Vedanta University Floriculture Project Kindles Hope

Puri, 25-03-09:  Surath Baral of Kantigoroda, Udayanath Pradhan of Kantasila, Dusasana Swain of Goindal, Manakrushna Barik of Chalisbhatia and some others like them have a story they can’t wait to tell. They came, they saw and they are about to conquer! Well, it is their poverty, a mundane hand-to-mouth existence despite all hard work that they are sure to overcome. “Aau asubidha haba nahin. Eniki manisha bes dui paisa kamei pariba aau bhalare banchi pariba (No more hardships. One can earn quite well henceforth and lead a better life)”, says Surath and his friends agree. Actually, they are part of the farmers’ G-20 that has been successfully trained recently in marigold cultivation. This training programme conducted by Mrs Babita Mishra, Subject Matter Specialist (Horticulture) from Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kakatpur of Puri district is part of the farmers’ livelihood initiative SAFAL, undertaken by the Vedanta University Project and the Anil Agarwal Foundation.

These farmers and their villages belong to the Puri-Konark area of Orissa where the world class Vedanta University is going to be built by Anil Agarwal Foundation, a philanthropic organisation established by the Chairman of Vedanta Resources Plc, Mr Anil Agarwal. Under SAFAL, acronym for Sustainable Action for Farmers’ Livelihood, the local farmers are being encouraged to move away from the low paying, traditional paddy cultivation and to take to more paying options like floriculture, vegetable (tomato and water melon) cultivation, pulses (green gram and black gram) and oilseeds (sunflower and groundnut) cultivation and dairy. The main objective of SAFAL is to increase the income of small and marginal farmers, empower them to organize into institutionalized community structures (farmer’s Co-operatives, SHGs, etc), facilitate their negotiation of key linkages in the value chains and thus, mainstream them.

As far as floriculture is concerned, the rationale is that flowers worth thousands of rupees are coming to Puri market daily from outside Orissa. Apart from some typical flowers used in the rituals of Lord Jagannath that are locally grown, none of these flowers are locally grown or supplied. Thus, farmers and suppliers from outside Orissa are making money. If, instead, the local farmers take to floriculture, they already have a ready and lucrative market. Therefore, local farmers like Surath, Dusasana and others are so enthusiastic about floriculture. They are to take up marigold and gladiolus cultivation that is more suited to the local soil and climatic conditions. The training programme on marigold cultivation is a successful step in that direction and demo cultivation of marigold that is going on in villages like Rahangiria, Kantasila and Kantigoroda, is already showing encouraging results.

A district level workshop on value chain analysis has also been held recently at Puri, under the aegis of Vedanta University Project of Anil Agarwal Foundation. The objective of this workshop was to share the findings of subsector value chain analysis of important crops/agricultural commodities in SAFAL operational villages. The SAFAL team had undertaken the subsector value chain analysis of six major crops/agricultural commodities like flowers, green gram, black gram, groundnut, sunflower and milk. The analysis has found that in order to improve the yield from floriculture and other cash crops and to ensure increased income for the farmers, the weak linkages in the value chain need to be strengthened. And for this, all concerned stakeholders, Govt departments, banks and marketing institutions should coordinate with each other. Findings of the study were discussed by the representatives of district level Govt departments like Agriculture, Horticulture, Irrigation and those of banks who participated in the workshop along with officials of Vedanta University Project and ACCESS, the partnering NGO. Assurance of all possible support from the participants has boosted the morale of the farmers. This, along with the commitment for community development reiterated by Mr Sanjeev Anand Zutshi, Director, Vedanta University Project has further heightened the upbeat mood. No wonder, when Surath talks of a new house, his children’s education and at least a bike for himself, others like him happily nod their heads in unison.

For further details please contact:

Kishore Chandra Das
09437012258
kishore.das@vedanta.edu.in

Ashis Kumar Acharya
09937107444
ashis.acharya@vedanta.edu.in

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 28th, 2009 at 9:50 am and is filed under News, Progress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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