The success story of a farmer: Unfolds in the village of Chamba district Himachal Pradesh

INDIA REPORTER NEWS
PALAMPUR : RAJESH SURYAVANSHI

Mr Dharam Chand, a farmer from aspirational district Chamba of Himachal Pradesh, is an example of self-employment generation in the adverse topographical and climatic conditions. The farmer is from village Khal, panchayat Naddal, PO Bhanad, tehsil Salooni, district Chamba, the place is at the border of Jammu and Kashmir; the majority of the population belong to the scheduled caste, and occupation is mainly agriculture.

Mr Dharam Chand came in contact with the scientists of CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT), Palampur (HP), during March 2020, he met and spoke about problems faced by the farmers of his village such as monkey and animal menace, irrigation water scarcity, inaccessible location of their village and resource shortage. The farmer said that he used to cultivate wheat, maize, and sorghum, but the cultivation has turned out to be non-remunerative returns due to increasing incidences of crop loss owing to rainfed conditions, wild animals, and monkey menace.

To prevent similar failures, CSIR-IHBT, Palampur (HP) has already initiated CSIR Aroma mission and supporting the farmers by making efforts to revive the economy of the farming community and doubling their income through the introduction of high-value aromatic crops such as wild marigold, damask rose, lavender, rosemary, lemongrass, and mushkbala.

The scientist of CSIR-IHBT suggested the farmer to grow aromatic crops such as wild marigold in his village as an alternative for traditional crops, as aromatic crops are high value and not being affected by wild and stray animals; also withstand adverse biotic, abiotic stresses. The farmer was not familiar with the cultivation of wild marigold, but he showed interest in the crop, and he was then given 1 kg wild marigold seed under CSIR Aroma mission furthermore provided with complete cultivation practice knowledge of wild marigold.

Then he cultivated the crop in his village and remained in contact with scientists of the institute through telecommunication media regarding problems faced during crop cultivation and management; he was successful in raising the crop in his village. The farmer effectively produced the crop in the field, but as an essential oil extraction distillation unit facility was not installed in his village at that time, and he was suggested to produce seed from the crop.

From 1 kg seed, he was able to successfully produce 70 kg seed from 1.5-2.0 bigha of land within six months. Mr Dharam Chand sold 60 kg of seed worth of rupees Rs 36,000 from a piece of land where he was getting nothing, and that too during COVID time when the majority of the community is facing problems to earn a livelihood.

Mr Dharam Chand, along with his fellow villagers, formed a registered society named ‘Kisaan Vikas Committee”, with which CSIR-IHBT signed an MOU on March 10, 2021, for the installation of a processing unit in his village. As there is no transport facility in their village, they have to take the processing unit by themselves on their shoulders through a track of 5-6 km, but the passion of the farmers is of next level, and they were completely energized to take the cultivation of aromatic crops in the village.

The “Kisaan Vikas Committee” has nine registered members and a group of about 30 farmers associated with them and committed to cover 10 hectares’ area in their village under wild marigold during this year. Dr Rakesh Kumar, Senior Principal Scientist of CSIR-IHBT and Co Nodal of Aroma mission, told us that CSIR-IHBT had provided complete cultivation and processing knowledge to the farmer society from the beginning of seed sowing crop harvest.

Farmers were encouraged to cultivate wild marigold in Himachal Pradesh as essential oil produced in hills is of high quality and enriched with (Z) β-ocimene, which is more preferred by the industry. Tagetes oil is used in the aroma, food, and flavour industry. The industry has an annual demand of 5-6 tonnes of essential oil from hilly regions of the country.

Mr Dharam Singh and his fellow farmers were happy and thanked Dr Sanjay Kumar, Director, CSIR-IHBT, for his continuous support and guidance provided to the villagers in obtaining better economic returns from land affected by various biotic and abiotic factors. To promote cultivation of these aromatic crops among the farmers, a complete package of agro and processing technologies has been developed by the institute and also executed in the farmers’ fields to help them realize the profits.

Dr Sanjay Kumar was pleased with the passion and enthusiasm of the farmers towards aromatic crops and told the farmers that CSIR is committed to the upliftment of farmers of aspirational district Chamba through better agriculture production and for this institute has already signed MoU with Deputy Commissioner Chamba.

He told the correspondent that eight processing unit will be installed by March 31, 2021 for value addition of aromatic crops in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand states and Jammu & Kashmir union territory so that the hilly farmers can be benefitted and this will also help in reverse migration of unemployed youth from villages to metro cities in search of livelihood generation means.