Sustainable Agriculture & Environment Conservation
SPPD has been actively promoting the Methods of Organic Farming and Environment Conservation among the marginal and small farmers who form the vast majority of the rural population here to make Agriculture as Sustainable.
Problems faced by the farmers:
To address these issues SPPD has developed the following:
Livestock Rearing - Important supplementary income for farmers.
A combined fodder crop/livestock farming system for increased income and sustainability is being promoted.
There has always been acute shortage of green fodder for cattle due to climate change induced unprecedented prolonged drought conditions here for almost 9 months of the year except during the short rainy season. Hence SPPD has been focussing on propagating Ensilaging in a big way for Cattle Rearing, in particular Rearing Milch Animal and Goat Rearing among the small and marginal farmers for whom the source from Cattle rearing provides the very important supplement income.
Tree-planting is encouraged by SPPD widely to induce appropriate micro-climate in the crop area and provide fodder for livestock as well as supplementary income from the sale of timber in the long run.
Farmers’ Producer Companies
One of the latest of Farmer centric initiatives of SPPD the Self Help Groups of farmers are confederated in to federations. The federations formed with our facilitation have planned to establish the Farmers’ Producer Companies (FPC). A few of the salient features of FPC are elimination of middle men in marketing their produce and sharing of profits from the value addition to their produce on a large scale through collective efforts.
The functions of the Farmer Producer Companies will be the following.