ગુજરાતી
English
Organic farming changed the lives of farmers in Bihar’s Jamui and Dang
Dilip Patel
Bihar’s first organic village where women’s lives are changing, but all 310 villages of Dang have been declared organic but their lives have not changed.
Kedia village in Jamui district, 170 km south-east of Bihar’s capital Patna, has made its mark on the map of organic farming in India. It is known to be the first ‘organic’ village in the state. In this village with a total of 100 households, half the households have turned to organic farming. In Kedia village, NGOs, government agencies and officials from several states come to know about the changes from chemical farming to organic farming.
Plans are underway to implement the Kedia model of organic farming in other villages of Bihar. In Gujarat, 310 villages of Dang district have been declared as organic. But the government is yet to announce such a study.
This is the story of Kedia women of Bihar who have adopted organic farming. This has not only improved his family’s health and the nutritional value of the farm, but has greatly improved his own life as well.
Some time ago the women of Kedia village had suffered pain, silver, cough and wounds on their hands due to spraying of chemicals in the field. I often get sick when I eat foods made with chemicals and fertilizers.
Farmers were becoming financially weak.
but not anymore. His life has completely changed.
The organic farmers of Kedia have switched from chemical farming to cow dung to make life happy.
The contribution of Kedia women to eco-friendly agriculture is often overlooked. Rural women have worked hard to make it organic. And it has had a direct and positive impact on his life.
The women of the village collect their dung and urine at one place. From this they make cooking gas and the same manure is also used for manure in the fields. Vermi compost gives good crop. Its taste is also good. Children do not get sick very often. Saved a lot of money.
for organic village
The journey of organic farming in Kedia started in 2014. At the time, Ishtiaq Ahmed, a senior food campaigner at Greenpeace India, warned villagers about the dangers and adverse effects of using chemicals and fertilizers on farms.
Kedia village was selected in the “Bihar living soil” campaign. The campaign is being run to reduce the dependence on agro chemicals like chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Regenerate soil health and biodiversity using biomass based organic fillers. It is an attempt to bring back nutrients to the soil.
Ahmed, a resident of Patna, works as a food campaigner for the future.
More than 250 vermi-beds, 22 biogas plants, 40 wells, 15 cement cattle sheds and 20 eco-sanitary toilets (which separate human excreta and urine) were built with government assistance and subsidies to the villagers. The Agriculture Department subsidized 50 percent of the total input cost for all these products.
The women collect the dung, look after the cattle and make vermi-compost. Most of the households in Kedia have cattle. Gas is supplied to the village kitchen. The manure under the biogas plant is dumped in the vermi bed next to the plant. Insects present in the vermi-bed convert the compost into rich organic manure.
Earlier the village was deserted. Today it is clean and green.
Declaring Dang district of Gujarat as the first district based on natural agriculture, the state government has given Rs. 31 crore has been made. The government has decided to connect 21,000 farmers to natural farming in Dang.
Marketing system will be established along with processing and value addition in agricultural products.
The state has set a target of setting up 100 Farmer Producer Organizations – FPOs. All FPOs will be based on natural farming.
Dang district has an area of 1766 km with a population of 2.50 lakhs, consisting of 311 villages and 70 panchayats in 3 taluks. All villages have been made organic. There are total 30 thousand farmer families in Dang.
In Gujarat, organic farming is being done in a total of 61 thousand hectares in 2018-19, 19-20, 02-21. Farmers have 57,000 hectares of agricultural land and 4 hectares of forest land. Altogether a total of 6500 farmers are doing organic farming.
The government has not created a market for organic farming for farmers. Fairs are held. But it doesn’t sell things. Before Koro, there was only one fair for marketing in Surat.
model state
In Himachal Pradesh, the income of farmers adopting natural farming has increased by 27 percent and agricultural expenditure has decreased by 56 percent. In Himachal Pradesh 1.70 lakh farmers are engaged in subsistence agriculture.
Sikkim
No farmer in Sikkim uses chemicals. This will be done in Dang.
An advertisement banning the use of chemical drugs and pesticides will be issued.
Declaration can be issued in 15 years
It took 10 years for the whole of Sikkim to be declared an organic state. It may take up to 15 years to complete. Because now the Gujarat government has to issue the notification to declare the organic district.
Shops selling chemicals will remain closed.
To make Dang district chemical free, farmers were to be given 10 thousand rupees for natural farming in the first year, in the second year Rs 6,000 was announced by the Chief Minister from Gandhinagar. e. but A farmer barely gets Rs 3500 per acre.
announced in 2015
In 2015, Gujarat announced a policy of organic farming. Then the plan of Dang district was announced. Though 6 years have passed, but the plan is still not successful.
The geographical location of Sikkim and Dang is similar. In 5 years, 53,000 hectares of land in Dang district was to be converted to organic farming.
