“Key Informant Survey” of Production, Value, Losses and ... - DfID

#R004 DATE:08/03 TEAM: JT/CVV. He is cultivating vegetables in 50-100 cents of land.
There are six members in the family.
CROPS Vegetables are cultivating for the last ten years and producing almost all the
vegetables for the family. Main crops grown were bitter gourd and cowpea. Crop
rotation is Bitter gourd- cowpea- Bitter gourd. Other vegetables grown were snake
gourd, little gourd, coleus, etc.
PESTS Main pests are jassid, white flies and fruit flies. The incidence of pest is
severe for the last four years. The farmers were using more chemical fertilizers,
which resulted in more pest infestation.
FRUIT FLIES The infestation rate of fruit flies in bitter gourd is 5-10%. Snake gourd
the infestation was very less which comes around 1-2%.
FRUIT FLY CONTROL Now the use of chemical insecticides are reducing. Last season he
used only banana trap and neem oil. The infestation was very less during last season
may be due to the climate. But the fruit production was also less.
#R005 DATE: 17/05/04 TEAM JT/CVV/JMS. {This is the day of the Elanad wide-area spray.
"Elanad Farmers' Club." There is in evidence in many ways of Kerala's traditional
involvement with politics of the left: a project at KAU, run by a politically active
Marxist professor, is the "Comprehensive Coconut Care Package", giving it the
pleasing initials "CCCP".}
#R006 DATE: 17/05/04 TEAM JS/JT/CVV. {In the bank. This is a cooperative bank,
largely set up by the State to provide financial help to farmers as a deliberate
social project. The bank is a major participant in cooperative activities, as so many
of these have a major financial component. Finance can be made available for
cooperatively-organised agricultural projects by groups of farmers clubbing together
- indeed, this is largely what the bank is actually for. The notion of using the bank
to implement cooperative pest management is suggested - the response is that this is
quite a new idea for them, but that in principle, yes it could fund cooperative
village-level pest management as a financial investment likely to provide a return.}
#R007 DATE: 19/05/04 TEAM JT/JMS. Village: Chalakudy. {This is probably the
friendliest and most engaged of the farmers in the "urban wide-area" trial of MAT
blocks who had the blocks at farm-level last year, and now at locality-level this
year. The area is not really urban, but suburban/residential/agricultural with
prosperous farms of a few acres interspersed with (and often occupied by)
middle-class professional people who work in Thrissur and so on. The farm is on the
main road from Thrissur to the airport, Kochi/Ernakulam and the South. Highway
businesses such as hotels and restaurants are also in evidence. This farmer has a
collection of miniature bottles of liquor (none of which he seems to have drunk).}
MAT The MAT blocks work well. This year the blocks were very good control, 0%
infestation, but control dropped sharply with heavy rain, and there's been a lot of
damage since. Before the rain messed them up, they were working this year
{"wide-area"} better than last year, when pest infestation was more then zero.
Probably due to the wide-area application. He also splashed some jaggery mixed with
malathion about the place, as a thickish paint on tree trunks, and this may have
helped. He watches the fruit flies at the blocks in traps (he understands how they
work). He thinks it will be best to put the blocks a bit away from the fruit trees,
nearby but not right at them. He suspects that the crowds of male flies attract
females, and these are not killed, so you don't want to attract them to the fruit
trees.
#R008 DATE: 14/10/5. TEAM JT/JMS/CVV. This is the evaluation of the wide-area
village-level coordinated management. When the wide-area experiment was being set up,
IMFFI Semi-Structured Interview Survey - 29 of 66