Babulal Dayal from Kaukheda village in Barmer, Rajasthan, was a rag picker. In 2013, he joined the BAIF-CAIRN Wadi project and planted 150 plants of ber, gunda, pomegranate, lemon, budded khejri and Apple ber on his degraded land. Realising the problems of unsafe pesticides, Babulal adopted vermicompost application. He developed a combination of jaggery, chick pea flour, desi cow dung, cow urine and sand of Vat Vriksha, known as Jeevamrit for spraying on the plants. He also developed a liquid mixture of butter milk and copper which was decomposed for seven days and sprayed as a pesticide. Presently, every ber plant is yielding 30 kg fruits and 150 plants in a season, yield 4500 kg fruits, fetching Rs. 90,000 per season. Gunda plants are expected to fruit in the near future. He has also received a buck of Sindhi breed, which was used for breeding services to local goat keepers, enabling them to produce over 450 improved kids over the last 4 years. Babulal is no longer a rag picker. Instead, he now serves as a Master trainer for KVK and other Government agencies. He has developed his own library of books and documents on agriculture to enrich his knowledge.
Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
It is a pleasure to present the first four editions of the collection of case stories from the HDFC Bank Parivartan project initiated with the support of the HDFC Bank CSR and implemented by the BAIF Institute…
