Jul 13, 2022 :
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India notified and released BAIF-evolved fodder crop varieties of Pearl millet namely BAIF Bajra-5 and BAIF Bajra-6, as suitable for cultivation in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh vide their Notification of July 13, 2022.
Jul 12, 2022 :
BAIF Senior Management headed by Mr. Bharat K. Kakade, President, and comprising of Dr. Ashok Pande, Group Vice President, Scientific Research and Livestock Development, Dr. Raviraj Jadhav, Programme Director and Regional Director – BAIF Livelihoods North , Mr. Pramodkumar Takawale, Programme Director, Agricultural Research, Dr. Vitthal Kauthale, Senior Thematic Programme Executive and Shri. Vinay K. Mishra, Additional Chief Programme Executive, BISLD UP, had discussions with Dr. Amaresh Chandra, Director, ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi and senior scientists of IGFRI on collaborative research and technology transfer including holistic development in Bundelkhand Region. The BAIF team visited various demonstration models on Silvipasture, Hortipasture and Forage Technology and the Plant-Animal Relationship and Farm Machinery and Post-harvest technology divisions. The team also interacted with Dr. A. Arunachalam, Director, ICAR-Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi.
Jun 18, 2022 :
The “Sansad Adarsh Village Development Project” at Mal Samot, Dediapada in Narmada district, was in the limelight when a high-level team of officials from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India and Government of Gujarat visited the village. The Mission comprised of the Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI, Mr. Anil Kumar Jha, IAS, Secretary, Tribal Development Department, Government of Gujarat, Dr. S. Murali Krishna, IAS, CEO, D-SAG, Gandhinagar, Mr. R.S. Ninama, IAS, Project Administrator, TSP Narmada, Mr. B.K. Patel, Schaeffler India – Senior Executive – CSR – Mr. Bilal Kazi, District Planning Officer, senior personnel from Narmada and Tapi districts, BAIF Programme Director (Programmes), Dr. Rajashree Joshi, Chief Programme Executive, Mr. Jayanti Mori, BISLD Gujarat and other senior officials from BAIF Pune and BISLD Gujarat.
The Secretary, MoTA, appreciated the work of BAIF in holistic development and especially in the areas of sustainable agriculture, natural resources management, convergence and skill-based training. He also interacted with the farmers, women and youth of the village to learn about their progress and the problems encountered by the villagers. He also visited Dabka village to observe the functioning of solar-based water pumps for irrigation and interacted with the farmers about the scope of the watershed development programme in sustainable management of natural resources. The visitors also took keen interest in understanding the initiatives taken up by BAIF in agro-biodiversity conservation and the practices of traditional healers in tribal areas.
Jun 07, 2022 :
A MoU was signed between Odisha Livestock Resources Development Society (OLRDS) and BAIF Livelihoods Odisha for providing bovine breeding and allied services by skilling and deployment of 1500 youth as Multipurpose Artificial Insemination Technicians in Rural India (MAITRI). Shri. Bharat Kakade, Managing Director, BAIF Livelihoods and President, BAIF Development Research Foundation and Dr. Yedulla Vijay, IAS, Vice President, OLRDS and Director, AH&VS, signed the MoU. Hon’ble Chief Minister of Odisha, Shri. Naveen Patnaik while presiding over the programne virtually, acknowledged the contribution of BAIF to bovine breeding and extended his best wishes to the organisation. The Minister, Fisheries and ARD, Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary (Development Commissioner and APC), Principal Secretary, ARD and other dignitaries were present in-person at the event.
Secretary to Chief Minister, Shri. V.K. Pandian, IAS, Hon’ble Minister, Agriculture, Fisheries and ARD, Shri. Ranendra Pratap Swain, Shri. Suresh Chandra Mahapatra, Chief Secretary, Shri. Pradeep Kumar Jena, Development Commissioner, Shri. Sanjeev Chopra, Agriculture Production Commissioner, Shri. R. Raghu Prasad, Principal Secretary, Fisheries & ARD and Mrs. Sujata R. Karthikeyan, Secretary, Mission Shakti, graced the occasion along with other dignitaries.
May 24, 2022
Bipin Behera, 78, from Basiapada village in Jujumura block of Odisha’s Sambalpur district could barely make ends meet. The few acres of land he owned in a hilly, forested area were uncultivable. Poverty and the vicious cycle of debt had wreaked havoc on 27,000 farmer families in the coal mining districts of Angul, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur and Sundargarh. But things began to change in 2019 with ‘Utthan’, a community development programme initiated by Mahanadi Coalfields, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL).
