Oyster Spawn Production and mushroom cultivation Bac ground: Name: C.

Jeya veeran S/o Chinnaveeran, Indira colony Erasai, Uthamapalayam, Theni (Dt) Education: 10 th Std failed Family bac ground-The entrepreneur lives nuclear family with 2 membe rs Yield potential: 10 g of Oyster mushroom per day, 10 g of Oyster mushroom spaw n per day Strenth: Demand of mushroom in Kerala and local mar ets of Theni Availability of raw materials and conducive climate High Nutritious, So it can be replaced for meat Low fat content so suited for people of all age group Low investment and more income Maintenance easy and production process can be learned easily Interventions Process: Mr. C. Jeyaveeran, one of the marginal farmers of Indira colony of Era sai village came to the KVK office with the aim of nowing about mushroom cultiv ation and spawn production. Our v SMS plant production visited the house and a nalysed the resources available and suggested to go for mushroom cultivation and low cost spawn production simultaneously and gave him the technical guidance. O ur Cendect v supplied two bottles of mother spawn and also given technical gui dance for establishing low cost spawn production lab. He inoculated 10 bags init ially with the help of our scientist. After 18 days he got uncontaminated good q uality of spawn. Then he was motivated to go for spawn production. Simultaneousl y he also cultivated oyster mushroom. Now he has constructed 20 feet X 20 feet s hed with all facilities. He now maintains 300 beds @ 10 beds daily using 150 sp awn poc ets/ month. Technology: Low cost Oyster mushroom spawns production and mushroom cultivation MDU-2 and APK 1 variety of oyster mushroom Impact Horizontal Spread : No villages covered :10 Economic gains: A)Spawn production-20 bags/ day Total spawn production-600 bags/month Cost of production for 600 bags = Rs. 4800/= (Rs 8/bag) Gross Income = Rs. 9000/= Net Income = Rs. 4200/= B)Oyster Mushroom production = 8 g / day Total Oyster Mushroom production -240 bags/month Cost of production for 300 bags = Rs. 6000/=(Rs 20/ bag) Gross Income = Rs. 10000/= Net Income = Rs. 4000/= Total Income=8200/= month Employment Generation: 1 male and Female/ day Title: Introduction of Apiculture in Farming Systems Bac ground: Name: C. Manian S/o Chinnasamy, Vada upatty Cumbum, Theni (Dt) Education: 5 th Std Family bac ground-The entrepreneur lives nuclear family w ith 1 member Yield potential: 10 g of honeys per hive for 20 hives Strength: 90 per cent of cropping area is Horticultural crops (Coconut, banana, Grapes Theni district entirely covered by hills and forest

Continuous conducive climate and temperature More water sources are available Low investment and moderate income Maintenance easy and labour requirement is less Interventions: Process: Mr. C. Manian one of the marginal farmers of Vada upatty, Cumbum came to the KVK office with the aim of nowing about Integrated Apiculture farming sy stem. He actually wanted to do horticulture farming system with introduction Api culture. Our Kv SMS plant protection visited the farm and analysed the resource s available and suggested Apiculture. He motivated the farmer to attend trainin g on Bee eeping techniques from TNAU, Coimbatore. He introduced initially 5 Ita lian bee hives. Based on the continuous motivation , follow up visits and techni cal guidance,and the performance of bee hives,he now maintains 20 bee hives. Economic gains: Yield: 200 Kg/ 20 bee hives/ year Cost of Production: Rs.4800/20 bee hives/year Gross income: Rs.24000/= Net income: Rs.19200/= Impact Horizontal Spread :No villages covered: 5 Title: Washing Powder preparation Profile of the entrepreneur: Mrs.V. Thilagavathy W/o.S. Vijaya umar W/4, 166/D,146, Main Road Koduvilarpatti Age: 42 Education: B.A. degree Family bac ground: The entrepreneur lives in nuclear family with 2 sons Description of the enterprise: 20 g washing powder/month Interventions: The Home scientist of our KVK imparted training programme on washing powder, cle aning powder, liquid blue, herbal powders, mil and mil products preparation fo r the Self Help Group at Koduvilarpatti village, Theni District. Mrs.V. Thilaga vathy is one of the rural unemployed women of Annai Parasa thi Self Help Group. She had attended many of our training programmes. She is the president of SHG. With the s ills learnt, she has started preparing Home care products with the f inancial assistance from the ban . KVK Scientists gave the technical guidance t o become a entrepreneur. She purchased raw materials at with the best quality a t whole sale rate. She is now selling the Home care products in the village its elf. Now she is selling the Washing Powder in the trade name Suriya . IMPACT Horizontal Spread: Now 10 SHG members have started preparation of Home care prod ucts for the Home consumption Economic Gains: In this initial stage, she produced 5 g washing powder per month. After realiz ing the profit, she increased the production to 20 Kg/month. The cost of produc tion of 20 g. washing powder was Rs.750/-. So, in one month income, she got pr ofit Rs.500 per month. Employment Generation: Now 2 female labour is engaged in production. Title: Organic Banana Cultivation Bac ground: Name: P. Jeyachandhran S/o Paramasivam Raja veethi Seepala otai Family bac ground-The entrepreneur lives nuclear family with 2 members

