ACF helps break vicious circle of poverty
Kolkata, November, 2009: The Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF) is helping change the face of the local community in Sank rail, 25Km from here. It is training farmers to boost their income through use of a new rice cultivation technique called SRI. This technique has been successfully implemented by progressive farmers in countries like China, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand. In India, SRI was initiated in some districts of Tamil Nadu; it brought about encouraging results. The Foundation, Therefore, decided to demonstrate its positive benefits by undertaking a project that covered 272 farmers from 30 villages with a total land holding of 33 acres. The experts began interacting with the farmers by early 2008 and actual cultivation under SRI commenced in July 2008.The early results already indicate an over twofold increase over the traditional method. It is interesting to note that some input costs, such as the quantum of seeds needed for SRI are as low as one- tenth of those for the conventional method. The significant increase in the crop yield, along with a corresponding drop in the cost of some of the inputs, increases the potential of income augmentation of the participating farmers.
ACF has also contributed significantly in the areas of water conservation and management, sustainable agriculture, health and sanitation, support for school education, awareness on prevention on HIV and AIDS, promoting of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and capacity building of local youth and farmers.ACF today enjoys an efficient infrastructure of qualified development professionals and its initiatives impact lives of over 1.2 million rural people.
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