In the direction of soil moisture, water conservation and climate change, SIDHA with the support from NABARD has been working on watershed development in the six villages of Markaccho block in Koderma district. The six villages namely Kadodih, Telodih, Naitand, Nawada, Rajaraidih and Gadi are commonly known as MaaCholkho watershed.
Villagers whose primary occupation is agriculture, have been given training and seeds are provided from time to time in order to make them self-reliant.
One such farmer, SukhdevMahto from Kadodih says, “Mera mukhya vyavsay saag, sabji evam kheti utpadan hai. Jalchajan dwara prashikshan ke baad rabi evam kharif dono ki kheti technical dhang se karta hu jisse mujhe kafi fayda ho rha hai.” (“My primary occupation is vegetable cultivation and agriculture production. The training received from the watershed proje
ct has been beneficial for me in using technical methods for producing both Kharif and Rabi crops.”)
He goes on to say that before he used to sow kharif season crops like bottleguard, bitterguard, tomato, lady’sfinger, watermelon, cucumber etc in about 10 kattha(0.4 acre) of land but after receiving seeds from Cholkho watershed committee, he is able to sow seeds in about 25 kattha(1 acre) of land with the help of jeevamitraghol and compost gadhakhad. This provided him a good amount of produce. As a result, his weekly income has bounced from Rs. 700 to Rs. 2000-2500. He happily says that his earnings are used for incurring household expenses as well on education of his children. “My earnings from Rabi season crops have increased too”, says SukhdevMahto with joy and pride explaining earlier he used to sell about 10 quintals of rice and now he sells about 20-25 quintals.
But the major reason for a happy smile on his face is that even during the lockdown when the sale of vegetables and groceries have been affected in large, he is able to sell his vegetables in the nearby villages in his bicycle.
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