The first time Shankar Singh learned about farming without chemicals in one of the SAFBIN program meetings. He was surprised that farming can also be done without chemicals.

“I sometimes used to spray very high doses of chemical pesticides to control the effect of insects and pest attack”, says Shankar. He is one of the marginalised farmers of the village and cultivates kodo, kutki, paddy and maize in his 2 acres of land. Due to a single cropping pattern in the area he had no other option in Rabi season than to migrate for survival.

Shankar Singh joined SAFBIN Smallholder Farmers Collective (SHFC) to gain knowledge about Non-conventional farming, integrated farming system, organic manure, and organic toxins. He was unaware of the value-added mechanism of cow urine and cow dung. His crops and vegetables were susceptible to insects and pests, but he did not know how to prevent his crops and vegetables from pest attack.

Shankar started following the SAFBIN guideline given by the Village Research Person. He was supported to reconstruct cowshed aided by Caritas India (SAFBIN) together with Jabalpur diocesan Social Service Society to get enough cow-dung and urine. As a result, he had enough resources to collect it in a drum for making organic pesticides.

Now he prepares matka khad, dashparni and lamit ark apart from beejamrat and jeevamrat and uses these botanicals in his field to improve the plant nutrition. He also started vegetable cultivation through nutritional kitchen garden in his backyard and applied integrated nutrient & pest management as per the guidelines are given by SAFBIN programme. He has grown potato, tomato, brinjal, ladyfinger, cauliflower, chilies, guards and other vegetables.

The learnings from the programme helped him to treat the soil and seeds with the help of Jeevamrat and Beejamrat at the time of sowing and after the sprouting use Dashparni ark and after 15 days lamit ark. Shankar Singh has repeatedly done this for his vegetables and crops which gave him a better result. He admits that the use of lamit ark and Dashparni ark helped him to kill the insects and pests. The use of these bio-pesticides minimized the risk of pest attack. His crops and vegetable quality is also much better than before and the production is also increased 5 times.

Earlier, he used to cultivate about 10 kg of vegetables from his field but now he is expecting to get more than 50 kg with improved quality which he can sell in the nearby market. It is just because of the use of practices learned from the SAFBIN programme.

Shankar happily shares that because of SAFBIN programme he learned about integrated pest management he could control pests and insects at very low cost by recycling and reusing farm waste. Through bio pest repellents the farm ecosystem is friendly and the soil health is also improved.