A small step by Smt. Tobom Basar – a giant leap for district farmers: A success story on livelihood through Vermi-compost production
Oblivious of modern technological advancements, a 35 year old Arts Graduate and a mother of a daughter, Smt. Tobom Basar of Regi village in Basar Circle of West Siang district practiced traditional farming since beginning of her farming profession. She had lots of land, grew paddy, fruit crops and vegetables and worked hard through out the day in her fields. But, the earnings were meagre, not enough to compensate her hard work and inputs. It was a turning point in her life when she incidentally visited the KVK West Siang, explained her problems and sought the help and guidance of the KVK. Experts visited her field and assessed the problems. Her soil was eroded and depleted of the essential nutrients required for better production.
With a mission to enrich her soil with organic source of nutrients and to boost her crop production, Dr. K. Suraj Singh, SMS, Plant Protection, started working on her field. She got training on “Vermi-composting in addition to receiving a HDPE Vermi bed from KVK West Siang. The KVK provided earthworm (Eudrilus eugeniae) and vermin bed free of cost as initial help. The process of vermi-composting was explained and demonstrated to her on her field supported by frequent visits of expert to her farm.Now, with in a short period of time she is a well trained vermi-compost producer in the village. She puts pre-digested material from her garden waste and organic waste from her kitchen, which would otherwise throw in the past in the garbage bin. She has 5 cattle. From her cow shed she gets enough cow dung for vermi-compost production. This season, she produced 120 kg of vermi-compost from 1st batch and 150 kg from 2nd batch on 6th March from her vermi-compost unit. Harvested vermi-compost is being used for 155 orange tree, several flowers pots and vegetable field in her Farm. She is selling excess production of compost to the neighbouring farmers @ Rs. 30/kg. She is happy and thankful to KVK West Siang and specially Dr. K.Siraj Singh.
“It is a small step of Mrs. Basar with the help of KVK West Siang. I wish it proves a giant leap for the farmers of West Siang district in future in the direction of making our state fully organic’, replies Dr. Chitrangad Singh Raghav, the Head of KVK Team, to the question of its future.
