Nagaland: Four adopted villages gets Farming Tools

NMA Integrated Development Association (AIDA)-Don Bosco, which is implementing the SBI Gram Seva programme in Dimapur on Monday, presented farm mechanisation equipment to farmers' clubs from four adopted villages: Urra, Khriezephe, Bade, and Diezephe.

According to an AIDA press release, while flagging off the equipment, chief guest, deputy commissioner (DC) Dimapur, Rajesh Soundarajan, emphasised the importance of farm mechanisation, which helps farmers improve agricultural yield and economic growth while reducing the need for manpower.

He praised AIDA's contribution to the region's socioeconomic and livelihood interventions. Meanwhile, Abinash Hembrom, SBI AGM RBO Dimapur, spoke about the importance of the SBI foundation and how SBI has initiated programmes and activities to reach out to the general public.

He went on to say that Nagaland was "lucky" to have the SBI Gram Seva programme, a flagship CSR programme run by the SBI Foundation and implemented by AIDA-Don Bosco.

Rev. Fr. Roy George SDB, AIDA's Executive Director While greeting the visitors, he stated that India was one of the top agricultural producing countries, but that it lagged behind the global average in terms of farm mechanisation.

He explained that, first, marginal farmers believe that higher technology is complicated, and that, second, the higher cost of equipment requires farmers to invest money they cannot afford.

In this context, he explained, AIDA's intervention through the SBI Gram Seva programme enabled four of its farmers clubs from the adopted villages to receive the equipment.

All of the adopted villages made a request to the DC to expand the kitchen garden, mushroom cultivation, cuniculture, and poultry development under MNREGA, as well as the SBI Sanjeevani health facility offered to rural villages in and around Dimapur.

Rev. Fr. Nebu Mathew SDB, Rector of Don Bosco Dimapur, said the invocation and blessed the equipment, and a video presentation of SBI Gram Seva intervention in five adopted villages was also shown.

Mark Lanthou, the coordinator of AIDA for SBI Gram Seva, proposed the vote of thanks later. Power tillers, tiller trolleys, grass cutters, and lawn movers were among the farm mechanisation equipment. It should be noted that in each village, a farmers club is formed to take ownership of farm equipment.

The farmer clubs contributed their share of the investment toward the purchase of the machines, which would then be rented out to other farmers in need to generate revenue and aid in better agricultural production under the responsibility and ownership of the farmers' club.