Upliftment of marginalized farmer families through enhanced and organized livelihood practices, Supported by Azimpremji Philanthropy Foundation (APF)

To achieve the objective, the project will cover the following strategies and activities:

a.     Farm Activities:

Multi-cropping: The project will focus on all round the year commercial production of market orientated crops involving nearly 1500 farmers. We anticipate an increase in the existing production of the selected crops such as Potato, Ginger, Maize, Soyabean, Kidney beans (Rajma) and Pea thereby doubling the income of the marginal farmers.

The project will build strong alliance and convergence with the Agri & Allied departments and extension institutions for technology inputs. It will help supplement/maximise the incomes earned by nearly 1500 marginal farmers through organised cultivation and production and provide a sustainable source of income to targeted beneficiaries.

ECS further plans to set up a state-of-the-art facility for processing, value-addition and premium marketing of targeted crops/products, create jobs and boost local economic development; and develop necessary institutional and governance support systems for facilitating the organised and sustainable development of the cluster through Formation of Village level committees/ Cluster/Producer Organization and exploring other development related areas and a financial linkage for the Producer Groups or clusters.

b.     Non-farm Activities:

Under the livestock intervention, the project will emphasize on the critical input of feeds and management in 1000 piggery units. Maize production among farmers will be used in pig feed production thereby ensuring a market for the farmers. ECS in collaboration with the SHG federation will setup pig feed mill in the district. The concentrated feeds will be supplied to the pig beneficiaries under the project.

A major challenge among farmers is to reverse the mindset of the local bodies and farmers, their expectations of subsidies doled out through government schemes.

c.      Building strong market linkages and skills:

Interventions aimed at imparting soft skills to the farmers along with creation of infrastructure for facilitating production will be focused upon. Other intervention programmes like awareness campaigns, training programmes and capacity building will be done to educate and help equip farmers with the required skills and knowhow of current technological advancements and methods in farming practices.