The Rs 20.3 crore CSR (corporate social responsibility) project has helped convert barren lands into high-yielding assets and create sustainable farm livelihoods in 40 villages, benefitting approximately 25,000 people. The project has not only improved the economic status of 6,200 poor SC/ ST/ OBC households but also created a model for farm sector development that is being replicated by the wider community in the state. “The interventions made by Utthan are bearing positive results in terms of livelihood,” says B. Sairam, executive director (CSR), CIL.
The new farming model adopted is Wadi cultivation and includes inter-cropping with seasonal vegetables and horticulture (mango, lemon and custard apple, etc). Since adopting Wadi, Behera in March 2021 reported an income of Rs 68,000 from half acre of farm over a period of 18 months. He expects his annual farm income to stabilise at a minimum Rs 60,000 within five years of starting Wadi cultivation, once the trees bear fruit to their full potential.
Behera’s is one of the 6,500 farmer families to have benefitted from Utthan. According to CIL, the aim of the CSR initiative was to uplift the socio-economic status of 27,000 SC/ ST/ OBC people living in the project area. Implemented by the Pune-based not-for-profit BAIF (formerly Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation) in a phased manner, Utthan aims to create sustainable livelihoods through a range of innovative farm-sector interventions related to agriculture, dairy, goatery, mushroom cultivation, backyard poultry, fodder development, etc.
Utthan also has additional goals of capacity-building and improving the overall quality of life by promoting sanitation, education and menstrual hygiene. In the long run, the project aims to showcase a self-sufficient and inclusive development model that is worthy of replication by the wider community.
Tribal villager Nala Pradhan’s revived fortunes is an example of the wide-ranging change that Utthan is bringing about. Pradhan owns three acres of land. Till 2019, he grew paddy on two acres. The rest of the land was unfit for cultivation. Since switching to Wadi cultivation, a large portion of the barren land now has 28 apple and 30 mango trees, from which he has earned nearly Rs 46,000 since early 2021. Inter-cropping fetched another Rs 60,000. Pradhan’s earnings are set to go up in the mango harvesting season. His success has convinced 25 other poor households to adopt Wadi; they were helped by BAIF with critical information on market access and price realisation.
Apart from farming, Utthan is also helping creating water storage capacities. Ponds are being dug and the base covered with polythene sheets to hold runoff water and stop seepage. To help reduce the cost of farming, Utthan has set up solar pumps in villages. These are operated by a self-help group of farmers who benefitted from the project.
For Wadi development, farmers bear 10 per cent of the cost of components (fertiliser, plants, fencing material, etc) and 40 per cent of the cost of labour. Farmers’ contribution to labour cost is higher to encourage families to provide free labour and reduce the loss of man-days.
There are many other success stories of Utthan. Saudamini Barik, a 38-year-old OBC resident of Birsinghgarh village in Sambalpur, started mushroom cultivation with 20 beds in 2019. Today, it has expanded to 200 beds. In the past year and a half, Barik has earned nearly Rs 1 lakh.
Utthan had so far set up 244 wadis, converting 122 acres of barren land into flourishing plantations. Some 935 paddy farmers witnessed a 15-20 per cent rise in their yield. Utthan aims to extend the coverage to 2,500 paddy farmers over the next five years.
Since vegetable farming is an important component of Utthan, efforts are on to train farmers to adopt newer techniques, such as trellis cultivation, to improve yield. More than 500 families have benefitted from this initiative alone. Irrigation potential has increased in at least 50 acres through measures like water harvesting, surface storage (50 new ponds storing 4 million litres), and setting up of eight solar pumps. Additionally, close to 800 families are getting better returns from livestock through dairy activities, goatery and poultry while 600 families have set up kitchen gardens to grow nutritional vegetables.
May 1, 2022
on 1st May Palghar ZP chairperson Vaidehi Wadhan, Member of Parliament Mr.Rajendra Gavit, MLA Mr. Bhusara, CEO Mr.Salimath, BDO Watharkar visited Community Farmpond work in Wanganpada Village sponsored by Tata Motor and NREGA and appreciated the work.
