A mosaic of cultivation
Sumanadasa did slash-and-burn cultivation for a living. A World Vision agriculture programme has helped him with a home-based stable income and today Sumanadasa earns from 1/4 of an acre within a month what he tried to earn from four acres in six months.
His garden is a mosaic
Sumanadasa’s garden is a mosaic of cultivation; fruits and vegetables are growing everywhere. The scene inside his house is also amazing – the front room has a carpet of freshly plucked green oranges. This is just a part of his harvest for the month.
“My garden was never like this,” smiles Sumanadasa, 46. “We never used to cultivate the land around our house. It was just over-grown with weeds and bushes.”
Like everyone in his village Sumanadasa knew only slash-and-burn chena cultivation for a living. They cleared forests and cultivated for six months. The next six months they had to manage with the income they received from the harvest or take on low paying daily work to feed their families.
“Slash and burn cultivation was a lot of hard work,” says Sumanadasa. “You have to cut down the trees, set fire to them and make space for the cultivation. After cultivation until harvest we spend day and night protecting it from wild animals that come and destroy the crops.”
The land was then reclaimed by the State as forest reserves and they had no land to cultivate any longer.
“That is when World Vision introduced us to home-gardening and new agriculture methods,” says the farmer. “We had no proper system of cultivation before, but the programme taught us methods of planting that saved a lot of space, soil and water conservation, compost making and many other techniques.”
“Today I have a variety of long and short term crops that give me a harvest every month. What I earned cultivating four acres for six months, I [now] receive from quarter of an acre within a month,” he smiles.
Sumanadasa grows a variety of fruits and other crops now. He also grows different cereal crops every season. He no longer buys vegetables from the market to feed his family. Everything is fresh from the garden.
“We cultivate chilli for exporting too. World Vision has linked us with Hayleys, who purchase the produce from us and train us in the new techniques. I have a stable income now and I don’t fear about my children’s future anymore. I can well provide for their education and other needs,” he adds.
Sumanadasa is also a farmer leader in his area, sharing his agriculture knowledge with other farmers in his village. With their new knowledge the villagers know one thing for sure – they will never have to go back to cutting down forests again.