Tribal farmers of Gorubathan block of Kalimpong district were dependent on seasonal farming for livelihood but now they have yearlong sustainability, thanks to the WADI program implemented by Anugyalaya Darjeeling Diocese Social Service Society (ADDSSS) with the support of Caritas India and NABARD.

As many as 500 farmers from 21 villages under 3 Gram Panchayats of Kalimpong Block-III of Kalimpong district of West Bengal were given Kiwi, Mandarin orange and Allahabad Safeda as core fruit-giving plants.

Earlier, they were not able to meet their basic needs due to a lack of scientific agriculture knowledge and dependency on seasonal farming.

The program facilitated the formation of 21 village planning Committees (VPCs) in five GPs. The VPC trained the farmers on organic fertilizer making, planting of core plants and Chilli, Tomato, Broccoli, Lemon, Nakima, Bagaina, Arjuna, Amala etc as intercropping and border plants.

Subhas Tamang, one among the 200 smallholders from the Nim GPs under TDF-Wadi-42 produced ‘KIWI’ for the first time in the Gorubathan, Kalimpong district.

“I was terribly low financially due to continuous loss of agriculture produce (cardamom) because of some disease. Lost my hope and thought of doing something else but could not find any way out. WADI project gave me the confidence to bounce back better, I can achieve what I wanted,” says Mr. Subhas.

The program supported Subash with 30 Kiwi, 30 Guava, 30 Chilli, 200gm Beans, 50 Tomato, 50 Broccoli, 100 Border plants, 58kgs fertilizer, 20ml pesticide, pipes and other important materials. Being a very good learner and a hard-working person, he got a 100% growth rate of the Core plants.

He is now a very successful farmer, a promising beneficiary of TDF Wadi-42. Now he is an expert in doing inter-cropping and cross-cropping. With the use of Biovita (Organic Fertilizer), he is able to change the growth rate of fruit-bearing plants given to him. He explains with joy and with a certain sense of positive pride as to how he was able to save plants that were about to die. The dying plants have grown up to 5 feet of height. He is also the leader of his VPC and is always ready to share his experience and knowledge with other farmers. He sends video messages to all the VPCs members explaining various problem-solving measures.

He has become a motivational factor in his VPC and also in other VPCs. He not only received trainings from the expert resource persons who were brought by the organization but also become a trainer himself. He claims to have earned between 1 lakh to 1.5 lakhs per annum from the sale of vegetables grown along with the core crops. Since he takes care of the orchard very well, the kiwi plants in his orchard have started fruiting since last year. The mandarin orange may take another 3-4 years to give fruit, but they are already promising. Guava plants in his orchard have started fruiting.

The intervention funded by NABARD and Caritas India has made him a trained person and committed to agriculture and self-reliance. This has attracted the attention of the agriculture department which supplied seeds of various kinds of vegetables, pulses and spices to him. Agriculture department has come to his rescue by providing ploughing machine at subsided rate.

In future, the VPC would like to continue their farming of Kiwi, mandarin orange and guava and follow the footsteps of Subash Tamang. They have now constituted the Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) at the Block level. They plan to register their FPO and take all the implied benefits. They plan to collect all the fruits from all VPCs and sell them in huge quantities directly for better pricing.

“Learnt to dream big, thanks to Caritas India, NABARD and Anugalaya. Now, my duty is to share the knowledge and skill with 500 small farmers,” says Subhas Tamang with gratitude and humility.