SJT – Saguna Jalsanvardhan Technique A new technique to revive existing water bodies :
Many water bodies have been polluted by biological waste which has caused growth of floating plants such as Water Hyacinth & Pistia. This growth is on hundreds and thousands of hectors of water surface area causing death of that particular water body. These floating plants even though suck away pollutants they also create anaerobic condition and thus help generate obnoxious gases. They considerably slowdown the speed of water flow and also cause death of animals like fish and turtles. They also become heaven for breeding mosquitoes and such other insects.
Pawai Lake Mumbai
Salim Ali Lake Aurangabad
Ulhas River Karjat
One of the small water body at Saguna Baug was also affected by this problem which we could bring back to life by persistent efforts based on our experience of SRT and SVT.
Because of this experience based knowledge we are now invited to revive a historical water body at Aurangabad called “Salim Ali Lake”. This is about 40 acre water body was supposed to be glory of the Aurangabad which is on the verge of death due to water hyacinth.
We used the technical knowledge, wisdom and resilient tough skills of our team to get the breakthrough and develop technique to overcome this problem. We have yet to conclude the project and collect data which will take another 6 months. We will be able to design a replicable process to overcome this problem at other places. A similar situation exist in Pawai Lake – Mumbai, Moola Mutha river – Pune, Ujani Dam – Solapur, Ghosi Khurd Dam – Bhandara and so on.
SRT Ekalavya Farmers – A new model for extension
We found out that there are a very few farmers having great ability to adopt, experiment and carry out extension of the SRT technique on their own. Thus they are contributing nicely for the cause of “More crop per drop of water and human energy”. We have decided to improve their skills by giving further training and also support them financially so that they can perform this noble work more easily.
Yield data of selected farmers in Kharif 2018
A total of 225 farmers have been interviewed to collect information of yield data of the crop. The information comprises of 40 to 50 parameters. (Please take a look at attached excel sheet).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c2n87gVPwflgvonXH9kstnpTro4BoRgw/view?usp=sharing
Yield data of selected farmers in Rabbi 2018-19
The Rabbi season 2018-19 was successfully undertaken by SRT farmers. The yield data collected was very promising and would provide encouragement for Kharif farmers to undertake second crop. The data shows that the yield has doubled compare to traditional farming and due to which SRT farmer’s income has also increased. Another important point to highlight is that the farmers are undertaking various crops like wheat, cheakpea, Vatana, Gram, Flowers, Onions, Watermelon, Chavli, etc. Below is the table for your reference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nPl7gGyIe3CRgYVRngTGnlF6EmVf1JST/view?usp=sharing
Extension of SRT by “SRT Sevak”
Farmers meets to scale up SRT for the Kharif 2019 season have been undertaken around various regions of Pune and Konkan. These meets have had overwhelming response from the farmers as they have seen their peers successfully harvesting crops with SRT. Based on the response we are confident that the number of SRT farmers for this year should increase considerably.
(Please take the cursor on the pic to see the details)
Tanasa Shahapur Farmers meet at Saguna Baug
Tanasa Shahapur Farmers meet at Saguna Baug
Tanasa Shahapur Farmers meet at Saguna Baug
Farmer meet at Akole Ahmadnagar
Farmer meet at Kolhapur
Farmer meet at Murud Alibaug Raigad
Farmer meet at Mulashi Pune
Farmer meet at Maval, Pune
Farmer meet at Ambegaon, Pune
Farmer meet at Chiplun Ratnagiri
Farmer meet at Guhagar Ratnagiri
SRT demonstration at Guhagar Ratnagiri
Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture (POCRA) has recognised the importance of SRT and due to which they have invited us to train and demonstrate SRT to farmers and officials in drought prone areas of Marathwada and Vidarbha region.
Interaction with PoCRA team Aurangabad
Interaction with PoCRA team Aurangabad
SRT Carbon farming Project – We have also launched another project called Carbon farming in collaboration with Dr. Emmanuel D’Silva, an agriculture and environment scientist from Mumbai. This is first of its kind in India and has the potential to provide a pathway for farming and carbon incentive. Starting with 20 farmers in two districts of Maharashtra state in India, the carbon farming project will compensate farmers for increases in soil organic carbon. These farmers follow no-till practices in growing rice and other cover crops. Below is the link to an article regarding this project.
https://foodtank.com/news/2019/05/new-project-in-carbon-farming-launched-in-india/
SVT Front
You probably remember that we have started SVT work on 4 hills at Neral in May 2018. There were two main objectives.
a) The hill should not catch fire – This objective however was tried to sabotage by culprits in the society. Yet we have been able to save at least 70% of the hills from burning away so far which was otherwise have burnt 100% in past 10 years.
b) The survival of the plants planted – We have planted Karonda, Wild date palm, Cliff banana, Agave and Khus grass. All these are bushes and shrubs planted with the objective to create congenial environment for planting and survival of bigger trees. As off today our empirical observation is that the survival is more than 50%. More precise information will be available in the 1st week of July.
c) Evaluation of the SVT model – All the details mentioned in the SVT model about measurement and distances, timings of operations etc has worked very well.
d) We will start work on the next of SVT on these hills from the month of May.
SRT (Saguna Rice Technique) Definition: It is a Conservation Agriculture (CA), Zero Till method of farming which does not cause atrocity of tillage, completely stops soil erosion, promotes natural production of earthworms, increases organic carbon of the soil, considerably increases productivity of the land and added effect of amazing success, happiness and confidence to the farmer.
Saguna Van-sauvardhan Tantra (SVT) Definition: It is a simple, low cost and effective technique which stops wildfires by converting the inflammable dry grass into organic manure and fixing of atmospheric carbon, promoting natural production of earthworms and soil aggregation, completely stopping soil erosion, there by initiating water infiltration, thus once again regenerating greenery and biodiversity on degraded lands.
With warm regards,
Krishi Ratna Shekhar Bhadsavle
Founder and Managing Trustee,
Saguna Rice Technique (SRT) and Saguna Rural Foundation (SRF)