of their son leading a prestigious life with Money Making Manoj.
Agriculture is his passion not profession
Mrityunjay Singh
Village - Gopalpur, Block - Sonepur,
District - Saran
Mrityunjay Kumar Singh, a young farmer from village Gopalpur of Sonepur block is a man of ideas, devotions and skills. After taking his graduate degree, he opted agriculture as his profession saying that agriculture is his culture, tradition and passion. He is doing vegetable production since long time using different sorts of chemicals especially trying new molecules. He was a successful farmer and successful businessman enjoying the opportunities of marketing facility available in nearby towns like Hajipur and Patna but the only thing that he lacked was use of unwanted and injudicious use of chemicals with longer persistency in vegetable that one should not do. His visit to KVK Manjhi and nearby NICRA village Darihara was his eye opener. Right then he started using Organic inputs for meeting the nutrient demand of the crops. He is now using organic repellents instead of hazardous chemicals that may harm human and animal health. Agronomic and biological management practices for keeping the pest population below Economic Threshold Level is his prime objective today.
Presently Mrityunjay Kumar Singh is using Pheromone Traps, Light Traps, NPV, Neem based pesticides, Trichoderma, Trichogramma, Bacillus thuringiensis and many more organic products for getting higher economic returns. He has established his own market with cooperation of vegetable growers of nearby villages and the rate of the produce is fixed now by the farmers, not by the middleman. Also, he has developed his own variety of Brassica carinata-Rohit, named after his son. The variety is going to be registered by Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority soon. He has been awarded the ‘Best Innovative Farmers’ Award by Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa in 2014.
Climate Smart Agriculture Made Him Changed
Narwadeshwar Giri
Village - Affaur, Block - Nagra,
District - Saran
NarmadeshwarGiri is a farmer from Affaur village of Saran district. He is doing vegetable production since long time but he used to apply all sorts of chemicals in managing the pests and diseases as vegetable growers normally do. Though he earned a good profit out of his enterprise but his cost of cultivation was too high. Also, the soil health of hisfarm was going down and down through the years. He did not follow scientific crop rotation out of ignorance. When NICRA project was started in his village, his eyes were opened. He started Organic Vegetable Production followed scientific crop rotation of vegetables to cope up with diseases and insect pest infestation.
He came to know that chemicals are not the only solutions to kill the insects and pests but organic repellents may be used to manage the insect pest population to desired Economic Thresh Hold level. Composts and Vermicompost along with some other fertilizers are being used by him in managing the nutrient demand of the crop. He then evolved a relay cropping system of vegetables with paddy [Brinjal-Tomato-cucumber/long melon-Paddy]. Sowing of brinjal in nursery was done by 15th August and transplanting in the main field by 15th September at 6 feet ×3 feet distance on permanent beds. Seedlings of Tomato were raised in a separate nursery in last week of November and transplanting was done in between the rows of brinjal at a distance of 4 feet. Now cucumber and long Melon was sown directly in between the plants of tomato at a distance of 2 feet by 25th February. Sesbania was grown in the field by 25-30th May and it was incorporated in the field at 45 days duration irrespective of monsoon break with supplemental irrigation. Short duration paddy was then taken in the field after puddling. He was Honored as a ‘Member of Extension Education Council’ of RAU Pusa and awarded a certificate of ‘Climate Smart Farmer’ by NICRA.
Traditions are bound to Change with Science
Ram lagan Yadav
Village - Nandpur, Block - Manjhi
District - Saran
Ram Lagan Yadav is a progressive farmer from Nandpur village of Manjhi Block. He is a big farmer and he is producing hundreds of quintals of paddy, wheat and maizea year and 30-40 liters of milk a day. He never thought of the cost of cultivation of his farm because of high production. One day he came in contact with the KVK scientists with this confidence that he was a big farmer and he has nothing to learn from the scientists. When asked about the productivity of his farm and cost of cultivation, he told who bothers about these small calculations. When his cost of cultivation was calculated by the KVK scientists, he was stunned. He put his hands on his head, thought for a while and asked, “May we leave the profession? We may not because at least 20 persons of my own family are getting employment from agriculture.
Then several trainings were imparted to him and his family members. Several OFTs and FLDs were conducted in his fields. Now he is going for scientific cultivation and earning a lot instead of losing. Intensive cultivation with optimum use of Fertilizers, chemicals, irrigation, and other agricultural inputs was initiated by him.He is now doing all sorts of Crop Diversification and Crop Intensification for assured economic returns. Rice-Maize + Potato, Rice-Wheat-Green Gram, System of Rice Intensification, System of wheat Intensification and Zero tillage are the few technologies that he adopted. He is producing several quintals of vermicompost of his own and uses in Banana Cultivation. His milk production and fish production increased multifold in 3-4 years.
