Please Support Our New Mini Integrated Farming Project in Faridkot, Punjab
Punjab Agricultural Rejuvenation Initiative (PAGRI) has helping small and landless farmers with very low incomes in Faridkot, Punjab. We are distributing desi chickens to these farmers to raise, testing soil to advise farmers on the specific fertilizers to use, and providing training to farmers on organic kitchen gardens to grow healthy food for their own families - all saving costs.
- We have two very dynamic sevadars, Manjit Singh and Jaspal Singh, who have been distributing 1,000 desi chickens (Rhode Island Red variety) to the farmers to raise for eggs, as well as providing training.
- We are helping more than 300 farmers with organic kitchen gardens by giving them free seed kits and instructions. These farmers and their families can now eat clean, healthy food.
- We are also providing them training on planting fruit trees and vermicomposting.
These projects are financially helping a lot of landless and small farmers and with support from donors, we will be growing these projects.
The Problems
Small and landless farmers have been suffering with very low incomes. At the same time, they are caught in the wheat-rice trap with conventional “green revolution” agriculture. Also, because of the big use of chemical fungicides, pesticides and herbicides the food they eat is often not healthy.
So, What is PAGRI Doing?
PAGRI has taken up the challenge of increasing the income of these farmers by various mini-projects that help both landless and small land holding farmers. The second part is to reduce the costs of their conventional agriculture methods by use of less chemicals, which are expensive. The third part is to transition them to more organic and integrated farming. The fourth part is to increase their income by better marketing of their fresh produce, as well as their processed food.
Our Approach
We are excited to inform you that in Faridkot, Punjab we have added this project to mainly help landless farmers and laborers increase their incomes. We have started by procuring 1,000 baby desi chickens of the RIR (Rhode Island Red) variety from the Punjab Agricultural University and these have been distributed to farmers based on the condition and capacity of their "Khuddas" or small enclosures to look after the baby chickens. These were distributed to various farmers in July and by November 2023, the farmers will start having an income as these chickens will start laying desi chicken eggs, which are in higher demand.
Then this new project has initiated a very extensive program of soil testing, the results of which will be used to advise farmers, so they only apply the fertilizer they actually need - hence saving them money. These soil testing results have already been used to do this.
Next, the farmers are being helped with organic kitchen gardens to make sure that they grow good, healthy and clean food for their own families - this will also save them money. Seed packages for these vegetables have been distributed for free to these farmers, along with training on how to grow these crops organically.
More Specifics
This project is being headed up by an expert farmer named Manjit Singh with a very able assistant named Jaspal Singh. They hold regular early morning farmers meetings and have expanded their activities to several villages.
Manjit has cooperated with Jaspal Singh in registering farmers, holding farmers meetings, creating posters and flyers as needed, and producing T-shirts and jackets with Pagri logo. He has also cooperated with Jaspal in providing relief activities to farmers such as flood relief, fodder and medical camps, after the catastrophic floods that hit Punjab in July-August 2023. Help expanding their dairy farming and then starting a new activity with goats are also being considered. The two of them will continue to implement the approach as described above and expand it as needed.
