I am Samari Khilla. I belong to Phuladhaba village of Semiliguda Block of Koraput District. As this village is around 20km away from Semiliguda and lack of road connectivity, we didn’t have any intervention on agriculture by the Agriculture Department. I have only two-acre of farming land and have four members to feed. We only hardly get opportunities of taking hybrid varieties from Block office. I have nothing to say to my husband but only to obey him in our agriculture field. but, I have changed my family socio-economic conditions
__Samari Khilla
Since the last three year, I am being
involved with RESMISA research work. DHAN staffs especially Suku Sir taught me
how to layout the plot and grow small millets. It was interesting for me to
compare different varieties of finger millet as well as little millet side by
side. In the first year, I grew an improved variety called Champabati. When there
was a failure of other local varieties at my village, I had a good crop. There was
less rainfall in our area but I did not have any negative impact on my crop and
could able to sell around 200kg to the programme. Moreover, I kept around 200kg
for my own consumption.
In the second year, I had two
trials for Mandia (Ragi) and Alasi (niger). I grew 10 varieties of
ragi as well as 7 varieties of niger. I could see the difference between the
different varietal characters of ten varieties as well as could know about the
performance. I preferred Bhairabi varieties to grow for ragi and Deomali
variety for growing niger for the next season. With the help of RESMISA team, I
visited Berhmapur research institute as well as Vizianagar research institute
in order to know the better package of practices for cultivating small millets.
In this year, I am involved in many activities. I have grown Kala Suan (little millet) in four types of plots with different quantity of seeds as well as line sowing method. I have also grown GPU-66 variety as well as Kala Suan with the support of RESMISA project. All the crops have grown very well and I expect more yield this year. In order to have better yield, I had also made earthen bund in my farming land. Moreover, my group has got Rs.10, 000/- from RESMISA project for carrying out agriculture activities especially small millets. This amount helped us to purchase seed and fertilizer for our crop. Now, we are getting high yield from our land and hence, there is no shortage of food.
Under RESMISA project, we had
organized recipe training for preparing millet recipe. There was a large number
of participants from our village. All people learnt about Ragi Laddu, Ragi
Voda, Ragi Murruku, niger masala, Ragi Pokoda, green leaf chatni, Little millet
Uppmma, Ragi Dosa, Foxtail millet Khir, Horsegram and black gram Voda etc. I am
not the only woman who got more benefits but the project has benefited my
village. Now, all are doing their agriculture work not formal way but with a more intensive way of research. This has built all farmers’ capacity like a researcher in their own field. Now, agriculture research comes in handy for me
and for my villager.
