Success Stories
Profitable Siruvidaiindigenous chicken rearing
1.Situation analysis/Problem statement:
Virudhunagar district is one of the drought prone areas in Tamil Nadu. Drought vulnerability has been playing havoc in agriculture causing uncertainty in farm production, farm income and livelihood of farmers therein. The unpredictable nature of seasonal variations in farm income has been pushing farmers into non-farm activities. The sustenance of farming in dry lands has become a real-life problem for farmers, mainly small and marginal farmers.
2.Plan, Implement and Support:
Animal husbandry is identified as an area for intervention to develop indigenous chicken rearing as remunerative activity for steady flow of income to dry land small and marginal farmers who have been always facing irregular income from agriculture. Marketing is not a problem for indigenous chicken but the prevalence of indigenous chicken rearing needs to be intervened with technology package so as to make indigenous chicken rearing as a remunerative activity.
KrishiVigyan Kendra Virudhunagar has made intervention in indigenous chicken rearing with technology package.
Indigenous chicken is a name refering to chicken, that are adapted to harsh environmental conditions that include semi-arid, small-scale village, free range and organic production systems. It is known as traditional, scavenging, backyard, village, local or family chicken.
Of the indigenous chicken, Siruvidai is unique variety of country chicken ( naattukozhi in tamil) which is used for meat and egg. Adult male is having the weight of around 1.5 kgs to 1.8 kgs. Adult female weight is in the range of 800 grams – 1.1 kgs. The meat of a semi adult (Vidaikozhi) female or male is very good for cooking and has lot of medicinal values due to grazing herbs and millets in Virudhunagar district.
3.Output:
Interested farmers were identified and given intensive training at different stages in terms of technical know-how of indigenous chicken selection, feeding management, balanced feeding, health caring and time of marketing, management strategies and medical treatments for different seasons. While selecting indigenous chicken, KVK Virudhunagar promoted siruvidai chicken. Siruvidaiadults are laying 130-140 eggs an year. The adult female siruvidai is largely demanded for meat of medicinal values and the adult male siruvidai is being bought at higher price for ceremony of sacrifice to local dieties. The output of this training is the rearing of siruvidai indigenous chicken as environmentally preferable and economically viable
4.Outcome:
One of the beneficiary farmers of the training programmesTmt. M. Selvameenal, who has been a successful indigenous chicken rearing women farmer, plays important role in horizantal spread of indigenous chicken rearing as a sustainable livelihood activity in neighbourhood areas. Initially she had started her indigenous chicken rearing activity with one single hen (that is the Mother Hen held by the women farmer in the second plate) and now has been maintaining 400 indigenous chicken birds round the year with selling 75 native chicken in every three months. She has been sharing her knowledge on indigenous chicken rearing with other farmers who wish to start indigenous chicken rearing. By her motivation, farmers from her region have come forward to start the same business of siruvidaiindigenous chicken rearing.
5.Impact:
5.a. Economic gains:
The indigenous chicken bird rearing women farmer Tmt. M. Selvameenal has been earning net income of Rs. 1,80,000 per annum by selling around 300 chicken birds and 3000 chicken eggs per annum. On an average, KVK intervention strategy has enabled her to earn Rs.15000 per month in dry land region where seasonal income from monsoon agriculture is a meager to sustain her livelihood.
5.b. Employment generation:
The indigenous chicken rearing farmer has created self employment for herself and indigenous chicken rearing has indeed a blessing in disguise for resource poor women farmer. The income generation out of indigenous chicken rearing has attracted several farmers as her followers to start indigenous chicken rearing. Viewed thus, Virudhunagar KVK has developed indigenous chicken rearing as a self-help programme for ensuring social and nutritional security of rural small and marginal farmers in drylands.
