Oct 2011 Issue 1

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Eureka Livelihoods - An AID INDIA Initiative

The main purpose of this quarterly newsletter is to communicate to other teams within the organization as well as to external people about the happenings in the Livelihood Team.

Livelihood team works with the focus of enhancing and creating livelihood opportunities for the rural poor in TN. The major focus of the livelihood team in the current year is to come up with methods that has the potential to improve the income of small and marginal farmers. Experiment farms have been set up in 3 locations where conventional methods are compared against improved techniques on a side by side field. Experiment farms follows a one component approach where improvement is done only on one component over the conventional farming. For Eg: In Paddy, only sowing technique is changed keeping all others same in the 2 fields.
HIGHLIGHTS

New Experiment Farms started and running successfully in 3 districts. First Experiment: Comparison of SRI vs Conventional completed Book on soil types Mannai Patri Arivom released Survey with farmers at Vallimalai reveals dire status of agriculture in the area.

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Vembakkam: SRI vs Conventional

Paddy cultivation Vembakkam: SRI on the right and regular planting on the left

System of rice intensification (SRI) was cultivated in 36 cents of land and Conventional method (method farmers generally use) was adopted in 66 cents of land in Vembakkam village, Tiruvannamalai district In SRI, single or two seedlings were planted at a distance of 30 cm row and column wise compared to clustered sowing in conventional. Other inputs remained same in both fields Harvest was completed in Aug 2011

Learnings

System of rice intensification tried by changing only the sowing distance and keeping others such as weeding and water usage similar to conventional method did not result in increased yield over conventional. One significant reason pointed out by others using SRI is the application of Conoweeder for weeding during the 10th and 20 day after sowing which not only decreases weeds but also promotes the growth of paddy and helps to increase tillers significantly. In the coming seasons from December, we plan to use conoweeder along with sowing distance to look at improvement in yield. There is a great potential of decreasing input cost as well as labour shortages in SRI over conventional when paddy transplanter is used even if it yields the same as conventional if not more.

Mannai Patri Arivom

Mannai Patri Arivom (Let us know about the soil) is a 20 page concept booklet on soil types. Book has been written by Jayaram Venkatesan and published by Eureka Books. This book explains different types of soil and focuses on its differences and applications in an easily understandable dialogue mode for children Book was released at the Eureka 15 event on August 28, 2011

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Vallimalai Rejuvenating the uncultivated land

Groundnut plant in Vallimalai

In Vallimalai village of Vellore district, barren lands with thorns have been cleared and made ready for cultivation. Groundnut was sowed in the first season in 1.1 acres of land in June 2011. Since the land was uncultivated for long and land was very uneven, it was decided to grow groundnut for a season before experiments could be started

Harvest was done in September. Harvested close to 0.7 tons of groundnut Labourers who harvested expressed surprise at the number of nuts per plant as it was consistently between 20 to 25 per plant compared to 10 to 15 in their plant. Expressed interest in trying out the seeds from our harvest in their land. Plan to start experiments from December on groundnut seed quality.

Harvested Groundnut

Lalgudi : SRI vs Direct Paddy Sowing vs Conventional

In Ariyur village of Lalgudi, Trichy district, System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is being compared with Direct paddy sowing and Conventional paddy growing. Sowing was done beginning of August in 1.1 acre, 0.45 acre and 0.76 acre respectively. Direct paddy sowing using drum seeder is where paddy is directly sowed in the field instead of growing in nursery and transplanting. With respect to the number of tillers in each plant, direct sowing has more tillers than SRI & SRI has more tillers than conventional. The amount of weeds however is also more in direct paddy sowing as the weeds grow along with the plant. Harvest to be done in November.

Direct Paddy sowing on 12th day

SRI on 30th day after transplantation

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Status of Agriculture - Survey results from Vallimalai

Over the last five years, labour costs have increased tremendously...Agriculture has become very unviable and we are continuing to do it only because we don't have any other choice...Hopefully our children will study well and get to other professions - Rudran, a small farmer from Kuppureddiyur village, Vellore This is not the voice of just one farmer. We have been repeatedly hearing this again and again in every conversation that we have had with farmers in many districts of Tamil Nadu. Our survey of around 150 farmers and 59 labourers in the villages near Vallimalai throws light on the status of agriculture in the area. Average holding per farmer was 1.85 acres and only 57% of the land owned is being cultivated. This exercise will be repeated in Vembakkam and Lalgudi areas in the coming months. Few observations are given below To FarmersWhat are the two most important problems in agriculture that you face today?? (Since 2 problems were asked, total would be for 200%)
2% 1% 31% Labour Shortage 71% Water - 85% 8% 2%

Seed quality Labour Shortage Soil Fertility Others

Pest problem Water problems Poor price realization

To FarmersHow would rate your quality of life over the last 10 years?
14%
15%

To agricultural labourers who don't own landIs it true that labour shortages is affecting agriculture adversely??
5%

71%
Better off now Remained same Worse off now

95% TRUE FALSE

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Other News

Our Carpentry unit in Walodai village, Kancheepuram has produced wooden Educational materials worth Rs 4.5 lakhs so far in the current year. It continues to provide livelihood to 20 people (most of them women) from the poorest background. Livelihood team helped in the setting up of Organic kitchen garden in 10 households of Nerkunampattu village, Kancheepuram district and will be working along with the health team to expand the Organic kitchen garden to 50 households over the next couple of months. Saravanan who was heading the Carpentry unit is moving into a new role as Project Manager for Livelihood unit. Coming from a farmers family, his past experience in agriculture is an added advantage to the team

Volunteers from Scope Ltd provide a helping hand to plant a sapling at Nerkunampattu village

Pilot plan for SRI sowing

Given the potential for decreasing input cost using SRI, we are starting a pilot for SRI sowing in Ariyur village, Lalgudi, Trichy. Around 10 farmers have expressed interest in Ariyur village to try out the SRI method using paddy transplanter. Equipments would be ready by November and sowing will be done end of November. We will also provide the Conoweeder service to farmers. A close documentation of their expenses and harvest will help us understand the cost saving and yield increase in farmer fields under different conditions.

Name for Livelihood unit??

We are looking for a good name for our livelihood unit and are looking at as many options as possible. It would be great if you all could send in your suggestions. A special prize awaits for the best entry. Send in your suggestions to jramvnkt@gmail.com