Campaign for Relay cropping

The State of West Bengal in the eastern part of India, bordering Bangladesh, is a unique example where rice is cultivated in all the three seasons viz., summer, autumn and winter. The State has to feed almost 70 million people with the support of only 5.8 million hectares of cultivable land. Since independence the state has, therefore, had to resort to more areas under rice than for other crops, especially pulses, the productivity of which are comparatively low. At present the area under rice occupies about 66 percent of the total gross cropped area, which is about 9.24 million hectares with an average cropping intensity of 171 percent. The total area under pulses has diminished gradually every year from 582,000 ha during 1957-58 to 242,000 ha during 2002-03. It is a general practice of the farmers of this region to sow various winter pulse crops like lentil (Lens culinaris L.), mustard (BRASICCA COMPESTRISS), lathyrus (Lathyrus sativus L.), chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and pea (Pisum sativum), wheat (Triticum aestivum ) etc, in the standing rice crop field, just before the harvest to ensure germination using the residual moisture and to avoid tillage operations during pulse growing. Such a relay cropping operation (known by the terms utera or paira) is very popular for growing lathyrus.

Advantages:

1. Getting one time more production, suitable for mono cropped zones( like Sundarban regions ).

2. No plowing required. Save a lot of money.

3. Less amount of water is needed, environment friendly farming technique.
4. Increase soil fertility through nitrosamines bacteria.

Disadvantages:
1. Required 20% more seeds than usual.
2. As the plants grow zigzag, sometimes need more labour.
3. In some areas of sundarban it failed as there was no scope for irrigation and there was no rain from Sept-march.

Swanirvar’s achievements:
From 2006, we are campaigning for relay cropping in the five blocks of North 24 Parganas. Our year wise achievements are as follows,
Year        Bigha        No. of Farmers

2006       4000             3500

2007       4500             3700

2008       4900             4200

2009       5800             4800

‘Production of some vegetables with little care’- a case story

Nirmal Sarkar is one of our most successful organic farmers and one of the key campaigners of Sustainable agriculture in Baduria Block. He has10 cutta organic vegetable plots adjacent to his house and he and his wife Usha Sarkar look after these. He got a number of trainings from Swanirvar and he had successfully implemented these concepts in his field. He also has a small vegetable shop in the local market. His vegetables are very popular and customers are ready to pay higher prices for his products.
In 2008, he attended in a workshop on ‘production of some vegetables with little care’ – organized by Swanirvar and after that he made a trial plots with 200 sq ft areas adjacent to his vegetable plots.
He planted Black colocasia, Indian Spinach, colocasis root, bitter gourd and green Amaranth in his plot. In 2009, he got a good return from his field. He also got vegetables in March-April ( in dry season) and realized that to produce these vegetable a little care was enough but he got a good return out of these. His trial plot had inspired a number of farmers in Baduria and Swarupnagar Blocks.  His expenditure and income statements are given below.
Expenditure:
Black colocasia seeds 20 kg -                   140.00
colocasis root seeds 6 kg                            84.00
Indian Spinach seeds                                    2.00
bitter gourd seeds                                         5.00
2 labour                                                    160.00
Vermicompost & Ash 17 kg                       85.00
Misc                                                           50.00
……………………………………………………………………………………..
TOTAL                                                     526.00

Income :
Black colocasia 110 kg -                           1280.00
colocasis root 20 kg                                     320.00
Indian Spinach 30kg                                     240.00
bitter gourd 5 kg                                           185.00
Green Amaranth                                             30.00
……………………………………………………………………………………..
TOTAL                                                        2655.00
Net Profit : Rs. 2129.00