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written by- Astad R Pastakia |
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To The Unknown Farmer... From P.D. Uplenchwar |
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Motivation
P D Uplenchwar lives in Harsul, a village located in the Vidharba region of Maharashtra. After completing his post-graduation in Agricultural Economics in 1972, Uplenchwar chose to go back to his village and work for its social uplift. Between 1972 and 1990 he took various initiatives such as organizing camps and seminars at his village, stimulating debates on social issues and starting a farmer service centre. He has also built up a small library in his house which is made available to the youth of the village. It is for this reason that he has named his house “Vichardhan” (wealth of thought).
Cotton is the main crop of Vidharba region. Other crops include pigeon pea, jowar and vegetables. In 1992, Uplenchwar began to be concerned about the rising prices and decreasing productivity of modern agricultural inputs, in particular chemical pesticides. He felt that farmers needed a low cost multi-purpose pesticide to deal with the situation.
Initial solution
The search for such a product began with the discovery of a formula being promoted by Dr W B Rahudkar, who happened to be Uplenchwar’s teacher at the University. The pesticide was made up of garlic extract, chilli extract and Nirma washing powder The cost of making it at the farm level was less than Rs. 10.
Uplenchwar wrote the details of the formula on the wall of a house, in his village. That year about 10-11 farmers tried out the recipe. The trials showed that it was only moderately effective. Also, the high proportion of kerosene in the formula had caused side-effects on the cotton crop. These deficiencies prompted Uplenchwar to work on an improved version of the formula.
From Rahudkar formula to Uplenchwar formula
He sought Dr Rahudkar’s advice who informed him that one Mr Kussanavar, a farmer from Karnataka, had found tobacco solution more effective for preparation of chilli extract. The idea appealed to Uplenchwar and he tried it. He found that a 10 per cent solution provided best results. By accident, he also discovered that the tobacco solution was equally effective for preparing garlic extract. This led to a process innovation.
The following year (1993) saw two major changes in the formula. The first was the use of tobacco extract. The second was the addition of neem oil, a well known insecticide and anti-feedant. He lent his own name to the formula to distinguish it from the earlier one.
Low-cost diffusion strategy
In December 1993, Dr Rahudkar wrote about it in Baliraja a popular farm magazine. Uplenchwar himself organized a small campaign, urging farmers in his district to prepare the pesticide at their home and use it.
Uplenchwar selected about 1000 villages of Yavatmal district for a post-card campaign. The campaign consisted of writing postcards, addressed to “the Unknown Farmer, C/o Post Master” of the village. The post-card provided information about the recipe and urged farmers to try it out at home for their own advantage. Uplenchwar also sought the support of the District Panchayat to send leaflets to all the village Panchayats. As a result of these extension efforts, many more farmers started using the recipe.
Upgrading the product
However, Uplenchwar was still not satisfied with the formula. The next year, he introduced a few more changes. A farmer friend had told him to use cow urine for control of “leaf curl”, a viral disease of chilli crop. He decided to include cow urine in his formula. A few days later he discovered, again by chance, that neem oil dissolved readily in cow urine. He added ginger extract to the formula for its ability to control aphids, and Hing for its property of improving fruiting. He also decided to double the proportion of neem seed oil, since the local supply seemed to contain only 50 per cent oil (see box for details of ingredients and application).
Uplenchwar received feedback from a number of farmers. The perceived effectiveness, in terms of percentage control ranged from 40 to 60 in the case of bollworms of cotton, 70-90 for leaf eating caterpillars of soybean and pigeon-pea, 70-85 for pod borer of pigeon-pea and 80-90 for sucking insects like aphids/jassids on cotton crops. The time taken to control the insect pests ranged from 12 to 30 hours, after spraying. Some of the farmers compared the knock-down time of Uplenchwar formula with chemical pesticides by putting a few larvae in direct contact with the pesticides. They found it equal in strength to Nuvacron and Fenval and superior to Endosulphan.
Uplenchwar had used both horizontal (in other farmers’ fields) and vertical methods (in his own field over time) of validation. As a result, he was able to test the efficacy of his product on a wide range of pests and situ-ations within the short span of three years.
Commercialization of Uplenchwar formula
Many of the big and well-to-do farmers were willing to buy the product if it was made available by Uplenchwar. This led him to launch an enterprise to manufacture the product and supply it to farmers in his region. The demand for his product has been steadily rising. Starting from 700 litres in 1993, the demand rose to 1300 litres in 1994 and an estimated 7000 litres in 1995. This was perhaps the most conclusive evidence about the acceptance of the pesticide amongst farmers of the region.
Future plans
Uplenchwar would like to see the idea grow amongst the farmers of his region. He visualizes a decentralized poly-centric network for scaling-up the activity. The network would consist of several units of cottage industry status. Each of these units would be run by presently unemployed youth. The criteria for selecting members of this network would be (i) willingness to work for the welfare of farmers through the enterprise and not for their exploitation (ii) willingness to contribute a small percentage of their profits for research and new product development. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 6(4):15-16, 1995 |
