Sustainable farming, Prosperous farmers

Sangamner block of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra receives only 450 mm average annual rainfall. Agriculture in this area is predominantly rain fed. In 2004, Lokpanchayat conducted a rally through 35 villages in the block to communicate with the marginal farmers. Approximately 1500 farmers were consulted during the rally to understand the ground realities. All problems shared by the farmers were related to mono cropping taking over the traditional multi cropping, traditional seeds getting replaced by the commercial seeds and increasing dependence on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. At micro level it was found that excess use of chemicals in the agriculture affected quality of ground water. The ground water turned alkaline due to load of minerals from the synthetic chemicals. In case of irrigated area of the block it was found that to earn extra money farmers started cash crop cultivation like vegetables, sugar cane, and horticulture. This needed continuous input of chemicals which in turn resulted in increase in the input cost. Another important revelation was drastic decrease in the organic carbon of the soils.

Lokpanchayat has scaled up this activity to include 20 villages of Akole block as well, where the rainfall is 2500 to 3000 mm. High rainfall and little infrastructure has a different set of obstacles for farmers here. The major crop is paddy and minor millets. Our aim is to ensure food security and mitigate malnutrition. Our capacity building inputs are focussed on sustaining the minor millets and pulses by following organic farming practices. This reduces the external input costs and gradually improves the soil quality thus benefitting the subsistence farmers.

Lokpanchayat thus took up a systematic start-to-end program for agriculture revitalization in the Sangamner block and western part of Akole block. First step towards this effort was intensively working with select ten villages to develop a precedent for other villages in the block. UNDP-SGP was approached to strengthen this work.