Three years ago, Dhonesh was working as a labourer on people’s farms in the village dreaming of cultivating his agricultural land which was uncultivable due to wetland conditions. Dhonesh resides in Banchukamari village, West Bengal with his family. He owns the land but unfortunately due to the low land area, the rainwater accumulates making it uncultivable. Many a time he tried cultivating the land but suffered heavy losses.

In 2021, he again planted bitter gourd and other crops on his farm, but the crop got destroyed due to heavy rain, pest infestation and diseases. Dhonesh was unaware of the new pest infestation and disease management practices.

According to the FAO report, annually 40 per cent of global crop production is lost to pests . Each year, plant diseases cost the global economy over $220 billion, and invasive insects at least $70 billion. Climate change has impacted crops and posed an increasing threat to food security and the environment. The pests are adapting and spreading easily due to the warmer climate. Smallholders, whose livelihoods rely on plant health are largely affected by this phenomenon.

Caritas India through its climate adaptive agriculture and food sovereignty programmes are supporting smallholder farmers by capacitating them on adaptive farming and techniques to cope with climate change. The U3 programmes supported by Misereor – known as Uttoran in West Bengal, played a major role in bringing change to the farming families. With its focus on uplifting the farmers to adopt the traditional farming techniques and helping the farmers to grow a quality crop, the programme also helps the farmers to access various Government entitlements, and schemes through lobbying, networking, and close collaboration with the government departments.

Dhonesh and his wife have attended one of the live demonstration training on Good Microbial Practices, Integrated Nutrient Management, and Integrated Pest Management organized under U3 programme partner Jalpaiguri Seva Sadan (JSSS) in May 2022. After the training in common sharing, Dhonesh shared his ordeal as how he suffered a loss of Rs. 4000-5000/- due to a lack of knowledge and poor management skills. The JSSS team discussed and suggested a few practical solutions for his problem.

Following the suggestion and advice of the JSSS partner, he initially levelled the land with soil which finally sorted the problem of water accumulation. He also constructed a trellis, a traditional mechanism solution with the help of bamboos and planted different types of vegetables. He repeated the same crop from the seeds collected from the neighbouring village Foskadanga. This time, with the instructions and he started farming on his half-bigha land. He has invested around Rs. 3000 to 4000 on bamboo, labour expenses 10 insect filaments and boundary nets to protect from wild animals.

Secondly, he prepared the good microbes using the 5 materials composition, which were neem leaves, Chickpea flour, cow dung, cow urine and jaggery which were easily available in the village and local marketplace.

This time when he planted the vegetable crops, he sprayed the GMP to control pests, besides that, he placed 10 insect repellent traps to control the pest which is damaging the vegetables. He realized that the plants are healthier than the last year, he understood that the vegetables are growing well this year, he became more alert & applied the traditional practices, and after 50 days, his first plucking of bitter gourd weight of 10kgs, bottle gourd 20 piece and 7kgs of snake gourd fetched Rs 1400 in the local market and soon after the second harvest he earned Rs. 1800. Now he always tried to sell in the local market so he can get the fair price. For 60 days, the plants were still yielding fruits and continued till July 2022. By the end of July month, he had earned more than Rs. 10,000.

After this successful production, the villagers acknowledged his hard work and patience. Now they want to learn this technique too. The revival of Dhonesh Oraon inspired more farmers, more and more farmers are expressing their desires for organic farming to get better production and income.