Indus Valley Times

By Mahendra Kumar Darjee

Bolangir, Dec. 4: Shri Manmath Kumar Pani, OAS (SAG), Additional Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Government of Odisha and other line department officials on December 3 visited ICARDA project sites in Balangir district on the occasion of ‘Farmers’ Field Day (FFD)’ at Sargadpali of Bhundimuhan gram panchayat of Bolangir block.

ICARDA stands of International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas. It is an international CGIAR research organization headquartered at Beirut, Lebanon.

ICARDA in collaboration with the Office of the Chief District Agriculture Officer, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment and Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Development, Government of Odisha, is actively working in the district of Bolangir on development of pulses seed (grasspea, chickpea, lentil, black gram and green gram) system and spineless cactus (as a source of green fodder, and soil and water  conservation ).

Mr Pani interacted with Village Seed Hub (VSH) members- managed by a Women Self-Help Group and promoted by ICARDA under the Odisha Pulses Development Project (OPDP) of Directorate of Agriculture and Food Production, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Government of Odisha.

Mr Pani  was very glad to visit a model kiosk set-up on pulses seeds, view displays on crop demonstrations, interact with women members of VSH and farmers present during the FFD; and understand how it is helping farmers of the area in accessing quality pulses seed, producing quality harvests and creating a sustainable platform to make a profitable business based on pulses. He appreciated and opined it as a good start up to form a Farmers Producer Organisation (FPO) for doubling the income of farmers of the region.

He visited nearby spineless cactus nurseries and feed mix demonstration sites of the block, and appreciated its usefulness and how it was benefitting cattle growers in the district. He was especially pleased to see the Arhar standing crops implemented jointly by ICARDA and Chief District Agriculture Office, Bolangir during Kharif 2020, under the Arhar Minikit Programme, supported by the Directorate of Agriculture and Food Production, Government of Odisha.

During the last two years, ICARDA has promoted nine village seed hubs (VSHs)in Bolangir covering 36 villages which are managed by women self-help groups. The women members are trained and capacitated to procure, distribute improved varieties of pulses seeds for the potential pulses growers and make business out of it, which are economically beneficial to both farmers and VSH members. The VSH members are involved in collection, processing and disbursing quality “labelled” seed to nearby villages resulting in quality harvests by farmers. The programme isa self-sustaining model of seed collection, processing and progressive cycle of replication and distribution to increase acreagethrough improved varieties of pulse crops.

Dr Nigamananda Swain, Manager – Food Legume Research Platform and Country Manager, ICARDA-Afghanistan; Mr. Ashok Kumar Mohanty, Chief District Agriculture Officer and Mr. Soumendra Mishra, Deputy Director, Soil Conservation cum Project Director, Watershed, Bolangir; Dr. Saroj Swain, Director, ICAR-CIFA and Dr. Nagesh Barik, Sr. Scientist of ICAR-CIFA, Mr. Bibekananada Satpathy, Seed Certification Officer, Bolangir Mr. Bhaktabandhu Naik, Block Chairman, Patanagarh were present amongst others.

Mr.Pani appreciated the work done by ICARDA and farmers in the district and expressed his satisfaction on the progress achieved. The project plans to upscale operations through Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to deal with the higher scale of processing, value addition and marketing of pulse crops by capacitating Village Seed Hubs (VSHs) and Farmers Committees (FCs) promoted by ICARDA in the district.