Farmers seek MSP for natural farming produce

Devlal Munda, who lives in Kaudi village of Ramgarh district in Jharkhand, was doing chemical farming on his 1.5-acre ancestral land till 2023. Due to the extensive use of chemical fertilisers and the vagaries of climate change, the quality of soil started deteriorating. Farm-friendly insects had also started disappearing from his farm. The yield was good, but the expenditure on fertilisers was increasing year after year, which started bothering him.

In the same year, he came to know about the agroecology-based programme, JIVA, launched by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to promote natural farming. It was being promoted by the Gramin Seva Sangh and the Patratu Tribal Project Development Committee, with the help of the national agriculture and rural development bank. Six villages – Lem, Bicha, Armadag, Jobo, Kodi and Lowadih – from Saki, Baridih and Bicha panchayats in Patratu block – were selected for the implementation of this scheme.

“In this project, which was started with the help of Rs 30 lakh from NABARD, farmers were trained to adopt natural farming. They were taught how to make cow dung manure and seeds were provided to them for free,” Vilas Sathe, Gramin Seva Sangh secretary, told Mongabay India.

Munda decided to take advantage of...

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