HCL Samuday aims to increase the farm income of marginal farmers by 25%. This is being done by infusing farmers with knowledge about scientific farming practices that are developed step-by-step through training programs at every cropping stage. Key training programs include Soil testing, Accounting techniques, Integrated Nutrition Management, Integrated Pest Management and Post-Harvest Management.
Along with introduction of modern farming equipment and institutionalisation of farmer clubs to make agriculture less burdensome and more market-linked, novel concepts like Nutrition Garden, and Bori Bagicha are propagated to help marginal families increase their nutrition intake and further save their household income.
Key Interventions
- Traditional Crop Promotion
- Crop Diversification
- Nutrition Garden
- Community Mobilization and Institution Building
- Training and Extension
Traditional Crop Promotion
Traditional Crop Promotion intervention focuses on training and demonstration of traditional crop farmers (Maize, Paddy, Wheat, Urad etc.) and bringing them under Package of Practices (PoP) based production system to increase productivity and adopt better crop management practices.
HCL Samuday has worked to enhance productivity by adopting soil and nutrient management, land development and institutional building for effective market linkages. 26,000+ farmers are currently engaged through this intervention and have adopted better practices on their farm.
Crop Diversification
Due to lack of awareness and perishable nature of produce, few farmers practice vegetable cultivation. Crop Diversification intervention aims to bring sustainable income enhancement by adoption of diversified crop practices. HCL Samuday is pushing this agenda and the concurrent efforts made have engaged 13,500+ farmers so far in vegetable production. After successful response of vegetable cultivation, various add-ons in Crop Diversification have been introduced so that farmers having disparate needs may opt for most suitable cropping pattern. These include –
- Nano Orchard - a small area of land ranging from 840–1680 sqm is devoted exclusively for cultivation of fruit crops like Guava, Papaya, Banana, Apple, Ber and Thai Lime (seedless) along with vegetables taken as intercrop. 425 farmers have successfully established Nano Orchards.
- Floriculture - promoting flower cultivation, HCL Samuday is propagating better practices and solving farmers’ erstwhile problem of unavailability of good variety. Marigold cultivation is being promoted under floriculture in project area.
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VASUNDRA - Village Action for
Sustainable Utilization of Natural Resource and
Demonstration of Resilient Agriculture (VASUNDRA)
has been initiated to enhance productivity of
degraded fallow lands having high pH value. Adopting
scientific methods of land reclamation through
cultivation of resilient crops like Lemon Grass and
Palmarosa combined with PH resistant horticulture
crops like Amla, Ber and Lemon, so far 140 acres of
land has been reclaimed.
Nutrition Garden
Nutrition Garden is a low cost, scientific model of home garden organically producing a variety of nutritious vegetables and fruits throughout the year. The primary objective of promoting nutrition gardens is to make ½ kg of fresh vegetables available for daily consumption to rural households. Secondary objectives include reduction in daily expenditure of HHs and increase in the consumption of green vegetables for improved nutrition.
2,714 households have benefitted by adopting a Nutrition Garden.
Community Mobilization and Institution Building
Interventions aimed at mobilizing community and facilitating institution creation lend long-term sustainability to the efforts for agriculture development.
- Farmer Clubs - Farmer Clubs are formed with the objective of propagating the idea of collective, uniting farmers in groups which work for the benefit of their community. 199 such clubs established so far under this intervention are providing a platform for knowledge dissemination and better market linkages
- Farmer Producer Organisation - HCL Foundation is the promoting agency of Hardoi Kisan Producer Company Limited (HKPCL), a Farmer Producer Organization constituted in 2017 to address challenges faced by farming community in the project area. Comprising of 2,350 shareholders and governed by an 11-member board of directors, HKPCL registered a turnover of ₹ 6.85 crores in last financial year (2019-20).
- Vegetable Aggregation Point - Ensuring market is a crucial part of vegetable supply chain. To facilitate better linkages with market, 7 vegetable aggregation points have been set up across 3 blocks and regular communication is made to enable farmers to choose and opt for most suitable option. Realising better prices for produce, 917 Tonnes of vegetables, worth ₹ 1.30 crores, got aggregated at these centres in 2019-20.
- Farm Mechanization - Through Farm Mechanization, focus is on increasing income of farmers by improving affordability and accessibility of machines for precision agriculture. It is aimed at reducing farmers’ cost of cultivation and easing farm operations. Carried out in an entrepreneurial model, thus far 3,249 farms have been supported with advanced agricultural machinery and development of 45 entrepreneurs has been facilitated.
Training and Extension
Agriculture is a dynamic sector that deals with specialized knowledge which is ever changing. HCL Samuday regularly makes associated farmers aware of latest developments through Training and Extension intervention. The farmers are empowered to address existing issues and mitigate and adapt for future challenges.
With the objective of bringing agriculture technologies at farmers’ doorstep by establishing a ‘Center of Excellence’ in Uttar Pradesh, HCL Samuday is setting up Center for Agriculture Technology Transfer (CATT) in Hardoi district. It shall act as a ‘single window’ / ‘one stop support system’ aligning various interventions of state department of Agriculture with HCL Foundation as an intermediary and farmers as end users in a learning, decision making and problem-solving exercise.
