Manjuben and Sopabhai lives in Magvas village of Danta, Sabarkantha with 6 family members with 2 sons and 2 daughters (one married). Three years back, she followed traditional cultivation. After meeting VIKSAT, she adopted improved agriculture practices. This year she planted 20kg turmeric in the small portion of land. In addition, she attended an exposure tour to producer company to learn fruit crop cultivation. After that she planted 160 papaya plants with drip irrigation in her farm.
Last year, she also adopted drip irrigation and mulching where she could harvest 3000 plants of watermelon and sold them at Rs.10/piece. She also cultivated hybrid maize seed production yielding 407kg to earn Rs.28,000. As intercrop and on boundaries she cultivated marigold in 4 guntha and sold the flowers for Rs.12,000. On two leased plots she cultivated cotton seeds and earned Rs.1.5Lakhs form sale of seeds.
In addition, she cultivated Cow pea and sold at Rs.30/kg for Rs.30,000. From Cluster bean she earned Rs.15,000 at Rs.10/kg. she also planted Chilli and sold at Rs.15- 20 per kg and earned Rs.10,000.
She ventured into livestock raring, with 4 milch animals and 8 goats. Last year, she sold 3 goats at Rs.22,000 and earns Rs.10,000 per month from sale of milk. Earnings from milk alone is around Rs.1 Lakh per year. She invested the earnings in educating her children, taking land on lease for seed cultivation, buying animals and renovate house.
With increased source of income, she planned to construct a cow shed at a cost of Rs.75,000. The shed will be ready in few months. This year too she is planning to take turmeric and garlic crops and add trellis system for creeper vegetable crops and tomatoes cultivation. Vermi compost is made at home and used in own farm.
They attended an educational tour organised by VIKSAT to Dahod (another tribal region) to learn mulching and drip irrigation.