Mohan Padmanabhan

THE Indian Leaf Tobacco Development (ILTD) Division of ITC Ltd, as part of its on-going farm extension work in the tobacco growing areas of Mysore in Karnataka, has launched project "Dharthri" to improve soil health through the use of vermi-composting. Under this project, the company extends technical, material and financial support to the farmers.

The project involves upgradation of the farming community by making "significant interventions in the entire value chain of vermi-composting - from establishment of vermi-compost pits to the final marketing of the product. Besides improving soil wealth, it is also expected to reduce farmers' dependence on inorganic fertilisers.

Talking to Business Line in Mysore recently on the Vision Plan, Mr G. Krishna Kumar, Leaf Manager, Mysore, ITC-ILTD, said the company has assumed the task of popularising the concept as an integral part of the sustainable agriculture package in Mysore tobacco farming by helping the farmers establish around 5,000 vermi-compost units by 2007, and extend the number to 10,000 units by the year 2010. ``We plan to establish 5 units every day in the project period,'' he pointed out. He said the units at present were captive ones, set up to meet farmers' own requirements and not yet been scaled up for commercial production.

Mr Kumar informed that project Dharthri was established with 500 units in Mysore and Hassan districts during the 2004 crop year. He said the contemporary technology for vermi-compost production has been introduced with the help of University of Agricultural Science (UAS), Bangalore and KVK, Suttur.

He said an action plan has been formulated, broadly for vermi-compost product differentiation, production system and marketing (as a quality product from the farmer groups.) He informed that ITC, in collaboration with UAS, Bangalore, was now exploring the possibility of enriching the vermi-compost for enhanced nutrient status, shelf life and logistics.

On the production system, the company will provide the technical inputs and incentives towards cost of vermi-culture, standardisation of production technology and scaling up of production capacity with globally competitive productivity levels, quality norms and protocols. Mr Kumar said the project would provide the farmer with an opportunity for steady "in-situ" farm income.

According to him, the global trend now was towards organic agriculture and the "Dharthri" vermi-compost project would help propagate increased use of organic inputs in Indian farming, which can be leveraged as a USP for Indian tobaccos, and other agri commodities of ITC's interest. He said the project had the potential to serve as a revenue stream to the farm women who can utilise their spare time to manage the vermin-composting.

He said vermi-composting was a means to convert the decomposable organic wastes generated in agricultural lands and agri industries in both urban and rural areas into a rich source of manure by the activity of selected species of earthworms (casting of the earth worms is called vermi-compost). According to Mr Kumar, the project was synergistic with ILTD's competencies in the agro-commodity supply chain management.