Diversity and integrating various enterprises into a farming system helps in meeting multiple needs – food and nutritional security, incomes and optimal utilisation of resources. The case of Smt. Manjula proves it.
Small and marginal farmers are the core of India’s rural economy and constitute 85 percent of the total farming community. The Integrated Farming System (IFS) is recognised as a way forward to address food security and nutritional security, improved incomes as well as efficient use of resources by recycling outputs (sometimes considered waste) becoming an input for another system. IFS is a mix of agricultural enterprises such as cultivation of cereals, pulses, horticulture crops like vegetables, mango, animal husbandry- dairy, fodder crops and aquaculture in farm pond, poultry farming etc., to achieve economic and sustainable agricultural production through efficient use of resources.
A case of Smt. Manjula Boknekar
Smt. Manjula Boknekar, aged 43, hails from Kumbarkoppa village of Dharwad taluk, Dharwad district, Karnataka. Her family is rooted in tradition and is impoverished. She is not educated and was married at an young age of 18 to Shri Naryan Boknekar, an agricultural labour. She is now a grandmother of six children.
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BOX 1: Intervention of All India Co-ordinated Research Project-Women in Agriculture As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, to commemorate the 75th year of Independence of India, a programme on “Nutrition Smart Village” is initiated to strengthen the Poshan Abhiyan. This new initiative aims to reach out to 75 villages across India through the network of All India Coordinated Research Project on Women in Agriculture (AICRP-WIA) which is in operation at 13 centres in 12 States of India. The objectives of the initiative are promoting nutritional awareness, education and behavioural change in rural areas involving farm women and school children, harnessing traditional knowledge through the local recipe to overcome malnutrition and implementing nutrition-sensitive agriculture through homestead agriculture and Nutri-garden. To achieve the goal of malnutrition-free villages, intensive awareness campaigns, field activities, distribution of vegetable seeds and fruit plants, were undertaken. Under this initiative, UAS, Dharwad adopted Kumbarkoppa village with an aim to develop Nutri-Smart village during 2020-21. |
Smt. Manjula started helping her husband in the field as she grew up in a farming family. In 1999, they bought 4 acres and 3 guntas of irrigated land in Kumbarkoppa village, by raising loans. One acre was dedicated to a mango orchard. Initially, two crops were grown annually. Also, all types of vegetables, pulses like cowpea, green gram and horse gram are cultivated for household consumption.
To deal with shortage of labour and increasing labour cost, they started cultivating sugarcane along with vegetables as mixed crop. Initially, vegetables were grown for home consumption. Realising the demand, soon expanded the vegetable growing area. Initially they sold the surplus in nearby villages, gradually supplying to Belgaum city. However, the farmer found harvesting of tomatoes and creeper vegetables grown in a larger area difficult.
Under the ‘Nutri-Smart village’ project initiative (see Box), a scientist visited the farm guiding the farmer to introduce large scale vegetable farming and improved vegetable growing techniques and integrated farming methods. Besides guidance, seeds of different vegetables and leafy vegetables and saplings of tomato, brinjal and chilli were distributed.
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Staking and mulching: In vegetable staking method, plant ties are used to secure plants to upright stakes that have been driven into the ground. The plants are able to push upwards against the weight of their fruit or blooms, strong winds, rain, or other obstacles because of the power and support that the stakes give. Staking can prevent plants from bending or breaking, especially those with heavy leaves, fruit, or flower heads. Additionally, keeping them upright helps promote better air circulation, which benefits the health of the plants. Staking tomatoes provides support to help keep plants off the ground while assisting in their upward growth habit. Because many diseases and insects start at the ground level, using a structured system to keep them away from ground contact is prudent. Mulching is the process of covering the upper surface of the soil for weed control and retaining soil moisture that is available to plants. Potential advantages of mulching in agriculture being, soil moisture conservation, minimizing soil compaction and erosion, regulation of soil temperature, soil fertility improvement, mitigation of salt stress, plant growth, development, and yield, diminution of diseases and decline of weeds. |
After getting convinced, Manjula embraced these technologies in her field.
By using mulching and staking method, Manjula has been successful in growing ridge gourd and bottle gourd in large scale. She also grows leafy vegetables, such as spinach, coriander, sepu, and amaranthus, and she gets paid a high price for them in the market. Tomatoes were grown as a mixed crop in sugarcane, whereas brinjal was grown using the staking method.
The components like dairy, sericulture were adopted by her. She began dairy with just one cow, but today they have three: one cow, two bullocks. She sells excess milk and uses FYM generated on the farm. She has started mulberry cultivation also. Later, she plans to add sericulture components. Since the mulberry plants are small now, she is growing vegetables as mixed crops in mulberry cultivation.
For home consumption, she grows three to four types of pulses: horse gram, green gram, cowpea, and moth bean. For income from market, she grows maize, paddy and sugarcane. One acre of farm is mango orchard. Initially, she was growing vegetables for household consumption. Now she is cultivating them on a large scale. Further she has lemon, curry leaves, guava, coconut and sapota fruit trees also. While mangoes are sold, rest all are used for household consumption.
She prepares organic manures. By recycling organic solid wastes, she prepares compost. She has a compost unit for which the culture was provided by the project. Under another scheme supported by Department of Agriculture, she constructed Krishi Honda to store rainwater that can help irrigate about five acres of land during the dry spells.
Smt. Manjula Boknekar’s farm income has increased significantly to Rs. 297500/- from around 2 lakhs. Besides having access to wide variety of vegetables and farm produce, she says with pride that she shares the farm fresh vegetables with friends and relatives. Numerous farmers have visited her field. She is a role model for many. From her example, it shows that IFS model helps small holders get healthy and nutritious foods as well as improved net incomes.
Dr. Rajeshwari Desai
Senior Scientist (FRM)
Dr. Geeta Channal
Senior Scientist (Extn)
All India Coordinated Research Project-Women in Agriculture
University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka.
