“I do not need to go and work as a daily labourer now in road construction site my WADI is promising, and it will give me good income soon,” says Sarala Tamang a WADI farmer from Village Mondal gaon of block Gorubathan.

Sarala and her family used to do Cardamom cultivation as a cash crop since 2014. The cardamom plants were affected by a new disease in the area and they faced had a great loss for three consecutive years till 2017…  She along with the people of her village joined as a labourer on the road constructions site as a daily labourer as they had no other option.

Due to the drastic fall in income from cardamom production, she could earn only enough for their bare living.  During this crisis period, the partner Anugyalaya along with CARITAS INDIA and NABARD West Bengal came up with the idea of having WADIs for tribal farmers in the area. After few rounds of village meeting and setting up of the WADI committee she could realize the importance of having an integrated WADI orchard with fruit crops of Kiwi, orange and Guava which could give a sustainable income to her family.

She got very much inspired and became a WADI farmer.  She got training about Kiwi farming from NABARD and CARITAS INDIA through facilitation support from the Anugyalaya team.

She took up a combination of Kiwi and guava for her 1 acre of land in 2017 and established the orchard fully in 2019. Kiwi was a new fruit crop in her area, so she helped other farmers too and motivated them to establish their orchards. She gradually became an active member of the WADI committee too for the mandalgaon village.

Since the fruit trees take time to give fruits for at least 3-4 years, she started intercropping of vegetables proactively according to the seasons in between her orchard crops. She supplies products from her own kitchen garden to the local market without the middleman.

With a shift in approach, she adopted better practices at every stage- right from land preparation, selection of good seasonal vegetable seeds, use of organic fertilizers, liquid manure, and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques to manage her vegetable crops.

She has been an inspiration to many of her village women and SHGs. She started sharing her knowledge with women groups and also supplies vegetable seedlings to them.

The Kiwi and Guava have been the alternative fruit cash crops to the people of Mandol goan now through support from the WADI program. She expects an income of Rs. 75000-80000 from Kiwi from 2021 onwards and also Rs. 45000-60000 from Guava.  Apart from the same, she has earned an income of Rs. 15800 during 2018-19 from the surplus vegetable selling from her garden.