A little use of technology and collective effort have shown positive results in a remote Gujarat village where farmers have more than doubled the produce and improved their income.
Farmers in this village, 266 km south of Gandhinagar, have formed a company to promote farming and to increase produce as well as income of growers.
“We are inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to double farmers’ income. The government is doing its part, we also need to come forward with ideas and show enthusiasm,” Bauji Sagathiya, a board member of the Saurashtra Swanirbhar Khedut Producers Company (SSKPC), which also has two women members on its board, told PTI.
Earlier, the produce from 1 acre land was 500 kg and now it has risen to 1,200 kg.
“As the produce increased, so has our income. Earlier we were getting ₹3,500 a quintal. Now it is ₹4,500,” he said. “After setting up the company, We sell our produce to NAFED. Earlier, we used to sell the produce in local mandies.”
“A farmer informs us about the quantity of his produce and we allot him a date to bring his produce for sale. He is updated through an alert text,” Sagathiya added.
The company was registered under Companies Act in 2015. There are six people on its board and over 1,600 farmers of 17 nearby villages are its members.
“We have registered phone numbers of all of them and send them an alerts,” he said.
The idea of forming a company, he said, came after Reliance Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, guided the farmers of the region to identify the issues in the dry Saurashtra region and form a platform to solve it collectively.
“Reliance Foundation came to our village four years back. It had been working in the areas of water conservation, food and nutrition, health and education, farm technique etc,” Sagathiya said.
For better produce, the company has set up a lab at Babra tehsil. Farmers from all the 17 villages bring their seeds for testing before sowing. This helps them to plant the right seed, which is one of the reasons for good produce.
Also, the farmers have moved to growing peanuts which requires less water than cotton. For irrigation, SSKPC has built over 70 check dams.