Somia Devi, 46, a resident of Nikaspur village, Morwa block of Samastipur district, Bihar in India, owns a plot of 1 Kattha (1 acre is 22 kattha) were she grows a variety of vegetables. She was dependent on chemical fertilizers like DAP, Khali, Potash and Urea, which used to cost her around Rs. 1,000 – 1,500 per season. Apart from this, she also had to spend on insecticide and pesticide sprays. Despite all this investment, Somia Devi’s land had dry soil, her produce remained of low quality and prone to frequent diseases.
This changed soon after she watched a video about zero investment farming created and disseminated with Digital Green and JEEViKA’s support. The video, screened in her village in April 2015, demonstrated how a farmer could cultivate using organic fertilizers that could be made without extra input costs using materials like cow dung, hay etc. available in her home. Now Somia Devi prepares Ghanjeevamrit (organic fertilizers) for her whole farm and when the vegetables start growing she sprays Agniashtra and Brahmastra (organic pesticides).
She says that the natural method has helped her by reducing input costs of buying chemical fertilizers and pesticides. At present, she has totally stopped use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides in her farm.
In a plot of 1 Kattha, she has planted more than 8 varieties of vegetables, namely Cauliflower, Brinjal, Pointed gourd, Chillies, Turmeric, Bitter gourd, Bottle gourd, Beans etc. She says “Ghanjeevamrit keeps the soil light and helps it retain moisture, which in turn keeps the plants greener and healthier. The vegetables also taste good. I am really glad that I watched the videos on natural farming and have adopted it. Earlier, when I had only heard about this new method, I was quite unsure. I used to wonder if my field would adjust, but now after watching the video and farming by this method, I am very confident and also motivate others to adopt it. It was difficult for me to convince myself before I watched the video.”
Somia Devi is very happy. “The money I save is handy in educating my son,” she shares. She feels proud that women of the village consider her a role model and people come to learn from her.
I really appreciate. I wish and pray in every village Somia Devi former should developed. Please share this video, I would like to watch.
This is Great,.
I am glad to come across this article. And after reading I went to the digitalGREEN website and watched some videos.
Since ancient time India had been home to scientific way of living. Unfortunately in our hurry to copy the western lifestyle we are forgetting our very own and most sustainable techniques of ancient living.
The initiative taken by JEEVIKA along with digital green is worth applauding. This is high time to revive the old and natural style of farming. The awareness about soil nutrition is very important which many of our poor farmers do not get to know about. As a result they fall pray to the lure of quick bumper crop and buy harmful chemicals and pesticides, which in the long run ruin their land and pollute everything.
Now that I live in an western country and see how people are paying the price of modern lifestyle in form of complicated health conditions I am appreciative of our old simple way of living, more than ever.
What I like most about these videos is the fact that the messages are simple and easily understandable by the targeted audience. Keep up the good work.
Zero Investment Farming, this sounds great. In this era of advancements, the basic concept of organic farming is lost and the use of unnecessary insecticide and pesticide sprays has somewhere affected the soil quality and nutrition. Overall, the Zero Investment Farming should be adopted by the others in order to yield the healthy and better quality crops without the use of any other costly methods.
I also read some research papers to know about the ways to yield the crops more organically, without the use of any fungicides and found this research paper that is based on a really unique concept and could lead to the better advancement in the field of agriculture:
http://bit.ly/1QUVzxQ