Up-scaling of farm ponds for drought mitigation in medium rainfall zone through convergence

Abstract

Farmers in the Ibrahimpur cluster, Rangareddy district grow pigeonpea extensively. But they sell their produce to the middle men without any value addition. Thus, they end up making very little or no profit. Keeping this in view, the project in consultation with the cluster anchoring partner and farming community, facilitated introduction of a mini dal mill. The village organization has identified 4 self help groups to run the dal mill. The 4 self help groups together have hired a person to help them initially with the technicalities of running the mill. The 4 groups together procured 80 quintals of dal from across the cluster with an investment of Rs.2.85 lakh. By processing this, they got about 60% grade one dal and 12% grade two dal. The overall recovery was around 70%. The byproducts like broken dal and flour accounted for 15% while around 15% accounted for loss of weight, chaff grains and wastage. The grade one dal fetched close to Rs.60/kg while the grade two fetched around Rs.55/kg. The total amount realized by the group was Rs.3.35 lakhs with a profit of Rs.50,000/-. The capital to procure dal was mobilized by each group through the funds made available from the District Water Management Agency (DWMA), Govt. of A.P. The entire process has given a new confidence to the women of the self help groups who are confident of increasing the turnover to at least 120 quintals during the year 2010.