Doubling farm income through seed production in participatory mode 

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Shri Tankeswar Das is a marginal farmer of Madhupur village, Diglipur Tehsil, North and Middle Andaman and has about 1.5 acres of cultivated land. He is enthusiastic, hard working farmer and associated with farmer’s participatory seed production program under AICRP on Seed (Crop) project since 2014. After taking training on seed production from ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair, initially he started with rice seed production and subsequently he also taken up pulses seed production after seeing profit in seed business. He usually cultivates rice crop in Kharif and black gram and green gram in Rabi season. Till date he has produced about 97.68 q TFL seed of rice and 5.27 q seed of pulses and earned about ₹ 2.6 lakhs from seed business alone. His farm income has been increased about 40% after adopting seed production programme. He has not only supplied quality seed to ICAR-CIARI but also to the neighboring farmers of North and Middle Andaman on nominal price.

TECHNOLOGY INTERVENTIONS

Scientists of ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair have provided all technical support on seed production in rice and pulses including management practices viz., roguing, maintenance of isolation distance and seed processing techniques. Seed production fields are regularly visited by technical experts to maintain the physical and genetic purity of seed. Breeder seed of rice and pulses were supplied for TFL seed production from time to time.

IMPACT / OUTCOME OF TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION

After adopting seed production of high yielding varieties of rice and pulses and technical support of the ICAR-CIARI, the farm income has been increased about 40% from ₹ 60,752/- to ₹ 1,02,752/- per annum.

INCOME GENERATION

He is selling TFL seed of rice @25/kg and Pulses @100/kg and has earned about ₹2.6 Lakhs from seed business.

WAY FORWARD

He is happy with technical support and guidance received from the ICAR-CIARI and willing to continue seed business in future.

Contributors : P K Singh, R K Gautam, S K Zamir Ahmed, K Venkatesan and E B Chakurkar