Profitable Mushroom cultivation
1.Situation analysis/Problem statement:
Virudhunagar district is one of the backward districts in Tamil Nadu. It is a dry land region. Agriculture is the livelihood of people living therein. The agriculture of this region is unique in the sense that crops are mostly grown under rainfed conditions. This region receives usually rain largely from the onset of north-east monsoon with erratic behavior which affects level and spread of rainfall distribution. In other words, agriculture in Virudhunagar district is more susceptible to vagaries of monsoon. That is why, this region is known as dryland and hence the agriculture is dryland agriculture. The unpredictable nature of seasonal variations in farm income has been pushing farmers into non-farm activities.
2.Plan, Implement and Support:
Thiru.P.Ramalingam was leading a simple life as land less farmer in Kariapatti block, Virudhunagar district until 2016. During the year 2014, he attended one day paid training at Regional Research Station, TNAU, Aruppukottai, Virudhunagar district. He started to cultivate milky mushroom during 2016 with his family members. He faced lot of problems while cultivation milky mushroom. He switched over from milky mushroom to oyster mushroom cultivation during 2017. Again he faced lot of technical problems in oyster mushroom cultivation. Finally, he approached Dr.K.Manonmani, SMS (Plant Pathology), KrishiVigyan Kendra (KVK), Aruppukottai, Virudhunagar district for technical advisories. With the intervention of KVK Virudhunagar, he has been now cultivating oyster mushroom cultivation in a profitable way.
3.Output:
| New practice | Technical package of high pressure boiler to remove infections in the straw, timer to control the heat and humidity and mist fogger and humidifier to increase humidity in the Oyster mushroom shed was introduced. |
| Previous Practice | Steaming the straw in hopper is a time taken process. Spraying water all the time (include night time) to maintain temperature and air humidity is prerequisite. |
| Since how long has farmer been using this new practice | June 2017 onwards |
|
High pressure boiler to remove infections in the straw |
|
| Humidifier to increase humidity |
|
| Mist fogger to control the heat and moisture of the air at all time (day and night) |
|
| Timer to control the heat |  |
Interested farmers were identified and given intensive training at different stages in terms of oyster mushroom cultivation technical know-howfor different seasons and marketing strategies as well as value addition of oyster mushroom.
4.Outcome:
With intervention of KVK Virudhunagar, a landless farmer with an entrepreneurial interest has been become a successful mushroom cultivator with new technical package. A production of 15-25 kg per day mushroom is being maintained. His net income rose up and his monthly profit on an average is around Rs.40000/-. KVK Virudhunagar has engaged KVK trained mushroom cultivator as trainer of trainees for 50 aspirtion villages under KrishiKalyanAbhiyan Phase I and Phase II.
5.Impact:
KVK intervention at ensuring constant flow of revenue from oyster mushroom cultivation to the land farmer with an interest in entrepreneurial activity is worth to mention as impact of KVK activity on the lives of commons. Mr.P.Ramalingam has been harvesting, on an average, 15kg/day of oyster mushroom. The monthly net profit earned from oyster mushroom cultivation is around Rs.40000/-.
Qualitative Impact:
| Impact on Yield | Increased production, good quality mushroom, and increased life span of the mushroom have been seen as visible impacts |
| Impact on Cost of Cultivation | Cost of high pressure boiler is 50% lower than Autoclave. |
| Otheradvantages | This method reduces human work load and working time. Use of high pressure boiler to remove infection on straw does not require the chemical usage like pharmaline and fungicide and hence this method gives natural tasty mushrooms. |
The introduction of new technical package for oyster mushroom cultivation has enhanced production of oyster mushroom with an increase in cost of cultivation. But the yield of oyster mushroom has tripled as seen in following table.
| Crop | Cost of cultivation
(Rs.) |
Yield
(Kg) |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Previous year
(2017) |
Current year
(2018) |
Previous year
(2017) |
Current year
(2018) |
|
| Mushroom | 91250 | 219000 | 1825 | 5475 |
Horizontal spread:
KVK Virudhunagar has conducted intensive training on new technology practices in mushroom cultivation as an effort of horizontal spread. In the year 2018-19, KVK Virudhunagar has given trainings on mushroom cultivation practices in 50 aspiration villages of Virudhunagar district under KrishiKalyanAbhiyan Phase I and Phase II and other KVK mushroom related trainings for which KVK trained oyster mushroom cultivator Mr.P. Ramalingam was engaged as resource person.
