Livelihood Promotion

Title of the Project : Livelihood Promotion through Sustainable Eco-friendly Agriculture in Latehar, Jharkhand

Location of the Project: 10 villages in 3 Gram Panchayatas of Latehar Block, in Latehar District of Jharkhand

Objectives:

Sustainable Agriculture

Contribute actively to reduce poverty of 850 socially & economically disadvantaged & vulnerable indigenous marginal & small farmer households of Latehar Block in Jharkhand by improving their livelihood status.

Project will contribute to decimate Millennium Development  Goals:

1.Poverty and Hunger

3 .Gender Equality and

7.Environment Sustainability

850 BPL families of marginal & small farmers in 10 villages of Latehar Block, Jharkhand enjoyed improved living through increased income by adopting eco-friendly sustainable agriculture practices.

Target Group(s): Small and Marginal Farmers (850 families) – All BPL families.

Beneficiaries : 4500 (Target Beneficiaries + Their Family members)

. Women SHG

As per project plan – 30 SHGs are formed and functional since 31.12.2015 with total members 367.

It has been focused on Strengthening SHGs thro’ capacity building on the different topics, exposure and link to Govt. schemes with regular supervision & coordination with these SHGs. As on date, current status of SHGs reflects  following:

  •  The  Leaders of 30  SHG  has been trained on Roles and Responsibility, Gender Justice, Leadership development, Govt. Schemes, Record Keeping and Organic Farming etc.
  • 30 groups linked to JSLP Scheme of Govt. of Jharkhand. They are now entitled to get benefit of Govt. schemes under Rural Livelihood Promotion. Henceforth their saving credit details will not be available with VEDIC Society.

VEDIC Society keeps track of benefits of these SHGs get from different sources including Govt. NABARD and JSLPS. It will not be directly related to and will not hold any supervisory command over them – except coordination support to further their liaison, rapport and benefit from aforesaid sources.

By the way, VEDIC Society is associating members of all these SHG (individually and not as Groups) in Eco-friendly agriculture activities through training, meetings and exposure from time to time.]

  • Women are participating in development works starting from participating in Gram Sabha to Village Meetings, trainings & orientations by VEDIC Society & Govt. esp. NABARD, District Administration, Bank and JSLPS (Jharkhand state livelihood promotion society.
  • 62 Nos. SHG members linked to Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board and getting benefits like Cycle and safety kit (as labour). Now all of them are registered labour as per Govt. rule and are eligible for benefits as per provision.
  • 4 SHG got benefits from JSLPS Govt. of Jharkhand as revolving fund support (Rs. 3,10,000/-)

N.B. Since 1.1.2018 – all 30 SHGs formed under this project are linked to JSLPS. Since then, all the developments in SHGs in terms of Savings accumulated, SHG linking to Bank and other programmes of Govt. like JSLPS etc. will be sole responsibility of JSLPS authority.

Farmers Club

As a matter of regular follow up and monitoring of ongoing activities, the organization has maintained contact with farmers club members and ensures stock taking of different developments in their functioning and activities at field level. During the period under reference, VEDIC Society has facilitated Kishan Club members meeting in all the project villages’ level at least once and maximum 3 times during each quarter.

In those meetings, they discussed on issues related to water, soil management and decided further plan for seed and input as well as crop plan forth coming season. In all these meetings field staff of VEDIC Society had coordinated discussion and sharing by farmers and took note of best practices as per available information.

500 farmers of project area have been organized in 10 Farmers Club in 10 villages. Members have been supported and coordinated in regular manner through training, orientation, exposure, link to Govt. schemes and involvement in development of social assets like Water Harvesting Structures as well as ensure proper management of those assets through proper coordination at community level. Their existing status reveals the following fact:

As a result of continuous liaison for training, exposure etc. their existing status reveals the following:

  1. Farmers are maintaining Farm’s Book and are following organic farming practices including preparation of organic manure, pest repellants and are gradually reducing and dropping the use of chemical manure/pest.
  2. They have started practicing pest management, organic manure, Vermi compost, organic compost etc. and are continuing those in regular manner – both in Ravi and Kharif crops.
  3. Adopting practices of Seed Preservation, Agro Business, Sustainable Eco-friendly agriculture, water management, crop calendar etc.
  1. Master Trainers (44 Nos.) developed by the process of training and orientatio have taken the responsibility of training the farmers at community level on various aspects of Eco-friendly Sustainable Farming in an ongoing manner.

Achievements:

  • 44 Master trainers trained have now taken the responsibility of the farmers club.
  • Farmers Producer Company now a Registered Unit. Group has got fund support of Rs.1,05,000/- from NABARD Ranchi towards registration and office document (for functioning purpose).
  • 85% of groups have participated in Gram Sabha and have put forth their demand for inclusion of local priorities in Gram Sabha plan. 
  •  168 HHs benefited from government schemes through project.
  • 2 check dams, 4 solar lifts and 4 wells renovated ensuring assured irrigation to 194 acres of land.
  • 607 farmers have adopted eco- friendly sustainable agriculture practices.
  • Income of the families increased thorough various on farm livelihood interventions