Success Story: Food Security and Organic Farming among Hostel Children

Our Vegetable garden is a source of tasty and healthy vegetables and an inspiration for our neighbours” testifies the children from St. Francis of Assisi Boarding Rangjuli, Goalpara As part of the project implementation, vegetables such as Cabbage, Cauliflower, Tomato, Bottle gourd, Pumpkin, Seem, Bitter gourd, Cucumber, Radish, Knol khol, Spinach (Palak), Dhania, Loofa, Bean, Potato, Onion, Chilly , Brinjal, Lady finger etc were cultivated following natural farming methods and consumed by the children during their daily meals. They have stopped purchasing many of the above vegetables since the sufficient quantity is available in the garden. In the winter season, they could harvest more than 4 quintal of tomatoes and sold 398 Kgs in the market and earned Rs 3980 /- at Rs 10/kg. The vegetable garden is becoming a source of inspiration for the neighbouring villagers to grow chemical free vegetables at their households. Moreover the hostel children get the opportunity to learn about the farming operations and enjoy home grown vegetables at the meals.

Sponsor: Kindermissionswerk, Germany

Success story: SRI paddy cultivation in Baksa District

The project on the Promotion of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) intervention was undertaken in Tamulpur Block of Baksa District with the support of National Agriculture Bank for Rural Development (NABARD) in 2014- 15. GGSS had successfully implemented the project with the aim of motivating the farmers to adopt the SRI method in paddy cultivation. Various trainings cum field demonstrations were conducted through the application of proper package of practices. The main objective of the intervention was to help the farmers to increase the production which would in turn generate additional income; thereby propagate and encourage more and more farmers to adopt SRI method of cultivation in water scarce areas/seasons. As per the project schedule, Guwahati Gana Seva Society identified 196 farmers in 7 villages under the Tamulpur Block and conducted series of Farmers Training Camp cum Demonstrations on SRI method in the villages with the help of experts from Dept. of Agriculture and field staff of District Agriculture Office, Baksa. As a whole, the project has made an impact in the project villages and the neighboring villages motivating not just the project beneficiaries but also the other farmers to go for the SRI method of paddy cultivation in the coming years at a larger scale

Sponsor: NABARD