Scaling Up Sustainable Agriculture in Balaghat

Describing the sustainable agriculture practices being promoted by the Balaghat team, this article captures the processes employed for promoting sustainable agriculture with more than 3,500 farmers, the challenges faced and the major insights gained

Introduction

I n our earlier article called ‘Organic Farming in Balaghat: Power to the Community, Power to the Farmer!’ (NewsReach May-June 2013; Vol. 13), we said that the team had begun its intervention by extensively promoting chemical-based agriculture in both paddy and vegetable cultivation from 2008 onwards. Based on experiential learning in the first few years, from 2009 to 2011, in pockets of more than 20 villages where agriculture was promoted through organic and integrated approaches, a change in perspective took place and the team began to believe that an alternative and a more sustainable agriculture practice promotion, which may be more compatible with the cultural practices of the community in the area, was possible.

The community had always practised farming, based on natural organic inputs such as cow dung, organic matter and the use of medicinal leaves such as neem and laltain. These experiments also helped dispel our notion that productivity would be compromised once the approach were to shift from chemical-based farming to organic farming. The professionals in the team were oriented, through various exposure visits and training programmes, particularly with Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Chetna Organic (both Hyderabad-based organizations). Additionally, the community was taken on exposure visits to organic farms in Maharashtra, and organic melas were organized in several villages by SHGs, with the support of the PRADAN team, to make the community aware of sustainable farming. Rigorous onfield, as well as class-room, training was provided to the support staff in all villages, to help disseminate knowledge about sustainable agriculture.