Team News Riveting
Korba, February 26
Tucked away unobtrusively in a densely forested pocket of Korba district in Chhattisgarh, farmers in Navapara under Kartala development block have set a precedent for strengthening rural economy and value addition to originate income from oil.
The oilseeds that they took as part of a diversified crop is creating a good source of income. For, the villagers with the help of a local Non-Government Organisation (NGO) Gram Bartori Vikas evem Shikshan Samiti (GBVSS) have set up an oil processing machine provided by Delhi-based Environics Trust.
“Seeing the dedication and efforts of the farmers, Environics came forward and provided the machine to GBVSS,” Laxmi Chouhan and Vasu Pokhriyal, associated with the Trust, said. The unit facilitate extracting over a dozen oilseeds that include groundnuts, mustard, sesame, kosam, dori, sarai, coconut, sunflower, alsi, and almonds, they said, adding that the salient feature of the unit is that the temperature during extraction is less than 46 degrees, aiding to preserve nutrition.
The capacity of the unit is 20 kg per batch and oil extraction from a single batch completes in one to one-and-a-half hours.
This convergence model was started in block Kartala in the year 2011 in 40 villages. In the starting phase, many rounds of thorough discussions were held with tribal BPL families of the villages. In the process of motivating the tribal BPL families, these families were taken to other blocks to show the villages/agricultural fields (Vadis) where Convergence Model had
already been implemented in previous years and to meet and know the experiences of other tribal BPL families.
These exercises (discussions and exposure visits) had a positive impact and tribal families started coming in front to be a part of the Convergence Model initiated by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). Daleshwar Kashyap of GBVSS said more and more villages had joined the league; the latest include Navapara, Botli, Nondarha, Chapa and Nonbirra.
The farmers were earlier selling the raw oilseeds to the traders. Now, with the value addition, oil is offering them a better dividend for the yield.
