Cynical Farmer Turned Pragmatic

Sehgal Foundation started work with farmer Ayub Khan of village Goela, in August, 2003. Ayub had been growing vegetables since many years and being an open-minded farmer he already knew about some good agronomic practices like use of raised bed, nursery, intercropping with single crop and growing off-season vegetables, but was following these to a limited extent by trial and error.

He was eager to test the suggestions made by Sehgal Foundation in quarter acre of is 5 acre farm, as demonstrations to convince himself before up-scaling any new practices. Using the technical advice from the Sehgal Foundation, he got a 25% increase in income from this plot. When scaled up to the rest of his field this will be a significant increase in income. Sehgal Foundation's intervention has been in terms of training at every stage of growing a crop from seed to market including land preparation, irrigation, inter-cultivation practices (weeding, hoeing), storage, keeping quality etc. Ayub has benefited most by his learning and success in inter-cropping. He has become pragmatic and joins in all the trainings.

Ayub Khan joined the "Fruit & Vegetable Farmers' Association" of Goela and has availed the following benefits:

  • Use of the Association's bed-maker, which he had not used earlier.
  • He used to buy any seeds, fertilizer and pesticides recommended by the local dealer. Now he is trained in selecting good quality agri-inputs and studying their performance more scientifically in the field, so that every season he can make informed choices.
  • Earlier he used to only grow some radish in-between the main vegetable. Now he has been introduced to systematic mixed cropping and he has seen the commercial value addition through inter-cropping. He has learnt about inter-crop combinations for different seasons. Also these combinations cause less disease and pest attack on the main crop. For example: Brinjal-Dhania-Sauf cause less insect attack on brinjal, the combination of cauliflower-chilli-okra-cabbage reduce aphid attack etc.
  • Earlier, he would just try growing any vegetable in the off-season. Now he is trained by experts in off-season vegetable growing.
  • He has changed his crop profile to suit a captive buyer for the first time, in this case Mother Dairy. He gets a good price from the captive buyer and is covered from market fluctuations to a greater extent.

For further information please contact:

The Sehgal Foundation
Dr. (Ms) Ellora Mubashir;
289, Sector 17A,
Gurgaon, Haryana-122001, India

Tel: +91-124-4744100
Fax: +91-124-4744123
Email: veena.sehgal@smsfoundation.org
Website: www.smsfoundation.org