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| PTD GINGER IN SIKKIM |
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Introduction
Indo Swiss Project Support (ISPS) is the project support office for the bilateral project
between Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and Government of Sikkim, which is implemented by
Inter-cooperation (IC) of Switzerland. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers of Sikkim through natural resource management.
Sikkim
Sikkim is located in North-East India in the Himalayas and is surrounded by Nepal in
the west, Tibet in the North and Bhutan in the East. Majority of the northern
part of Sikkim is under snow all throughout the year and only the southern parts of Sikkim
has cultivable lands. Only about 16% of the total land surface is available for cultivation due to
steep mountains and forests. Sikkim has a mixed ethnic population of Tibetan and Nepali
origins. Ginger is one of the important cash crop of small and marginal farmers and therefore, ISPS has given focus to improvement of Ginger in Sikkim.
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Ginger Research
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ISPS supports Department of Horticulture (DOH) in Sikkim for Ginger cultivation. Ginger
production has been severely affected by diseases and soil degradation. From 1996 to 2002, ISPS supported research on Ginger with the help of National and International Scientists together with the DOH. Valuable experience was gained during the research program in tackling
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fungal and bacterial disease and healthy seed production and monitoring. The focus of the research was to identify
disease causing pathogens and develop technologies which could be useful for the small and marginal farmers. ISPS recognized the need for testing the technologies and initiated Adaptive Research and Demonstration (ARD) programme during the period 1999 to 2002. While it provided space for testing technology with farmer, it was not sufficient to bring about change at field level and the gap between technology development and adoption still remained. In
Participatory Technology Development (PTD) approach, an alternative research and extension methodology was available which had the potential to systematically involve farmers in research and build their capacities to tackle the problems in ginger rather than simply adopting technology.
Participatory Technology Development (PTD) in Ginger
ETC India, having experience in developing the PTD approach and experience in
implementing in various parts of India with a diverse groups of farmers and crops, was invited to increase farmer’s involvement in the research and develop capacities of farmers in testing, developing and adopting promising technologies. ETC India designed the Participatory Technology Development (PTD) project, which is being implemented by the DOH in Sikkim since 2002.
The
PTD process
implemented in Sikkim and the results
is described in the text below.
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Preparatory Training
In August 2002, PTD concept was introduced to ten officials of the DOH from four districts of
Sikkim in a training organized by ETC India at Bangalore in order to prepare for implementation of PTD in ginger in Sikkim. An exposure to other PTD areas in South India was also organized for them to
understand the role of social organization and linkage with scientific institutions. In September 2002, a training was conducted at Gangtok for the DOH field staff
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and newly selected NGO staff to introduce the steps in PTD
and initiate implementation of PTD. Social organizers and farmers were selected in the five villages where PTD was to be implemented.
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Implementing PTD
Social organization did not exist in the selected villages in
Sikkim like in South India, wherein SHGs are very common. Although
cultural and sports club were common, only a few SHGs formed by
Government Department like Forest or Rural development could be
found. Therefore, along side the PTD process, formation of SHG and
strengthening them was also undertaken. Organizing farmers into a
SHG of 12 to 20 members is crucial for PTD process so that farmers
can conduct experiments in a group, discuss the status and results
on a periodic basis, avail loan from SHG for timely input
application and operations and learn from experiments. At least
four farmers conduct the same experiments for better validation
and achieve replication of experiments for this purpose.
The project provided a grant @ of Rs 1,000/- per farmer to each
group so that farmers can take loan for timely purchase of inputs
and operations. Apart from this, some equipments required for
conducting experiments like Drums for hot water were thermometers
were provided.
The social organizer (S.O.) who represents the local NGO is a link
between the DOH and the farmers. The S.O. helps in organizing
farmers in SHGs, conducting farmer meeting and implementing the
steps in PTD. The DOH provides technical backstopping to PTD in
providing the necessary technical training on ginger cultivation
and management of disease and soil. A technical support team (TST)
consisting of international and national scientists was formed to
provide technical backstopping to the project to bring in research
ideas for ginger, develop technical production manual and
strengthen linkage with other research institutes in India,
especially in the Himalayan region. The role of ETC India is to
develop the PTD concept and provide backstopping support on a
regular basis to the PTD programme implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of the process.
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Management Structure
A management structure and framework was put in place for timely decision making and smooth implementation of the PTD process. NGOs act as intermediary between the farmers and the DOH. Every month a District PTD management meeting is conducted wherein the district DOH staff, S.O. and NGO staff meet to review and plan the PTD process. Every quarter, a state level PTD management is conducted chaired by the project coordinator (Additional Director of Horticulture) wherein the Joint Directors and Deputy Directors of horticulture Department and ISPS participate.
