The Living dovetails
We’ve seen at times several initiatives are taken to promote the use of intercropping or agroforestry models looking at the fact they’re usually only practiced on large commercial farms and not by small local farmers, but unlike this general condition, the farmers in Motihari of East Champaran have been successfully practicing multiple cropping since years and have been earning well making the most of the resources available. Some of the local farmers of this region practice an agroforestry model of agriculture where they plant fruit trees like mango and banana along with some agricultural grain crops or crops like turmeric. Intercropping of several fruits trees together at a single farm is also seen in this area where guava, banana, mango etc are planted on the same field thereby using the resources to the fullest without causing any damage to them, apart from this crop plants surrounded by timber trees is also common. This shows success of firm farm models practiced in this particular area which are generally not very common in rural areas but needs to be disseminated among farmers of all the regions for their welfare and most possible benefit from small pieces of land easily.
Team visited ‘West Dhekahan’ panchayat of Motihari block and met some of the practicing farmers like Shivpujan Prasad, Anchit Prasad and Munna Sah. They are beneficiaries of MGNREGA plantation schemes, using other crops along with the plantation in their farm. Most of the beneficiaries of individual plantation also earn income from selling of vegetables, fruits and spices.
The need was felt to include more farmers of other panchayats to do intercropping with the MNREGS plantation schemes, so an initiative was taken to spread awareness about the same. Recently many steps were taken by the district administration to create affinity towards multicropping system in the entire East Champaran district.
A programme named “The Living Dovetails” was launched with its own logo and a well defined motto to enrich the districts biodiversity and to make farmers financially more stable and stronger. A seminar was organised by the distict authorities where around sixty Vanposhaks of the region were provided with letters of appreciation cum guidance, along with seeds and plantlets of drumsticks, aloe vera, carom seeds, guava and mint among many to motivate them to adopt this system of cropping in their lands too. Also, for ceaseless, hassle-free and affordable acceptance of multiple cropping in future and easy availability of resource for the same, nearly 5000 seeds of drumstick plants have been provided by the district authorities to “Didi Ki Nursery’s” that are run by MNREGA and JIVIKA jointly and are present all throughout the district. The success of this initiative, “The Living Dovetails” will serve as a guiding light for promotion intercropping as a foundation on which better livelihoods of farmers and a healthy ecosystem at large, will prosper.
