Women Farmers of Koraput Make Brinjal Cultivation Profitable

Women Farmers of Koraput Make Brinjal Cultivation Profitable

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Jani Nayak, Namita Pujari and Sunita Pujari are breaking new grounds. The three women farmers have learnt brinjal grafting, implemented it in their field and are earning better profits and have reduced their input costs.

This is unique because farmers in tribal pockets like Koraput had never experimented with brinjal grafting in the past. In fact the seedlings of the grafted brinjal was available only in neighbouring Chhattisgarh.

Jani, Namita and Sunita live in Sundhiput, a remote village of Semiliguda block in Koraput district. The village is agro-biodiversity rich; farmers here grow a range of vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, ginger, chili, onion, garlic, mustard, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, and yam. Though agricultural practices are comparatively better than neighbouring villages, it is still not at par with improved  farming techniques. The garden land (or the land allocated for vegetable cultivation) of the village gets water from a stream in the nearby forest; this is brought by gravity irrigation through small cement channels. There are three open well and two lift irrigation units for supplementary irrigation.

Though Sundhiput village is well regarded as a good farming village, there are challenges it faces especially during the rainy and summer seasons. Over the years, water scarcity during summers has become more severe; the cost of irrigation keeps mounting the production costs. The soil condition in these parts is not conducive for vegetable cultivation during the rainy season. The biggest problem is however, the low price of vegetables in winters which is actually the best  season for vegetable cultivation.

Oxfam India partnered with WORD, a Koraput-based NGO, and with support of Sita Devi Malhotra Charitable (SDMC) Trust initiated development work in Sundhiput in 2021. After thorough concept seeding, a Women Farmer Producer Group (WFPG) was formed with 48 members. Over the next few months, when the project started showing positive results, four more members joined the group. Regular group meetings and awareness programmes created an atmosphere of mutual help and trust. The farmers—members of the group—began discussions on various issues and collectively finding out the solutions.

As part of the project, several interventions were made to make farming easier and profitable for the farmers. Treadle pumps were provided to supplement irrigation during water scarcity. It also helped in saving the additional cost of fuel. The farmers were provided with input support  worth Rs 16,000 and this included procuring vegetable seeds. This was done to motivate them to take up improved agricultural practices.

Though the women farmers avoided (paying) middlemen by selling their produce in the weekly markets of Semiliguda and Mathalput directly, they were still vulnerable to distress sales owing to a large supply of vegetables from neighbouring villages and state. In order to solve this problem, a market-driven crop planning was done in the village which encouraged them to take up new crops like broccoli and upscale mixed cropping.

Unique among all this is the grafting of brinjal by members. Not only did it make brinjal cultivation much more profitable, it also addressed the issue of climate change, non-conducive soil texture for transplanting, and frequent market price fluctuation.

Brinjal grafting was a new concept in these parts and no one had tried it in Koraput. Jani Nayak’s family became the first to try grafting in the winter of 2021. They grew 100 plants in the first year and fairly successfully. This encouraged Namita and Sunita pujari too to take the plunge. They successfully grafted about 500 plants for their own use in 2022-23. The survival/successful grafting rate is about 40% to 50% of the total grafting.

The farmers collect seeds of a specific wild brinjal species that grows in and around Semiliguda. The preferred season to do this is the end of rainy season and winters. They prepare rootstock by raising a nursery of the wild species first. After 15 to 20 days, they raise a nursery of another suitable variety—this year they selected ‘Blue Star’. 45 days after planting the wild variety, they do budding of scion (high yielding variety) in the root stock (wild species of brinjal plant). After that they maintain it for one month and then transplant it. Plant to plant spacing is four or six feet which depends on the soil quality and decision of the farmer. Though drip irrigation and plastic mulching is preferred for better production in these techniques, the women farmer here grow the grafted brinjals without these.

Comparative cost of production in about 10 cent land (Sundhiput-2022-23)

NB: Since gravity irrigation is available in the particular land, only the labour cost of irrigation is calculated. Similarly, the cost of seedling here is not the the market price, it is the cost incurred by members while producing it themselves. 

How does it benefit the farmers

If we analyse the total cost, the cost of grafted brinjal cultivation is almost half if the seedlings are produced by the farmers. Yield of high yielding brinjal in the same area is about three to five quintals in very conducive conditions. Jani Nayak harvested over 12 quintals of grafted brinjal in three months between January and March. They expect harvest for nine more months and about 50 quintals in total. This is 10 times more than the high yielding brinjal variety.

It also benefits the farmer as (a) it ensures higher income to the farmers for as they are better yielding and less prone to diseases; (b) it encourages conservation of promising native species by increasing the productivity and competing with other hybrid varieties available in the market; (c) since it is grown in winter and the plant is mature in rainy season, it survives and produces brinjal during rainy season which was difficult in common brinjal plants; (d) more brinjal is produced over a longer period of time and so there is a better chance of getting stable and reasonable price; and, (e) it helps in making the WFPG self-sufficient, increasing its volume of business, and benefitting all members directly or indirectly.

Going forward, with support from SDMC Trust, one demonstration unit is planned in this village which will have a poly house and a shed net to support this initiative. The farmers and the project team is in search of promising varieties for a participatory varietal selection process in the demonstration centres and select the most suitable variety that can be made available to farmers’ at their doorstep. The farmers are happy with the results and the demand for grafted brinjal seedlings is increasing day by day. The women farmers are now planning to do this commercially through their Women Farmer Producer Organisations (WFPOs)—Dhartani Women Farmers Producer Company Limited, Semiliguda and DeoPuk Mahila Agro Producer Company Limited, Pottangi.

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