Agriculture condition of villages in Nayagrah and Ganjam district of orissa

India lives in her 6 lakhs villages. If India has to progress it is very important that the living standard of the rural inhabitants improves. Agriculture is the mainstay of rural community. Though the contribution of the agriculture to our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is continuously decreasing it employs about sixty percent of our population. Today we hear lot of rural potential, rural marketing, rural communication, rural revolution etc. How much is the truth, is it there a sea change in the living conditions of the rural people. Today every company wants to go rural; many have special rural wings cater for this purpose. Also it is estimated that one-third of the world’s poor live in India, and there are more poor people in India alone than in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. Although official estimates of the Government of India indicate that every fourth Indian is poor, the estimate of the internationally recognized poverty line of “a dollar a day” revel that 39 percent of people in India were already living with income below “a dollar a day” in 1999-00. Indian Poverty is predominantly rural, where landless laborers and casual workers are the worst-off economic groups. The rural poor are primarily those with limited ownership of assets – including land. The vast majority of the rural poor in India are engaged in agriculture (including fishery and livestock) either as agriculture wage laborers or marginal farmers. To see the condition existing in the villages i visited some of the villages in the district of nayagrah and ganjam. The whole process of my visited by Xaveir institute of managment, Bhubaneswar and NGO "SAMBHAV".

Agriculture is the main source of livelihoods for people in the villages I visited. The majority of holdings are small and marginal or semi-medium land holdings. Almost all people in the village I visited are living in countryside, the size of the majority of farms suggests that agriculture is insufficient as the main source of livelihood for many people. There have to be alternative and diversified livelihoods, and so the expansion of non-farm activities may need to become the priority.
Paddy is the principal crop folloId by sugarcane, vegetable, ragi, pluse (mainly green gram and black gram) and oilseeds. Potato, radish, onion, brinjal etc. are produced in the winter season especially in December. Lack of permanent irrigation and major sugarcane consuming industries prevents the expanded production of this crop, though the potential exists. Agriculture, keeps the villagers fully occupied only in the months of July and August (paddy transplantation) and from mid November to mid January in harvesting. The other crops grown are also in the same season. The lean period for them is from February to June, and there is no work at all done by men during April to June. Men go outside the village if there is any waged labour available in road construction. Women keep themselves engaged throughout the year, in transplantation, harvesting and processing, and leaf-plate making throughout the year (except in February and March when the leaves are not available in the forest). During this period, they keep themselves busy in collection of other forest products like mahul. Fruits like mango are collected in the month of May and June, and also some edible roots from the forest during the lean period (Feb-March) for self-consumption and for sale if there is demand from the middleman.
India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, but only one percent is processed, suggesting that there may be scope for increased livelihoods in this sector. The main crops that are normally grown in this area are mango, guava, lemon, coconut and cashew. The soil and climate of this area provide ample scope for development of plantation and horticultural crops. People are also doing mushroom cultivation but in small scale. The NGO “SAMBHAV” has given training to many people in this respect.