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Eco-friendly agriculture development is one of the core areas of Krushi. With similar motto, the Krushi has started Organic Cotton Program in Arepally and Repaka villages of Illanthakunta mandal in Karimnagar district with the support of ETC-Solidaridad of Netherlands. The objective of the program is to promote organic farming methods for both food grains and commercial crops. This year, the major crop is cotton and other crops like maize; Soya bean, red gram and chilies were taken up under organic farming method s. Before initiating this process, we organized communication campaigns and grama sabhas in the villages and sensitized members of Samatha HSG federation. Some of the farmers, both male female, came forward to undertake organic cultivation practice. In each village, farmers were mobilized into Organic Cotton Growers Association (OCGrA). In the name of above farmers group, an account was opened in Punjab National Bank, Peddalingapur branch. From that day onwards, the group meeting are taking place once in a month and they have started monthly savings ranging from Rs.30 to Rs.50 each per member. In the first year, the Solidaridad provided Rs.80, 000 as revolving fund to each OCGrA in both the villages. The money was utilized as input cost. The farmers themselves prepared bio-fertilizers and pesticides like Enriched Farmyard Manure (EFYM) with cattle manure, neem oil, panchakavya, amruthpani etc. They made a few low cost interventions like intercrops, border crops, pheromone traps etc., for pest control. Thus, they saved up to Rs. 6000 towards input cost for cotton crop. The international cotton certification agency personnel visited the fields and tested the organic cotton of every farmer. In their testing report, they certified that the 18 farmers covering 40 acres got C2 grade. That means, they have a chance to get organic cotton certificate next year. In the first year itself, the average yield was three quintals in rain fed lands even in adverse seasonal conditions. As a result, for Kharif 2005 many farmers are coming forward to grow several crops in organic farming method. The personnel from several agencies like Velugu from 23 districts of AP, Rural Development Department, NABARD, CARE India and officials from Netherlands and USA visited the lands, interacted with farmers and appreciated the efforts made by the farmers and the Krushi and ETC – Solidaridad team.
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The Sustainable Agriculture Development Program is implementing in following three mandals of Karimnagar district in partnership with ETC – Soldiered Netherlands, NABARD and SERP Govt. of AP. The project was taken up as part of synergy strategy with CASHE project to promote livelihood activities, productivity enhancement activities to the Common Interest Groups along with micro credit.
Mandals |
No. of farmers benefited |
Area covered in acres |
Ellanthakunta, Sircilla, Yellareddypeta |
310 |
679.0 acres |
Information of OCGr-A farmers during Kharif 2005-2006
Sl. No. |
Name of Village(s) |
No. of OCGrA Farmers |
Total Land Holdings in Contiguous Area (Ac.) |
Male |
Female |
Total |
Cotton (Ac.) |
Maize (Ac.) |
Bengal gram (Ac.) |
Total (Ac.) |
1 |
Arapally |
24 |
05 |
29 |
48 |
11 |
04 |
63 |
2 |
Repaka |
07 |
05 |
12 |
31 |
11 |
03 |
45 |
|
Total |
31 |
10 |
41 |
79 |
22 |
07 |
108 |
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