Agriculture

RCFI has installed 37 group irrigation schemes covering 226 farmers of Kerala, UP, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. The programme identified potential farmers considering the land size, geography, water availability and their financial condition. All the installed systems are provided to the local user groups of rain-fed farmers. An agreement and bylaw is been prepared mutually for the effective use of the system and water. Most of the cases, all the individual farmers were using diesel pump sets of 3-5 HP before the installation of schemes. It is expected to reduce the input cost of the farmers by 30-40% through this intervention. It definitely provide an additional increase in agricultural income. And the organization also motivates now the farmers to go for multiple crops in all season to reduce the risk of price fluctuations. The main agenda of RCFI of working for irrigation support is its natural impact. By replacing 226 pump sets at least 408,608 Kgs of CO2 emission can be reduced . And most of the government has schemes or special price for farmers. So the farmers can avail those benefits also.

The organization has focused on such schemes during the last years so that the communities can have both drinking water and irrigation together. Our officials in the field identify the area on the basis of water quality and availability of water in the aquifer, they design proper schemes. The organization contributes 40% to 80% of such schemes on the basis of the capacity of water user groups. 2253 families covered through this activity.

Many times water availability won’t be a problem. Farmers may have plenty of water in the nearby sources. But the conventional diesel engine costs around 30-40% of their agricultural income, as mentioned above. So, the organization decided to support people in purchasing electric engines. RCFI has distributed and installed 3901 electric motors with various capacities in programme villages. It is again distributed with the people contribution concepts ranging from 10% to 60%.