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Problem Analysis in Ginger Cultivation and Basket of Options
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Between November 2002 and March 2003, farmers in each SHG analyzed problems with ginger cultivation which was facilitated using PRA methods like historical time line and seasonality.
The production declined from the early 1990s due to diseases like soft rot, dry rot and bacterial wilt and decline in soil
productivity owing to erosion and soil fertility.
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The farmers measure production in Kg rhizome
planted: Kg rhizome harvested. The decline in
production was from 1:15 to 1:3 to 6. Each
farmer in the group prioritized problems in ginger cultivation, which was facilitated with the help of problem matrix ranking.
This exercise was repeated in all the PTD groups.
All the three villages in East District in the PTD
programme had disease and soil productivity as the
major problems. The intensity of different disease
varied from village to village which was expressed
in the problem matrix ranking exercise.
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Ginger
Multi-Stakeholders Platform
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The problem analysis of ginger cultivation was presented at the four day long Ginger Platform meeting consisting of farmers, DOH, Scientists from the region, IISR
and abroad and ISPS and ETC India. The scientists
and experts clarified many technical issues and
disease symptoms. It was clear that farmers were
not able to distinguish between various diseases.
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The
scientists and DOH experts gave potential solution
for the problems presented by the farmers. This
basket of options was later presented to the
farmers and the farmers selected options based on
their priority problem. A very basic experimental
design (farmers’ own practice plot and an
experimental plot) taking care of minimizing the
variability between the plots was implemented. |
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Record Keeping and Data Processing |
Each farmer keeps record of the activities in each of the PTD ginger plots. The farmers who are not able to write take the help of S.O. and later their school going children for keeping the records. They meet every fortnight in the group and share their observation and experience with the PTD process and ginger.
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Farmers
also record qualitative observations pertaining to
disease incidence, plant growth and health during the
growing season and at the time of harvest.
The S.O. collects these records from farmers and organize them into the data collection formats specially
developed for this
purpose with their participation. The S.O. then provide these data to the DOH
for entering into the computer.
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Data processing and analysis was a difficult task in the beginning for the S.O. and the farmers and hence ETC India supported in data analysis and recording observations. |
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Monitoring and Evaluation
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The monitoring of the PTD process is done by the farmers at their level through fortnightly meetings and visits to each others' plots. This ensures that every farmer is adhering to the process of experimentation and keeping adequate records and observations which are
required for validating the experiments. The Horticulture Inspectors
visit the farmer groups on a weekly to fortnightly basis and provide
any coordination or technical support and also monitor the progress.
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ISPS
and ETC provided overall programme monitoring support. ETC India conducted workshops with farmer representatives, S.O.s, DOH staff and ISPS once in three months. This helped in correcting the process where necessary and bring focus in PTD implementation.
Evaluation is very crucial in a PTD process. The PTD process, experimental design and technologies tested by the farmers were evaluated in a participatory manner at farmer group level;
With representatives of farmers, S.O. and DOH staff at district level and with Scientists, DOH, NGO, farmers, ISPS and ETC at the State level annually. This state level evaluation happens during the end of January every year.
The basket of options is updated, experiment
design is fine tuned, more farmers are added to
the PTD programme and scaling up plan developed
based on these evaluations. This process is
reported after every yearly PTD cycle.
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Up-scaling PTD Process and promising
technologies.
The farmers in the neighbouring village had been
observing the PTD process; frequent visits from
DOH, scientists and experts and the knowledge and
capacity building of the PTD farmers and
improvement in ginger cultivation. The farmers
from these villages came forward to join the PTD
process. In the second year (2004), 5 more farmer
groups joined and in the third year (2005), 7
farmer groups joined the PTD programme making it a
total of 17 PTD SHG groups in the East and South
districts of Sikkim.
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In the second and third
year, focus was given to include more women in the
programme. Out of the 17 SHG groups, 3 are women SHGs.
Due to logistics constraints, DOH decided not to
expand the programme in other districts and
concentrate all the efforts in the same districts. A
Ginger production manual has been prepared to help in
technology up-scaling. Farmers in the village and
surrounding villages have adopted technologies from
the PTD process. |
| Results 1. Ginger
Cultivation
In East District,
bacterial wilt and soft rot has been observed in all
the nine villages in the PTD programme. Dry rot is a
problem in two of the villages. The plots affected by
bacterial wilt were completely wiped out. Bleaching
powder could not control or check the spread of
bacterial wilt. Despite this, farmers continued to
participate in the programme as they were learning
from other farmers' results. There were indication
that some farmers who had applied thick mulch had less
disease. In the second year, the scientists gave
further options to try out for the control of
Bacterial wilt like Bio-fumigation (incorporating
brassica leaves 5 kg/Sq.mt.), thick mulch of local
plants, identifying the symptoms early and proper
rouging of bacterial wilt and drenching of diluted cow
urine. A special mid-term ginger platform was
organized in June 2004 to enable the farmers to
identify early symptoms and rouge the plants.
