Indus Valley Times

By Amar Barik

Dhamra,Jan.6 : To enable the farmers in adoption and engagement in dual cropping, Agriculture/Horticulture enterprises and production of high value crop in Adani Dhamra Port vicinity, Adani Foundation – the CSR arm of Adani Group of Companies has been undertaking various knowledge and skills enhancement programme. As part of the programmes, the farmers are being introduced & linked to different government schemes and provided with onsite, classroom and organizational based capacity building programmes in collaboration with Government, quasi-government and other organization. The main objective of the exposure visit was to enhance the knowledge and skills of the potential farmers in Adani Dhamra Port periphery areas for taking an initiative of Climate Resilience Agriculture and improvement of soil management in crop production enterprises.

As part of the initiatives, a team of 50 farmers from 09 port periphery GPs were taken to SG Foundation, Suakati, Keonjhar on an exposure visit on 3rd and 4th January 2023. The farmers were exposed to climate resilience agriculture projects including the Solar Based Drip Irrigation Project, Integrated Farming models, organic vegetable cultivation, fruit crop orchard, bee farming after the initial overview of various projects and initiatives undertaken by Jagabandhu FPO at Kadabaranga GP of Bhadrak district. The progressive farmers were taken to SG Foundation, Suakati of Keonjhar district where Mr. Manas Kumar Rout, Executive Director, SG Foundation have exposed the farmers to different climate resilience horticulture initiatives like high value crops (Intercropping of off seasonal vegetables, Turmeric, Ginger etc in Mango Orchard), trailless method of vegetable cultivation etc. for livelihood promotion of farmers.

Mr. Sushanta Kumar Behera, Program Officer, FPO, Mr. Sunil Kumar Jena, Program Manager, Horticulture Promotion & Mr. Bhabani Shankar Das, Program Officer, FPO has provided the training on formation of FPO, legal compliances & functioning of FPO, FPO components, Business planning, Marketing linkages etc.  Then the farmers were brought to Tasar Development Trust of Banspal Block, Daseri FPO of Jhumpura Block & Naradpur FPO of Joda Block for having field visit of millet processing unit, horticulture promotion activities, inter cropping of organic vegetables, custom hiring center & Community Managed Seed Center associated with more than 540 farmers as shareholder of FPO promoted by SG Foundation, NABARD, Tribal Development Foundation & District Mineral Foundation.

The two days long training-cum-exposure visit program was successfully completed in partnership with SG Foundation.