April 28, 2022 :
‘Maharashtra Gene Bank Programme for Conservation, Management and Revival of Local Bio-Resources’ was initiated in the year 2014 covering over 142 villages spread over nine districts from different agro-climatic zones of Maharashtra. The BAIF Programme aims at preventing the erosion of valuable genetic resources, ensuring enriched knowledge and their conservation while being directly linked with food security, livelihood and climate change adaptation capacity of rural and tribal communities.
With an aim to document native natural resources and conserve them with the help of the local community that will ensure not just biodiversity conservation but also inclusion of traditional knowledge, the Maharashtra Cabinet approved the Maharashtra Gene Bank, a first-of-its-kind project in India. BAIF welcomed the decision of the Government of Maharashtra to widen the scope of the Maharashtra Gene Bank Programme and continue its mission of Agrobiodiversity conservation.
April 27, 2022 :
Dr. Manibhai Desai, the Founder of BAIF pioneered the Rural Development Movement in India. Today, it is because of his vision that 4 million families have come out of poverty through BAIF’s innovative programmes of dairy husbandry, water resources development and tribal rehabilitation and firm commitment to environmental protection, women empowerment and community health in 12 states. He also inspired thousands of youth to join the voluntary movement. The BAIF family spread across various states paid their tribute to their Founder on the occasion of his 102nd birth anniversary and pledged to continue his mission of Sustainable Rural Development.
The Jan Samvad (community dialogue) initiative was launched on this day to commemorate the birth anniversary of Late Dr. Manibhai Desai. The event was held at Dr. Manibhai Desai Memorial Garden at Lachhakadi. Many villagers from surrounding villages who had worked with Dr. Manibhai Desai, shared their experiences and the transformation that had taken place in their lives and that of their villages. This initiative promoted by BISLD, South Gujarat, aims at establishing a regular dialogue with the community to enable them to share their experiences, issues, efforts and aspirations and to understand their perspective towards development, suitable solutions suggested by them and resources to be mobilised. With regular engagement with the local communities, data sets of potential villages and their issues will be generated and the scope for innovation and programme development will be strengthened.
April 24, 2022 :
The bust of Dr. Manibhai Desai, the Founder of BAIF and a close associate of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was unveiled by the President of BAIF, Mr. Bharat Kakade at the Dr. Manibhai Desai Navchetan Secondary School operated by BAIF at Chondha, Navsari district of Gujarat, to commemorate the 102nd birth anniversary of this visionary. Mr. V.B. Dyasa, Regional Director, BISLD West, Mr. Jayanti Mori, Chief Programme Executive, BISLD Gujarat, Mr. Subodh Desai, Advisor, BAIF, Mr. Abhishek Pandey, Additional Chief Programme Executive, BISLD Gujarat and other senior officials from BAIF were present on this occasion.
April 19, 2022 :
A MoU was signed between BAIF Livelihoods Odisha and Government of Odisha for breeding bull production using ART and Genomic evaluation techniques in Cuttack, Odisha in the presence of Dr. Yeddula Vijay, Director, AH & VS, Government of Odisha, Mr. Rakesh Warrier, Programme Director and Regional Director – East, Dr. Jayant Khadse, Research Director, BAIF Central Research Station (CRS), Urulikanchan and Dr. Sachin Joshi, Senior Thematic Programme Executive, CRS and other senior officials of the Directorate.
April 16, 2022
NABARD General Manager, Mr. Bhaskar Pant, visited various projects under Climate Change Adaptation Programme implemented by BAIF Development Research Foundation in Narsinh Danda, Goshani, Manar and Khetikhan villages in Champawat district of Uttarakhand and interacted with the project participants.
The projects covers vegetable cultivation in bamboo poly houses, drip irrigation, spring rejuvenation, rain water harvesting tank, fodder cultivation, livestock development and breeding services. He was accompanied by Mr. Amit Pandey, District Manager, NABARD, Mr. Pushkar Singh Bisht, Mr. Pratap Rawat, Mr. Devendra Singh Dumaga and Mr. Bhuvan Chandra from BAIF.
Dr. Dinesh Ratudi, Additional Thematic Programme Executive, BAIF, provided detailed information about these projects and he also highlighted the fact that the Climate Change Adaptation Programme was one of the six programmes supported by Adaptation Fund Board India whose main objective was to mitigate the effects of climate change and to increase the income of farmers.
April 05, 2022 :
Mr. Bhabani Prasad Pati, IFS, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Coal, Government of India visited the Comprehensive Community Development Programme (CCDP) cluster in Angul, Odisha. This programme is being implemented by BISLD Odisha with the support of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd.
