Kanchanpurwa village is located in Firozpur Makhdoomi gram panchayat in Rudauli block of Ayodhya district, Uttar Pradesh. The village has 400 people in 55 households. The majority of the village inhabitants are small and marginal farmers who practise traditional agriculture. Villagers mainly depend on agriculture and daily wage labour for their livelihood.
They practice traditional farming and are involved in cereals, pulses and paddy cultivation. SST is intervening in the region with an aim to improve the standard of living of these people through sustainable agriculture and women empowerment.
A village-level meeting was conducted to discuss the economic status of the resident’s agriculture practices. A farmer’s group was formed in the village, and a farmer’s school was set up. Village level Kisan Goshthies were organized to create awareness on SRI. Farmers of this group were convened to promote sustainable agriculture in the village. This was followed by a village-level training programme on the system of rice intensification (SRI) for paddy cultivation. Farmers agreed to adopt SRI for paddy cultivation this year following a training programme. Lakshmi Narayan is one of them.
He developed nursery beds to raise the seedlings, which he then transferred to the main field after 12 – 14 days. Next, he planted seedlings with 10 x 10 inches spacing on the main field.
Lakshmi observed that an increase in spacing led to the growth of weeds during the initial days, but incidences of pests and diseases reduced. He did weeding twice using cono weeders. As a result, each plant produces around 35-40 tillers. To increase the fertility of the land, jeevamrit (a mixture of cow dung, cow urine, jaggery, clay and water) was spread in the main field.
Lakshmi Narayan has 3.5 bighas of land, and he cultivated paddy using SRI in 3 bighas of land. In the traditional method, each plant produces around 15-20 tillers. Because of the SRI method, this year, paddy production has increased to 9 quintals per bigha from 4 quintals per bigha.