Sky is the Limit
Ramakant Singh
Village-Darihara, Block-Dariyapur
District - Saran
Ramakant Singh, from Darihara village of Saran distrcit left his police job due to some family problem and started Agriculture with continuous hard work and devotion. But the only point of distraction was his land situation as most of his farming area fell either in the Diara lands or in the Chaur lands with periodical inundation each year and only Rabi crops was possible. Though his lands were fertile but due to flood during Rainy season and drought during summer months all his farm was devastated.
When came in contact with KVK and after receiving some varieties suitable for drought and flood situations, his could get the confidence about cultivation in such situations. And when he came to know the Climate Resilient Technologies under NICRA, he started all sorts of Crop Diversification and Crop Intensification for assured economic returns. He renovated one of his defunct ponds under NICRA and started intensive cropping through supplemental lifesaving irrigation. Rice-Maize+Potato, Rice-Wheat-Green Gram, System of Rice Intensification, System of wheat Intensification and Zero tillage are the few technologies that he adopted in due course.
Under the banner of NICRA he promoted Swarna sub-1 for flash flood situations and Sahbhagi for drought situations. This made Diara and Tal farmers confident about agricultural practices. In Diara lands, he introduced some new vegetable production techniques for saving the seedlings during high temperature and westerly winds. Farmers are now observing lower mortality of cucurbits and melons with higher production without any additional investment. A junk of about 50 ha of fallow land was made fertile and cultivable under NICRA with tremendous Rapeseed production and credit goes to Rama Kant Singh.
Building Future with Mushrooms
Shambhu Kumar
Village & PO - Narwan,
District - Saran
Shambhu Kumar, a native of Narwan village of Saran district, ranked a highly paid Officer in the Department of Agriculture, Government of Arunachal Pradesh for more than three decades shaped the future of lakhs of farmers and farm women through several government schemes throughout his service tenure. Though delegating his duties in a remote state, Shri Kumar always dreamt to do something memorable for his native village through creation of employment opportunities and contributing the society by impacting livelihood security.
But all his dreams came true only after his superannuation in 2015. Taking a great risk that people do not generally dare at such an old age, Shri Kumar exhausted all his pension amounts and other retirement benefits with some vital support from National Horticulture Mission and IDBI, Maharajganjfor the sake of mankind and started an Integrated Project on Mushroom providing employment to at least 10 to 20 persons depending upon the workload. The Initial Mushroom Production was 143 kg a day which was awesome and unbelievable. The quality was so good that market was not a problem even for a day and it was easily supplied to the markets of Siwan, Patna, Hajipur and Kolkata. Training and quality maintenance aspect was conducted and overviewed by KrishiVigyan Kendra, Manjhiand RAU Pusa from time to time.
The initial one year was very rigorous and challenging specially from electric supply point of view as maintenance of regulated temperature and climate was not an easy task for Bihar condition and he had to face severe losses during the year but overall profit was much better than expected and he feels proud of himself that he could do something good for the society where he was born in.
Climate Smart Technology could bring a Radical Change
Umeshwar Singh
Village - Affaur, Block - Nagra
District - Saran
Umeshwar Singh belongs to village Affaur of Nagra Block of Saran district. He has 20 acres of land but most of his lands were not being commercially utilized for agriculture. He used to invest a lot of money in agriculture but he could get only marginal profit. After getting training from KVK, he became enthusiastic and started agriculture with a great zeal.
First of all, he managed his horticultural garden of Guava and Mango and intensive cultivation of maize, turmeric and rapeseed were introduced as intercrop. He also introduced natural mulching in the guava garden and in situ vermicomposting. This could help him not only in getting additional yield but also enhanced production of horticultural crops. By using Micro-irrigation from government support, he could save irrigation water being wasted otherwise in flood irrigation. Then he could manage to adopt the Climate Resilient Agriculture of the NICRA project being run in his village. As Chairman of the Village Climatic Risk Management Committee, he used his past expertise and experiences in application of Climate Smart Agriculture and propounded different innovative ideas to fight the climatic challenges. Being the Chairman of Primary Agriculture Credit Society (PACS), he could manage to supply the agricultural inputs like fertilizer in time to the whole village. Again, as a dealer of Public Distribution System, he is helping the community to use alternative energy sources like kerosene in place of cow dung cake that may be used otherwise as organic source for the farm land. After getting renovation of ponds and application of that tank silt in the field, he could manage not only the pond for additional water accumulation for irrigation and for fish culture but also he made his agricultural lands fertile. The people of the whole Saran district try to adopt the interventions of NICRA and observe that Climate Smart Technologies have made a radical change in the farming community