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Farmers Get Benefits From Poly House Farming

Rourkela: Farmers in Sundargarh district are being encouraged to cultivate off season cash crops of certain varieties, to enhance the earning potential of farmers under market-led agriculture extension programme.

In rain-fed Sundargarh district, in rabi season farmers usually opt for bulk cultivation of vegetables while similar crops are taken up in kharif season, but the production remains less.

In both the seasons, horticulture farmers sow and harvest crops around the same time to flood the market with vegetable crops leading to drop in prices.

The prices dip to such an extent that cultivators fail to secure cost of production as was witnessed from November to January, in case of bumper production. Informing about the concept, head of Rourkela-based Sundargarh-II Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), J Pati, said farmers are provided with financial and technical support to take up cultivation.

Farmers would have to plan cultivation in tune with market demands and the ‘market led agriculture extension’ programme is a feasible option to get good returns, he said.

Many farmers in the district are resorting to off season cultivation of vegetables in protected environment of poly-houses or shed-net structures and are reaping benefits.

It is learnt that the Horticulture department is offering heavy subsidy under National Horticulture Mission, to set up poly-house and shed net structures, while KVK is engaged in providing technical knowhow.

The popularity of poly-house and shed net structures is slowly picking up, said Deputy Director, Horticulture (DDH) Basudev Sahu. The district has about four poly-houses over 2,500 sq m and nearly 20 shed-net units over 24,000 sq m. Five shed-net units at Kirei cover 8,000-9,000 sq m, said Assistant Horticulture Engineer Alok Adhikari.

Through organic farming, these units are successfully producing flowers and major vegetables including cauliflower, cabbage, coloured capsicum, cucumber and banana.

Source:http://www.newindianexpress.com/

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