By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Dehradun, 28 Sep: A one-day Farmer Field School on “Vermi-composting techniques for promoting entrepreneurship” was organised on 27 September at village Jhabrani in Raipur Block under the Farmer First project by ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (ICAR-IISWC), Dehradun.
Dr Bankey Bihari, PI of the Farmer First project encouraged the farmers on taking agricultural activities to the next level to make it more business oriented with profits and quality supply of agriculture produce. He spoke of the success stories of the interventions introduced at the villages under the Farmers First project of the ICAR.
Dr M Muruganandam, Principal Scientist and Member of the FFP team, gave insights on how collective efforts by the farmers could help in taking the compost making venture forward. He cited the success of the project interventions with which farmers are made master trainers of fellow farmers.
Dr Trisha Roy, Scientist and Member of FFP team, urged the farmers to come forward and adopt the technique of creating wealth from farm waste through vermi-composting. Sharing her experience in making the vermi-compost intervention a success in the adopted villages, she shared the benefits of fungal-consortia-based decomposer in decomposing crop residues and other litterfalls while composting.
Rajpal Singh Solanki and Subash Kothari, progressive farmers, who have established themselves as farmer cum entrepreneurs in vermicomposting on the technical guidance and inputs from the Institute shared their experience on this occasion.
Subhash Kothari, another progressive farmer gave a detailed description about the process of vermicomposting, specifying the quality of composting inputs, cow dung, composting beds, preparation of vermi-beds, maintenance and harvesting and collection of earth worms and composted matter. Acknowledging the support extended by the FFP team Dehradun to establish his vermicomposting unit, he shared his experience about the journey beginning from one pit and now maintaining almost 6 mobile composting units and sustaining as an enterprising unit. He highlighted how his business has grown in a year and the demand for the compost has risen over time.
Rajpal Solanki, a veteran farmer, encouraged the participants to take up vermi-composting on a large scale citing the benefits in enhancing production and quality of produce in terms of taste and nutritional values. He spoke about the high value of vermi-compost at his farm and how its application can have a positive impact on the entire soil-plant-animal system making it more sustainable.
The event ended with field visit to the composting sites and demonstration of waste decomposer and composts prepared by different methods for experiential learning of the farmers. The team also visited the various crop demonstration sites of newly introduced crop varieties such as ulddhal and rice in the project area and provided advisories related to problems of rice stem borer, rice blast, etc. The FFP team assured their cooperation to the farmers related to these kinds of activities. The programme was coordinated by Dr Trisha Roy and Anil Mallick under the guidance of Dr Bankey Bihari, PI of the Farmer First Project. A total of 28 progressive farmers participated.