Interventions Process: Mr. P.Jeyachandhran, one of the marginal farmers of Seepala otai villa ge has approached our KVK for more information about Organic Banana production a nd its mar eting opportunities. Our KVK scientist gave the technical guidance to the farmer. He participated in the organic banana production training programme in our KVK and also participated state level organic growers association discus sional meeting at Madurai. He evinced interesting diversifying his field fully o rganically. Our KVK distributed various organic inputs li e Azospirillum, Phosph obacteria, Pseudomonas, Trichoderma viride, Vermicompost, Paecilomyces, Neem ca e etc., to the farmer and motivated to grow organic banana. Our KVK scientists f requently visited his field and gave technical guidance to the farmer. Technology: Earlier days he was facing problems in banana production with chemic al fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides and poor quality irrigation water. Aft er motivation of our KVK scientist, he started applying large quantity of Farm Y ard manure, green manure, green leaf manure and neem ca e and recycling of farm waste for effective soil fertility management. To manage pest and disease incide nce, he solely depends on the bio control agents li e Pseudomonas, Trichodera vi ride Paecilomyces for effective control of nematodes. As organic produce are get ting popularity among the public, the farmer is able to sell his produce with hi gher price. Based on the success of his organic banana production, he is now pla nning to produce organic sil by using organic methods. Impact Horizontal Spread: No villages covered : 4 No. of farmers adoption : 20 Economic gains: Yield: 1100 bunches Gross income 88000 Cost production 33100 Net return 54900 Innovative Farmer as a Change Agent cor Technology Transfer Theni District is potential area for Agricultural production with cultivation of cash crops and horticultural crops. Indiscriminate applications of pesticides a nd fertilizers to the crop were practices of the farmers to increase the yield. Though the farmer felt the yield interms of production and productivity, while calculating the net return/ha they were not able to realise the profit. The farmer Mr.P. Kottaichamy @ Se ar is hailing from Kutchanur village in Uthama palayam Talu of Theni District in Tamil Nadu. He developed 15 acres of land ho lding with adequate supply of irrigation water. The land was initially cultivat ed with banana, cotton, coconut and groundnut. He used heavy dose of fertilizer s and pesticides and other inorganic inputs to the cultivable crop to increase t he production and unit area productivity. As this land was developed by him ini tially, the response in yield was sufficient enough to his expectation. On cont inuous cultivation, he couldn t ta e up the lead because of drastic reduction in pro duction and the increased cost of cultivation. The subsequent years of cultivat ion pull him down economically and under dept. Interventions of KVK at particular point of time made him to be aware of and ado pt technologies of Integrated Farming System. He started practicing the IFS wit h available resource potential. This approach not only saved lot of investment but also ensured several direct and indirect benefits, prominent among the inves tment are cattle rearing with 50 nos. of cow, vermicompost unit, cattle feed mil l, production of Enriched Farm yard manure, chaff cutting machine weeding machin es sale of mil , cultivation of tree fodder etc. Input Cost Before and after Integrated Farming System: Input Cost before Integrated Farming System Input Cost after Integrated Farm ing System The farmer has participated in the trainings and demonstration on Organic Farmin g, Cattle Farming, Cattle Feed Preparation, FLD on Greengram and regular extensi on activities of KVK.He has been guided and motivated to ta e up integrated farm

ing system model in his farm for reducing the dependence on external inputs and increasing net profit from his farm.So the farmer has started dairy farm as a ba se in his farm and then expanded various enterprises for increasing the opportu nity to effectively recycle the waste and utilize it in the farm for soil fertil ity maintenance. The farmer is able to realize a net profit of Rs. 12 la hs/year from all the int egrated enterprises. He solely depends for 90% of the inputs in his farm and onl y 10% of the inputs are purchased from outside. Instead of spending Rs. 5 la hs/ -year as in the previous years, now he spent only Rs. 50000/- towards purchase o f external inputs. He also produces and sells enriched vermicompost by addition of bio fertilizers and bio pesticides which brings quality to his vermicompost. This quality vermicompost has retained many of farmers to continuously purchase vermicompost from him. There are 15 women who are continuously wor ing in Dairy farm, Vermi compost, fe ed mill, EFYM prepartion Jeevamirtham preparation etc. Also 5 men are wor ing f or irrigation, machine operation, weeding, cattle maintenance, tractor operation and other major wor s. Labour Reduction Technologies: Weeding Machine The farmer is having two number of mechanical/power weeder for weed control proc ess in his farm. He used the weed control machine for weeding in banana, coconu t and maize. Totally the cost of saving is 60% than by manual labour. The weed ing machine covers 30 cents in one hour and the machine consumes 1 lit of petrol which costs Rs.50. The weeding machine can operate 6-8 hrs per day depending u pon the moisture level of the soil. If the moisture level is optimum, it ta es 6-8 hrs and having variation upto an increase or decrease of 3 hrs per day. Hen ce to weed 1 ha of land the power weeder ta es 8 hour or one day and the cost of weeding is Rs.400 for petrol and Rs.200 for operator and the total is Rs.600. Instead the women labour costs Rs.3300 for 50 labour at the rate of Rs.60/- per labour in the ratio of 1-6.