Ramprasad of Patalda Village: Transforming Land, Transforming Life

Ramprasad from village Patalda is a marginal farmer and has his field lying at the edge of dense woods and hillocks. Every year the rains would wash away the fields and erode the soil. Couple of years back Ramprasad could not even rent his land. He happened to visit a Project training and could learn about the Cloth for Work initiative. He approached the organization to mend his field. The family decided to volunteer. They picked up the idle stones and stacked it on the places where the water runoff and erected the boundary wall. Soon they had farm bunding done and field prepared. Till past two years Ramprasad and his family had plentiful crops. They had enough to eat and sell some. Ramprasad could repair his hut and buy a pair of bullocks. He could also send one of his son to a good school nearby. For all this voluntary work Ramprasad and his family received clothes and grains as incentive. Ramprasad was motivated and he with his neighbors erected a sandbag check dam across the stream that has conserved the water longer for cattle and some irrigation of nearby fields.