Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh

Vegetables and fruits are perhaps the most vulnerable to pests and therefore large amounts of pesticides are used to protect them. These pesticides enter the food chain and cause a variety of diseases including cancer.

To educate and train the farmers in environmentally friendly methods of farming, a first-of-its-kind outlet has opened at the Ozone Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) in Maholi block of Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh. Known as the ‘IPM Brand Shop’, this is the state’s first such mart.

Integrated Pest Management, commonly known as IPM, includes ways to protect the fruits and vegetables without the use of pesticides. It is an environmentally friendly and common sense approach to controlling pests with the minimal use of pesticides and only if required.  

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Sitapur’s department of agriculture has been educating the farmers about IPM but they were unable to find the tools at a one-stop-shop to put the methods to practice. “That is why we encouraged the FPO to open the outlet, which has been met with a lot of success,” Daya S Srivastava, head of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Katiya, told Gaon Connection. This Krishi Vigyan Kendra provides support and technical know-how to the Ozone FPO and other farmers in the area.

The IPM outlet at the FPO was inaugurated on August 13, by DS Chauhan, chief general manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

“The preponderance of pests especially in vegetable cultivation forces farmers to use chemical pesticides that are harmful not just to the soil, but also to human health,” Chauhan, pointed out. But, adopting integrated pest management will control and reduce the harm, he added. It will also save farmers money, he assured.

The IPM mart will keep all the IPM recommended pest control measures such as the fruit fly trap, solar trap, light trap, sticky trap, and so on.

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Reducing pesticides use

According to the department of agriculture, Sitapur, the Masjid Bazaar area in Maholi block is the hub of vegetable cultivation with nearly 500 hectares of land devoted to it.

“The highest quantity of pesticides in the district is used in the Masjid Bazaar area,” informed Srivastava. According to him in 2013-14, the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Katiya had conducted a survey which revealed that there was a proliferation of nematode worms in the area that damaged the vegetables.

“Farmers use all kinds of chemical pesticides to prevent this and as a result the yield decreases while the cost of farming increases,” Srivastava pointed out. “But, we have begun demonstration and training workshops for farmers in IPM systems and it has been well received,” he added.  

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“A single fruit fly is capable of destroying forty watermelons,” pointed out Vinod Maurya, director of the Ozone FPO. Imagine how much havoc hundreds and thousands of such flies can cause, he said. This was the reason farmers used a lot of pesticides for which they spent thousands of rupees, and sometimes even that does not prevent an entire crop from being infested, he said.

“Eight hundred farmers are associated with this (Ozone) FPO, and most of them grow vegetables,” Vikas Tomar, the in-charge of the Ozone FPO, told Gaon Connection. The farmers must be trained in methods of agriculture that are sustainable and environment friendly and IPM along with traditional pest control measures will ensure they become more empowered and self-reliant, Tomar said. Adopting the IPM system will also prove beneficial to health and make the produce chemical-free, he reiterated.

The National Integrated Pest Management Center, in New Delhi, which comes under the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), is enabling the implementation of the IPM system of the farmers in Sitapur through the Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Katiya.

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Ever since they have adopted IPM methods, Srivastava said, the farmers have saved up to Rs 25,000 per acre per year as the pests have been brought under control without using expensive chemicals and pesticides.

IPM ambassadors

Vinod Maurya, director of the Ozone FPO, where the first IPM mart has come up, runs a chilli nursery in his village Allipur. After the launch of the one-stop-shop on August 13, NABARD’s general manager Chauhan visited Maurya’s nursery as well as several other villages in Sitapur district and met the farmers.

The NABARD representative also distributed several IPM recommended traps to 30 progressive farmers who were ambassadors of the IPM system at Vikrampur village at an event organised there.

“Three villages in Maholi block, Vikrampur, Rajpur and Bhagwanpur, were selected by the National Integrated Pest Management project, and ten farmers from each of them were appointed IPM ambassadors,” Srivastava informed Gaon Connection. IPM recommended tools to control pests were distributed free to them, he added.

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These ambassadors will spread awareness about the benefits to the environment by using methods advocated by IPM amongst other farmers. “Once we see how this initiative of appointing ambassadors and adopting IPM methods pans out, we will extend our programmes to other parts of the district too,” Srivastava said.

According to Tomar, the problem of sourcing IPM agri inputs will no longer be there now as the outlet at Ozone FPO will stock them, and the farmers can easily get them.

Maurya explained that a fruit fly trap costs no more than seventy rupees, but can take care of the menace effectively and economically.

“The IPM recommended traps are also beneficial to those farmers who also rear fish along with vegetable cultivation,” Tomar explained. The insects and worms are stuck to the traps and they are used by the farmer as fish feed,” he explained.

According to Maurya, the farmer members of the Ozone FPO were on a drive to reduce the use of pesticides in cultivation. “Our aim is to grow vegetables organically that we can process as well as export to European countries,” he added.

Read the story in Hindi.