Livelihood for 5000 Indian women by horticulture.
Summary
Jana Kalyan Pratishthan (JKP) plans to create livelihood for poor rural 5000 women in Odisha, India by enabling organic cultivation of selected vegetables, fruits, medicinal plants and mushrooms. This will cover capital support such as providing seeds and saplings, skill development in productivity enhancing techniques like for example, vermi-compost. Also there will be establishment of direct linkages for getting maximum market value of produce.
Challenge
Gajapati is a district in Odisha, India with socio-economically backward rural people majorly dependent on agriculture and allied activities for income. The returns in this sector have been low, due to deprivation of modern and quality methods of cultivation along with compromised bargaining power. Women, a crucial but devalued part of households are aimed to be empowered by skill, capital and market support in horticulture to improve their living standards and sustain it in near future.
Solution
By providing quality seeds and sapling kit of vegetables, fruits, medicinal plants, mushrooms for organic cultivation along with drip-irrigation. Demonstrations and training in skilled methods of cultivation, use of bio-fertilizers, vermi-compost, pest management, packing of produce. Facilitating direct linkages and transport systems of produce with markets, agro-processing and pharmaceutical industry to enable more profits.
Long-Term Impact
This project will enable 5000 women to produce high yielding and value produce. Continuing returns will allow them to invest higher subsequently and thereby alleviate poverty. Knowledge of methods like vermi-compost production will enable to take it further as separate income generation activity. There are also selected non-hybrid varieties and species of medicinal plants, such that will allow propagation and replication by these women and sustain this intervention for future.
Additional Documentation
This project has provided additional documentation in a XLSX file (projdoc.xlsx).
