Update on distribution of seeds for backyard farming: Facebook style

We have not been giving you updates for long. We were actually waiting for the distribution of seeds to be completed. It is going to be completed by today. It may be recalled that PAKT had provided training to farmers of the five villages (Chargheri, Santigachhi, Lahiripur, Porosmoni & Bidhan Colony) for alternative vegetable farming in their backyards. Now we are backing it up by providing seeds to these farmers at heavily discounted prices.

This is what I wrote in a friend's facebook page, and I hope pasting it in a blog for your updation does the job for the time being.

"We have distributed seeds to 600 farmer families in Sunderbans for backyard farming to help them get over the mental block that their salinated lands are no good for farming and those are (reportedly) yielding good results. This proves to them that at least their backyards are back to fertility.
Next step: we plan to help a sample of 20 farmers to grow rice in salinated water logged paddy fields. Aim is to see that all farmers in these villages see the results and get over the same block for their paddy fields. If these bear crop in a couple of months, these can help prove to us - and more importantly to them - that they have hope for next rice season."

The number of families supported is actually 575 as per counting during today's final phase of seed distribution; we found that the number of seed packets were a little lesser than estimated.
Sandeepan will soon come up with a more detailed update on the seed distribution for backyard farming.

Still a Lot is Needed

Many times we repeated in our blogs that certain constructive initiatives by the administration could have made things lot easier. The basic two initatives we urged several times are:
i) Pumping out saline water from the low lying agricultural lands
ii) Disbursement of the government approved amount for the reconstruction of the destroyed houses.
The same view is echoed by a newspaper report, Aila survivors stare at winter without relief in The Telegraph.
The report is based on an area other than Chargheri, in the Sunderbans, but this is a general picture. This is exactly why we had to take up the agricultural training program in Chargheri in a more elaborate way than initially planned. Only aim is to show the villagers a ray of hope that some agriculture is possible here – they can find some livelihood.
But a lot more is to be done to bring them back to their normal agriculture based life.
Any advise, assitance and direct participation will be a big help for us.