Farmers associated with Hindustan Zinc’s Samadhan Projectvisits Gujarat Farmer Producer Organizations

Udaipur: Hindustan Zinc has always been at the forefront of taking up responsibility towards developingits communities.With an objective of enhancing the livelihood and sustainable development of the farmers, HZL organized the two-day tour of 35 farmers of Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Udaipur and Rajsamand to Amalsad block of Navsari district in Gujarat. Under HZL’s SAMADHAN project, farmers visited Gujarat Farmer Producer Organizations and interacted with representatives of Dixel Farmer Producer Cooperative with the aim of increasing and improving their earnings through collaborative efforts.

Today, around 84% of the annual income of the Gujarat Farmer Producer Organization goes to the shareholder farmers.

After the visit, Mr. Rajendra Kumar Keer, Farmer of ChittaurgarhNagri village said that there was lot to learn from the special work done by Farmer Producer organization (working for the last 75 years) such as selling plant from mango seed, organic manure from shells, juice, pickle, floor mango in the market, materials used in daily life, Kirana shops etc. Now in our region too, we have been inspired to start this kind of work, so that we can get more benefits.

Pusa Ram Jat of Rampura Agucha Mine said that we are delighted to learn the ways we can enhance our livelihoodsthrough this Gujarat FPO tour by doing different types of farming and gardening.

Jagdish from Debari village who went on a tour, said that during the FPO exposure visit, we got to know many things, the most importantly is how we can increase our income by doing collective work. Whether the work is small or big, it can be done through cooperation.

Hindustan Zinc Samadhan project, under the aegis of Sustainable Agriculture Management and Development by Human Nature Project, is being implemented in 5 districts of Rajasthan namely Udaipur, Rajsamand, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara and Ajmer in association withBAIF Institute for Sustainable Livelihoods and Development. Under this project, latest agriculture technology and animal husbandry is being used for the purpose of increasing the livelihood of farmers. Currently, around 30,000 farmer’s families of 174 villages are benefiting from this project. For increasing the livelihood of farmers and sustainable development, FPOs i.e. Farmer Producer Organizations are being formed, which will benefit the farmers along with providing technology know-how and seeds as well as the prices of production.