Ramshankar Yadav, a resident of Parai village of Chitrakoot district in Uttar Pradesh is a small holder with 3.2 hectares of land holding. However, most of this land is rocky and unsuitable for cultivation. He has 8 goats that provide additional income to the family in times of liquidity crunch.

Owning to the poor soil conditions, Ramshankar could only cultivate a portion of his land, which seldom produced food sufficient for household consumption, let alone serve as a source of income.

In 2018, BIWAL partners desilted an ancient taalab (tank) near the village in coordination with the village community. A Tank Management Committee (TMC) was formed for operational planning and implementation.

The huge amount of silt excavated from the taalab bed, formed after years of erosion processes is highly fertile. It has high amount of carbon and other macro nutrients and can be used by farmers to boost yields of their crops.

50 farmers of the village, including Ramshankar, elicited interest in using the silt in their fields. The transportation of silt and the associated expenditure was borne by the farmers themselves.

Ramshankar applied the silt to his entire land holding and in the Kharif season, cultivated paddy on a small portion of his land. The yields were much higher than he had experienced before. Hope ignited within his heart about the potential of his land to produce food. Ramshankar would regularly and actively participate in the agriculture programme of the organization and showed great interest in learning about Climate smart agriculture practices. He learned the technique to make organic manure and bio pesticides using cow urine and cow dung. In the subsequent rabi season, he enriched his land with the organic manures prepared by him, and to his surprise, he got astounding produce with very less inputs. His income increased and his family had enough food reserves to last an entire year, which was a welcome change to the food insecurity his family was previously exposed to.

The proactiveness of Ramshankar and inquisitiveness to experiment led to his recognition as a progressive farmer. 3 farmers of his village have adopted Climate smart agriculture practices following his example. This led BIWAL partners to promote Ramshankar as a lead farmer. He was provided support to set up a Prakritik Krishi Kendra (Natural Manure and Pesticide Management Unit).

A Prakritik Krishi Kendra is promoted in a entrepreneurial model wherein initial cost of setting up, including infrastructure and materials, knowledge transfer, extension material, etc. is provided by BIWAL partners.

He produces organic manures and bio pesticides in bulk in the Prakritik Krishi Kendra, for use on his own farm and for selling to others. Initially, he distributed the inputs for free to encourage more farmers to adopt the low-input, chemical-free agriculture practices.

There is a small demonstration plot established on his farm that has been set up for farmers to try out new agricultural techniques and learn through experimentation. Every month, farmers of the village gather at his farm to learn about various practices under Climate Smart Agriculture. They discuss techniques to prepare organic inputs, concept of no-tillage, mulching, inter-cropping, new crop varietals, seed treatment and to share experiences.

This year, Ramshankar is experimenting with multi-tier cropping, a system in which fruit and vegetable crops of varying heights are cultivated in a dense format to use space effectively, and produce more food with less inputs. Limited land requirement, and optimum utilization of water and manure are the key features of the system. Also, as different crops have different harvest cycles, the farmers stands to earn cash income throughout the year from the staggered harvests.

Ramshankar is hopeful that other farmers will soon follow and replicate these methods that have greatly helped him ensure food and economic security for his family.

His story is an inspiration for all the farmers with fallow and unfertile soil. He proved that with hardwork, and adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture practices, a fallow land can provide bounties of food and enrich agriculture-based livelihood.

A Prakritik Krishi Kendra is promoted in a entrepreneurial model wherein initial cost of setting up, including infrastructure and materials, knowledge transfer, extension material, etc. is provided by BIWAL partners.

Ramshankar is hopeful that other farmers will soon follow and replicate these methods that have greatly helped him ensure food and economic security for his family.