Bio-fumigation could not be practiced by farmers due
to non-availability of sufficient quantities of
brassica leaves and moreover, the farmers consume
brassica leaves of plants like radish and mustard. The
farmers in one of the village (Aho), tried out various
concentration of cow urine and without rouging, which
gave promising results for the farmers.
In South district,
bacterial wilt is not a problem. However, soft rot and
dry rot are major problems.
Soft rot was controlled
with the help of Dithane M-45. Second year onwards,
the farmers adopted organic methods to control
diseases since the Sikkim Govt. adopted organic
policy. Thick mulching with local plants with
medicinal properties seem to be providing control of
soft rot. The third year results are awaited to
confirm the results.
Dry rot was very well
controlled by Hot Water Treatment of rhizome before
planting. This technology has been adopted widely by
the farmers in and around the PTD villages. The main
thing farmers had to learn was to keep the temperature
(51o C for 10 minutes). This required
farmers to control the fire and check the temperature
with a thermometer. Some farmers in the first year
tried dipping their finger to gauge the temperature
and ended up boiling the ginger rhizome resulting into
no germination! All the farmers learnt from this
experience. An alternative to a normal glass
thermometer has not yet been found. A metal probe was
tried out in the third year instead of a glass
thermometer which is prone to breakage.
Nutrient management
package (FYM=200 kg + SSP=2.5 kg + 15-15-15 mixed
fertilizer 2.5 kg 30 days after planting + 15-15-15
fertilizer 2.5 kg at the time of extraction of mother
rhizome for 40 kg of seed planted) was effective in
increasing the yields. Second year onwards, chemical
fertilizers was replaced by rock phosphate or bone
meal, bio-fertilizers and ash. There has been mixed
results of organic nutrient management. Nutrient
release pattern needs to be studied and results should
be evaluated in longer time frame.
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Ginger yield increased
from 1:3 to 1:6 to 10 in the plots which were
relatively free of diseases. Farmers who got high
yields adopted all the management practices like
selection of healthy seeds, planting on raised beds,
good drainage, thick mulching and appropriate nutrient
management and maintaining hygienic conditions in the
fields to avoid diseases.
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With an investment of Rs
1,000/- per farmer as grant and technical and process
support for a period of three years, each farmer in
one of the groups in the most degraded lands in Makha
has earned Rs 50,090/- from the increase in yield and
good quality ginger. Similarly, the other farmers in
other groups located on better cultivable lands has
earned an additional income of Rs 20,000/-. All this
additional income is from planting 40 kg seed, which
is an investment of Rs 800/- in good quality seeds.
The other input and labour costs amounts to Rs 400 per
40 kg seed.
2. Empowerment of farmers
The mechanism of
conducting systematic comparison of technologies with
their own practice and subsequently making careful and
meaningful observations increased the research
mentality of farmers. Farmers suggested their own
options for controlling diseases like soft rot. In
south district, in Bikmat, some farmers added Lime to
Hot Water. This was debated at the Ginger platform
with Scientists and experts trying to give a logical
explanation. Lime alters the pH, which may be a
contributing factor for reducing the soft rot fungus.
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In another case in East district,
farmers in Aho tried out drenching of cow urine
without rouging to check the spread of bacterial wilt.
They observed that spread of bacterial wilt was
checked. They had questioned the logic of rouging
given by the scientists. The rouged plant needs to be
carefully discarded in a plastic bag along with the
soil and buried or burnt so as to avoid spilling of
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spreading the
disease. The rouged plant pit
needs to be drenched with Copper Oxychloride. The farmers
observed that it is very difficult to avoid spilling
of soil while discarding the rouged plant. The rouged
plant pit attracts rodents, cats and dogs and this may
also spread the bacterial wilt infection to healthy
plants. Hence, these farmers decided not to rouge the
plants.
Farmers are able to
identify diseases at different stages and take
appropriate measures. This knowledge empowerment is
acknowledged by the DOH. The S.O.s were assigned to
survey the ginger seed farmers as part of the ginger
seed monitoring programme of DOH which is normally
done by their own staff. The S.O.s and the farmers and
the Horticulture Inspectors who closely associated
with the programme have increased their knowledge of
ginger cultivation when compared to many of the DOH
staff.
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