N’PADA DROUGHT-HIT RAISE VEGETABLES FOR SUSTENANCE

N’PADA DROUGHT-HIT RAISE VEGETABLES FOR SUSTENANCE

Saturday, 14 November 2015 | AJIT PANDA | NUAPADA | in Bhubaneswar

There is devastation in paddy crop due to vagaries of monsoon during the current Kharif operations in Nuapada district, but farmers have not lost hope. Hundreds of them are trying to find succour in vegetable cultivation.

Padampur village in Khariar block is the best example of farmers’ bid to face the crisis boldly where the farmers have made optimum use of their back yards and also the medium quality land, where the paddy crop failed early due to lack of water. They are cultivating vegetable crops during this winter.  Each farmer hopes to earn between Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 from vegetable farming this season.

Sabitri Patel of Padampur village has cultivated tomato, cauliflower and green leaves in 35 decimals of land. She is also preparing another piece of land of same quantity for onion. “The onion saplings are ready in the seed beds for plantation in the medium land which is lying fallow since August after the failure of paddy,” says Sabitri.

The water source for irrigation is an open well constructed by her father-in-law more than two decades ago with a tenda (local device for lifting water). “The loss in paddy wouldn’t be recovered, but this will sustain our family need for next five to six months,” says Chaitan, husband of Sabitri. He had cultivated Khandagiri, a medium variety paddy in one acre of land as a sharecropper, but the yield was only 96 kg. He got only 48 kg of paddy as his share.

Malati Patel of the same village has taken up vegetables in 30 decimals. “We don’t have upland; so we are cultivating this small patch belonging to our neighbour on sharecropping basis,” she explains. She had cultivated paddy in her two acre medium land. “We did not get a single seed, but we have to live, so we are planning to cultivate onion in that plot. We are seven members in our family, and all are engaged here to earn our livelihood,” Malati reveals.

Phula Patel is another woman who manages her 11-member family by cultivating vegetables in one and a half acres of land. She cultivated horse gram in four small plots of medium land when paddy crop failed. “I will transplant onion in those land after the harvesting of Kuloth (horse gram),” says Phula. She hopes that the yield would be good. “Kuloth is not for sale, it is for consumption of dal,” she adds.

The irrigation source for vegetable is an eight feet-deep open well. “I with my husband dug this well 25 years ago, when my elder child was in my womb. This needs widening and deepening but we are not in a position to do this due to shortage of fund,” adds she. She had visited the Agriculture department for financial support for deepening of the well. “They offered me a pump when I asked for a well,” says

Phula.

The number of such vegetable farmers in Padampur village is 26 and area coverage is about 18 acres. All these farmers have also raised onion seedlings, which would be transplanted in a week or two in more than 20 acres of paddy land. Interestingly, none of these farmers has taken loan for vegetable cultivation, neither from any bank nor from moneylenders.

The backyard farming of these farmers is not limited only to vegetables; many other plants like banana, papaya, drumstick, lemon and coconut are also planted here. Sabitri Patel has five lemon and two coconut plants on the boundary of her backyard. There is also a bamboo bush on one corner, which is for personal use, for repair of house and fencing of the backyard as she says.

There are many more experimentations, like turmeric and ginger in small patches, inter-cropping of maize in between rows of cauliflower etc. are found in every backyard. “Vegetable cultivation is more secure than paddy,” the people say. But, unfortunately, such practices do not draw attention of the Government.