Six bio-input production centres, run by thirty women

A farmer who wants to move off chemical fertiliser has to get the alternative from somewhere. If the nearest supplier of bio-inputs is a district away, the intention does not survive the first busy season.

Six production centres now operate across the five Una villages, run by thirty women, five to a centre. Each has a permanent shed and a vermicompost unit. The women trained at the College of Natural Farming and at KVK Amreli.

The centres sell into their own villages, which does two things at once: it puts the input within walking distance of the field it is meant for, and it gives thirty women an income from something the village needs anyway.

The clearest evidence that it works is not our figure. Other farmers in the same villages have asked to set up centres of their own.

Elsewhere in the same programme this year, 350 farmers applied gypsum — most of them for the first time — across roughly 0.40 hectare each, and 290 took up integrated pest and nutrient management practice, mainly in cotton.