A Shift to Non-Chemical Farming Practices: The Story of Village Govta

[Anonymous]

(Location: Govta village, Mandalgarh, Rajasthan)
Around 25 years ago, the village of Govta underwent a drastic shift in agricultural practices, adopting chemical inputs such as urea, DAP, weedicides and pesticides. This resulted in soils hardening and losing their capacity for moisture retention. As soil health worsened, the farmers’ dependency on chemical
inputs increased, adding to the cost of cultivation each year. FES began engaging in Govta in 2018-19 and initiated discussions around sustainable farming within village institution meetings. This raised people’s awareness around the adverse effects of chemical inputs and motivated them to begin adopting sustainable farming practices.

One of the interventions by the village institution included the making of cemented vermi-beds that cost approximately Rs. 3000 each. In the beginning, farmers showed very little interest in biocompost-making. After exposure visits to Jaipur and KVK Bhilwara, the village institution selected 4-5 farmers to undertake the first round of vermicompost interventions. It was only when these farmers started sharing their experiences with others, that the demand for vermicompost increased. A total of 12 vermi-compost pits were constructed through partnership with FES. Mukesh, the local CRP, is particularly proud of this shift. He has trained farmers in Govta on making vermi-compost and facilitated convergence with the government-run ATMA scheme to get temporary composting structures for another 40 farmers. Farmers now apply vermicompost to wheat and maize crops (a part of their staple diet, stored for year-round consumption), which is the primary source of income in Govta.
It has also led to fall in the cost of inputs. Vermicompost is also an input in cultivating vegetables for self-consumption and fodder for milch animals.

Farmers also sell the compost to other farmers in Govta or in neighbouring villages. In general, people report a better taste in vegetables and cereals following the switch to vermicompost. However, one of the downsides is that crop production drops to about a half of what it is when using urea and DAP. For this reason, farmers normally begin with one or two bighas of land which is reserved for self-consumption.

At present, 50 out of 95 farmers produce and use vermi-compost for about 85 bighas of agricultural land in Govta. Taking this forward, farmers now aspire to make Govta a natural farming practising village and have developed a strategy for cutting all dependency on chemical inputs in a phased manner. For farmers
who do not have the means to do this, the village institution is trying to establish a convergence with ATMA and the Agriculture Department. In addition, farmers plan to propose a structure to accommodate a bigger production unit under MGNREGS, which could be commercialized to meet the compost demands of neighbouring villages too.

(The story is originally a part of a collection of stories emerging from grassroots, Stories of Wellbeing: Documenting Journeys beyond Income, authored by Shivangi Anand and Chitra Sangtani with valuable contribution of Ranjit Mohanty)

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