Socio-economic background:

Mr. DasharathiSahoo, aged 52 years, is a farmer from Arachua village in Dhenkanal district. He owns a 4 hectare land where he primarily grows rice in the Kharif and pulses & vegetables in the Rabi season, using traditional farming practices. Following the unexpected demise of his father, Mr. Sahoo took on the sole responsibility of supporting his family and started farming activities with enthusiasm, as it was his only source of income. However, the profits generated were inadequate to meet the needs of his family of five members in terms of health, education, and overall livelihood.

Identified Climate Challenge & Impact on agriculture:

In Arachua village climate vulnerability like delayed onset & quick withdrawal of monsoon, unseasonal rainfall, early & mid-season drought are the major problems. Rice is the dominant crop in this village and most of the farmers go for rice cultivation in kharif Season. Farmers in the village normally grow long duration local rice varieties (130-140 days), which regularly experience moisture stress and are prone to more disease and pest problem during various growth stages of the crop. Due to water stress in the vegetative as well as reproductive stage, the yield of the rice gets drastically reduced for which farmers face problems and get poor yield.

After Intervention of KVK under NICRA-TDC Project:

During the year 2021-22 Arachua village was adopted by KVK, Dhenkanal under NICRA-TDC Project. After adoption various climate resilient practices were introduced like demonstration on Natural Resource Management, stress tolerant high yielding crops & vegetable varieties & livestock production. Capacity building & skill training programmes were conducted for farmers, farm women & rural youth on summer vegetable cultivation, micro irrigation, scientific mushroom cultivation and backyard poultry rearing. Mr. Sahoo actively participated in all the mentioned programmes.

During 2023-24 Sri.Sahoo was recognized as an adopter of farm technologies through demonstration &training programmes organized by NICRA-TDC Project, KVK, Dhenkanal. Under the guidance of KVK scientists, he successfully integrated various technologies into his farming practice.Along with rice he integrated finger millet, intercropping of seasonal vegetables in cashew & mango orchard, offseason vegetable cultivation like tomato and cauliflower in his field. Moreover his keen interest in farm machineries and implements like power weeder, power tiller, rice mill & pulse thresher made him adopt farm mechanization in his field for efficient farming.

He is actively involved in cultivating drought tolerant Rice variety “SwarnaShreya”& “SwarnaSamriddhiDhan”, drought tolerant ragi variety “Arjun”,MYMV tolerant Black gram variety “IPU-11-02” under Rice-fallow management, cultivation of stress tolerant high yielding Cowpea variety "KashiKanchan" resistant to golden mosaic virus and Pseudocerosoporacuenta., Triple disease resistant Tomato variety "ArkaSamrat" and cultivation of high yielding cabbage variety Pusa Drumhead tolerant to black leg disease.

After completing a capacity building training programme on backyard poultry rearing and micro irrigation system for fruits and vegetables, he decided to start his own venture on back yard poultry rearing with capacity of 150 nos. of bird. Now he is a happy and booming farmer of the district. With help of KVK under NiCRA- TDC Project he excavated a farm pond which he is utilizing for irrigation purpose in rice and vegetables during water stress period and practicing Pisciculture in Kharif for additional income.

Intervention Adopted:

• Vegetable cultivation with drip irrigation system.
• Ridge and furrow method of planting of vegetables.
• Vegetable cultivation with mulching.
• Vegetable cultivation using harvested water from farm pond

Cost Economics:

He could able to fetch net profit of Rs. 3,67,000/- from his 4 ha of land annually.As a small farmer he becomes a role model for all the farming community of Arachua and nearby villages of Gondia block. He has also taken some leased land for further enhancing the farming activities. He was identified as very progressive and receptive farmer who could mobilize the beneficiaries for systematic and scientific cultivation by his own interest.

Motivated by Mr. Sahoo example, nearly 30 farmers from his village and about 20 farmers from neighboring villages have adopted the innovative technologies promoted by KVK, Dhenkanal under the NICRA-TDC Project.