Mr. Seijamang aged 35, lives with his wife and 5months old son along with his widowed mother at Khodang village. His father left for heavenly home while he was a small boy. His dream for education was unfulfilled due to financial crisis in his family. So he has to help his mother in earning their living. Now he becomes the bread earner for his family. Since he doesn’t have his own land he used to cultivate Paddy as share cropping in his village. Till 2013 he used to cultivate paddy by using conventional method i.e., planting 4-7 sapling at one place. After learning SRI method and process from Project staff during SRI Training at Khodang village on 26th April, 2014he decided to experiment SRI in 2sangams of his field.
He migrated from conventional to SRI. At the time of transplanting (i.e., single sapling) he was worried and confused whether he will have something to harvest or not .But as the plant grows, to his surprise he could see 45-55 tillers from a single plan that he never had before.
This gave him new hope. Seijamang said that “after seeing the tillers his joy makes him forget his hunger and wanted to stay in his field all the time”. He stood 2nd in the crop competition organized by RWUS. He is thankful to WRC, NEICORD and RWUS for the support he received like seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides. He is planning to practice SRI method in the coming year too.
He also wanted to venture out a double cropping in his paddy field by planting winter crops. With the support of RWUS he planted Potato, Beans, Garlic, Onion, cabbage and chilly. But unfortunately he was not able to have good harvest due to water shortest.
Mr. Soineilam aged 48, lives in Buallian village with his wife and five children (3 sons and 2 daughters).Some years back he owned 1 Sangam of paddy field near his village. But due to the construction of Multi Purpose Dam nearby his village, hispaddy field was submerged by the Dam and become landless. The compensation which was given to him was not even enough for the family’s one year survival. With much hardship he has to earn his living by daily wage labour. Though he doesn’t have his own land he continued do farming in others paddy field on a share cropping basis in 2 Sangams of land. He usually harvests 27 -30 bags of paddy in 1 sangam per year. Since, he has to share 50% of his products to the land owner. He could hardly earn for his family one year survival. Though worried for a better income he has no option as he has no land of his own.
In 2014 he came to know a new way of paddy cultivation from the Project staff and hence he decided to experiment the new method of paddy cultivation in his field. So he started practicing SRI in 1 sangams of his paddy field. Though he faced some difficulties at the beginning like transplanting a young sapling of 9-15 days old in a row line with a proper distance he was anxious that it will survive, all his neighbouring farmers glared at him in amazed of what he did. After 2 months he could see the difference of Conventional and SRI methods from the tillers. He could harvest 43 bags of paddy in 1 sangam against 27-30 bags in previous years from conventional method. He is happy that he could have a longer period of peace as he is able to store more paddy in his barn. Inspite of the good production in SRI, Soineilam told to RWUS that “Transplantation in a line mark makes the transplantation slow and wage is also higher than conventional method.” However, he is planning to continue SRI in this coming year also with a hope that things will work easier than first year. Soineilam is awarded 3rd in the district level crop competition organized by the District Agriculture Department and stood 1st under RWUS competition. He wants to convey his heartfelt thanks to WRC, NEICORD and RWUS for his new learning.