A post-tsunami program to develop agriculture means for support

Project region : Cuddalore district (south of Pondichery) and Villupurum district (north of Pondichery), in Tamil Nadu

Duration : Three and a half years (October 2005 to May 2009)

Aim : support organic farming and related activities

Course of action :

• supporting food processing and marketing through women and farmer’s self help groups
• building 7 farm ponds
• building 140 rain water harvesting systems
• setting up 100 drop by drop irrigation systems in order to increase the ground water table
• setting up 50 water presure pumps
• land rejuvenation with organic treatments (231 units of vermicompost and organic manures)
• planting fruit trees (45 hec)
• kitchen gardens
• promotion of nurseries
• building a storage facility and commercialising dried fish
• Milch animal back yard poultry
• dairy farming
• bioshield plantations (14 hec)
• building check dams on the river Paranar
• training courses for BLESS staff

Tending to local needs

This program required a number of in-field interventions in order to respect local requirements. The project was therefore rethought a number of times.

For example, initial plans were to build a drying room for the fish. Instead, a storage facility and a sales outlet were preferred. The long term future of this project has been secured by an in depth training of the local population.

• 300 self help groups have been trained and are active ; 160 members have been trained on sea food processing
• 600m of passing pipe lines have been constructed, 335 hectare of land got irrigation water
• 450 farmers have been trained to organic agriculture
• 500 farmers have promoted kitchen garden and nurseries
• 200 families have benefited from cows and veterinaries courses;and 345 animals have been treated by the veterinary camp.

All in all, it is more than 670 persons who benefited from the trainings given by the team of Bless.

We are now looking to further the project, having received new propositions from BLESS to tackle water and sanitation issues.

Local partner : BLESS

haut de page