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Dibyajyoti Nag

The village Chanpi has five tolas (hamlets) viz. Mahto Tola, Bara Chanpi, Simar Tola, Munda Tola and Karamdih. The topography of the studied areas is undulated comprising of low, medium and up land situations. The most important crops cultivated by the farmers are paddy, finger millet, maize, kulthi, niger, black gram etc. among the agricultural crops and horticultural crops mainly include vegetables like potato (both rabi and kharif), tomato, cauliflower, pea, onion etc. beside the spices crops like ginger. From the study, it was revealed that horticultural crops cultivation is a profitable proposition but most of the selected farmers were cultivating other crops in spite of horticultural crops due to sustain their livelihood. It was also found that yield of same crop varies from one Tola to another due to variation in package of practices and resource use efficiency.

On the basis of crop cultivation information of the village ‘Chanpi’ three farm models (Intra Tola Farm Model; Inter Tola Farm Model and Recommended Farm Model) along with three sub models (Sub Model-a; Sub Model-b and Sub Model-c) for each and every model are prepared by considering the farm size of 15.60 acres because the selected ten farmers of Mahto Tola has total of 15.60 acres of land. During framing of three sub models for each farm model, the cropping intensity index has considered as 193.97%, 214.81% and 234.55%, respectively that are quite higher than the Jharkhand’s average CII (114%). These higher levels of CII (%) has been accepted during formulation of different farm models because the agriculturally progressive tola (Mahto Tola) has the potentiality to reach up to such levels due to presence of pond, well as well as perennial sources of water from the stream (Dhobi Ghat) that rushes just beside Karamdih Tola and the river (Kanchi Nadi) that flows just beside the village Chanpi while for the state, Jharkhand water is the only limiting factor to restrict the CII at 114%. The higher annual income may be acquired from the Intra Tola Fam Model’s Sub Model-c (Rs. 1131801.04). Among the different sub models of the Recommended Farm Model, the highest earning sub model is ‘c’ (Rs. 796101.62 per year) for the village ‘Chanpi’ followed by sub model-b (Rs.784736.76 per year) and sub model-a (Rs.505408.7 per year). But for the Intra Tola Farm Model, Rs.670033.25; Rs. 835963.55 and Rs. 1131801.04 per year may be obtained from sub Model-a, Sub Model-b and Sub Model-c, respectively. Whereas, for the Inter Tola Farm Model, Rs. 420977.50; Rs. 806481.80 and Rs. 929640.60 per year may be attained from the three sub models. In the case of Recommended Farm Model, for the sub models-c and b the lower net income has recorded even over the Inter Tola Farm Model’s respective sub models because of its long term sustainability under such farming situation.

Keywords: Agriculture based livelihood, Farm model, Khunti