CREATE has played a strong role in enhancing the livelihood of farmers. One such initiative is the SFURTI initiative, which was initiated in the two villages of Baraulia and Hariharpur in the Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh.
The focus areas of the intervention are: Educating and building the capacities of the local farmers to enable them to grow high return crops and learn about new farming techniques; Collectivizing farmers to benefit from scale and joint mechanisms of production, processing and forward linkages to leverage better profits from farming; Improving the returns from livelihood for the local farmers and also erstwhile artisans by linking them to profit making initiative of cultivating medicinal plants; Creating and handing over to farmers an infrastructure for processing of crops to enhance their marketability; also ensuring sustainability through handing over such a crucial unit to farmers’ collectives.
Farmer clusters were formed based on the medicinal plant that they want to cultivate. The farmers were asked to give in their names for the crops/plants that they would like to cultivate after they were sensitized with the pre-requisites for each crop. A recce of their land was done by experts to ascertain the condition of the land and soil before finalizing on plantation. Soil testing was done. Only after due diligence, quality seeds were sourced from reliable sources, such as CIMAP, Tata Trust backed clusters and recognized practitioners, and were provided to the farmers.
Sowing of medicinal plants such as Mint, Coriander, Lemon Grass, Turmeric, Vetiver, Basil, Menthe and Drumstick were initiated in a planned and systematic manner. A standard package of practice was established for each crop with the help of senior scientists and experienced practitioners.
As a result of CREATE’s efforts, today approximately 654 farmers are linked with this initiative and benefitting from it either directly or indirectly. The Common Facility Centres are a platform for the farmers to directly sell their crops to the buyers, thus increasing profitability for the farmers. These Centres are also providing opportunity for employment to 50 farmers. This is now working as a sustainable model by creating the ‘Pavni’ brand of spices, which is selling in these localities and generating income for the stakeholders.
