As the idea was to pass on the vision to program teams on field, persons of teams on field were asked especially, to attend the workshop as representatives of partner organizations. Besides practitioners, maize scientists and representatives of farmer groups were also part of the workshop discussions.
Workshop Discussions and Outcomes:
Workshops comprehensively discussed findings of recently conducted ‘Gap Analysis (on local maize cultivation practice) study and major constrains those culminate into low productions and low productivity of maize in Central Indian tribal belt. Maize scenario in Central India Tribal areas, was presented in detail by CInI. Experience of national and international research institutions were also shared. The efforts of second day especially focused on arriving to a consensus of Vision and Mission of the program and accordingly plan for first season’s pilot phase.
[Details in workshop proceedings in side bar.]
The outcome of workshop, besides vision convergence, was Plan for 2009’s Kharif season. As all the partners agreed that farmers need to be gradually introduced with detailed yet complex techniques, the plan was kept to be modest starting with composite varieties and with few technical interventions.
[Details in workshop proceedings in side bar.]
Seed Procurement:
Post workshop, lot of emphasis was put on timely procurement of seeds for further distribution among the farmers. For it, different universities, state seed corporations, Beej sanghs, research stations, KVKs were contacted. After doing all enquiry and necessary liaison, CInI provided, to its partners, details of contact persons to procure desired seed varieties. Thus procurement was planned in following manner:
GM 6, Narmada Moti, JVM 421 (White Composites) for Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat areas
while Mahi Kanchan (Yellow Composite) and Mahi Dhawal (White Composite) for Rajasthan areas
Micro Plan by Partners:
A micro plan was agreed to be submitted by the all the partners to CInI, to enable it to plan efficiently for monitoring of program. However except SADGURU Dahod, no other team’s plan came. CInI finally decided to discuss micro plan with respective team’s representatives in Service Provider’s training planned in June.
Plan to use Dibblers under Agri Mechanization:
On another side CInI, to pilot sowing by hand dibblers, enquired with Central Institute for Agriculture Engineering (CIAE) for Naveen and Rotary Dibbler. CInI once convinced with their utility and other features, placed order of providing them to KMS in address of NLRI Ratlam by 3rd June 2009.
KMS Theme's presentation in CInI Annual Partners’ Meet:
In the last week of May 2009, KMS presented itself as a theme to address food insufficiency and for making it an additional source of income, by promoting it as a commercial crop, for tribal families. Though a lot of queries came to KMS like, how KMS is visualizing addressing food security and commercial farming together, CInI KMS theme Anchor and KMS Resource person, lucidly clarified doubts. Possibilities of various sectoral engagements were also discussed in presentation.
On Seed Procurement:
ReplyDeleteThough date agreed by partners for seed procurement was latest by 31st May and distribution to be done in next 7 days, but it took so much follow up efforts of CInI to materialize the delaying activities. Each of the partners procured ……………..seeds. SADGURU foundation and GVT were comparatively brisk to procure seeds, well in time. GVT however, did not procure Narmada Moti seeds, telling that they have high confidence on GM6 and JVM 421 and tribals in their areas prefer them only. CInI looked at it as, ‘flexibility’ required to make KMS a participatory program.
PEDO while procuring composite cultivars also procured Hybrid seeds. CInI however told them to keep Hybrid crop fields away from those of composite variety crop, so that non contextual comparison may not be done.