| Numberoffarmersfollowed&implementedthesenewpractices | 10 Mushroom farmers |
KKA Phase II Launched at Virudhunagar on 2nd October 2018
World Women’s Day Mushroom Training Program Virudhunagar Collector Office
Mushroom Training to Woman’s Self-help Group at KVK Aruppukotai on 23.02.2019
VALUE ADDITION ENTERPRISE: A Successful Rural Entrepreneur
1.Situation analysis/Problem statement:
Virudhunagar is one of the drought vulnerable districts in Tamil Nadu. The vagaries of monsoon continue to govern the rain fed agriculture and hence cause fluctuations in income of the farmers in the district. The drought vulnerability often plays a major role in determining the production of minor millets and arid zone fruits in Virudhunagar district. Most of the farmers are selling their fruits immediately after harvest at lower price in the field itself. The rain-fed farmers were given capacity building training in value addition of fruit products under hand on training programme.
2.Plan, Implement and Support:
KVK Virudhunagar organized training programme to equip the participants with the required skills of processing arid zone fruits and create awareness about the nutritional and health benefits of value addition process. Interested people from Viruthunagar district were selected for the training through media advertisement on the first come first serve basis. Under this training programme, the trainees were given trainings on post harvest technology handling, post harvest technology and value added products preparation using arid zone fruits such as amla, andsapota etc.
3.Output:
The KVK training on post harvest technology and value added products has inspired one of the participants Mr.N.V.R.S.Navirajan to take up value additions of Amla such as varieties of Amla Candy with honey and different flavors of AmlaSubari. The KVK training has helped preparing the amla candy and amlasubari in an pollution free environment as they are eatables. He has been successfully created a market niche for his amla products. He has been marketing his amla products with his own brand in and around Virudhunagar district.
- Honey AmlaPreparation
- AmlaSubari Preparation
4.Outcome:
Arid zone fruit growing farmers, SHG members and unemployed rural youths who participated in the value addition training programme, played their part in disseminating the skill of entrepreneurship and marketability in arid zone fruits post harvest technology and value addition process among fellow farmers, rural self help groups and aspiring unemployed rural youth. Many of the farmers, SHG members and rural youths are trying their endeavor to initiate their own enterprise for adding more values to farm produce and more income to rainfed farmers.Mr.N.V.R.S.Navirajan has become one of the KVK trainees as successful entrepreneur. KVK Virudhunagar has been engaging Mr.N.V.R.S.Navirajan as resource person for the training programs on post harvest technology and value added products at KVK, Virudhunagardistict.
5.Impact:
The training programme has a profound influence on the participants as seen from the fact that one of the participants Mr.N.V.R.S.Navirajan, basically a goldsmith by profession from Aruppukottai has started his own business based on the value addition of amla. He has become an entrepreneur of producing amla value added products such as amla juice, honey amla and amlasupari. Recently, he is producing notable quantity of amla products and lot of demands is also available for his products in certain areas of Virudhunagar district. He has created a market niche for his products and now he is planning to expand his business to other areas of Virudhunagar district.
The arid zone fruit growing farmers, women SHG members and rural youths are showing lot of interest for taking up these venture of value added products of arid zone fruits as these fruits are available at lower price in glut especially during seasonal period. This enterprise has lot of potential for self employment in Virudhunagar district. Some of the unemployed rural youths who are living nearby villages are also planned to take up this business enterprise for their source of revenue. This will generate more employment, more than ever among millets growing farmers of Virudhunagar district. This type of business will ensure good returns to the arid zone fruit growers and employment to rural youth hitherto unemployed.