Essar Foundation and Essar Steel (EStIL) Vizag have been working on an agriculture improvement program for the benefit of remote villages in Chitrakonda Block, Malkangiri District. The villages in the area have a predominately tribal population and have been identified by government agencies as communities with particularly low development indices.As part of an initiative by Essar, tribal villagers were trained in innovation in agricultural practices. These villagers essentially practice agriculture with a single crop and depend heavily on traditional knowledge and techniques. A series of training programmes were initiated under which local agriculture experts guided the villagers in the use of modern agricultural techniques to grow vegetables and other crops which can be easily sold in the market. This training has helped the villagers to improve the average yield of the total agricultural produce and has also increased economic returns.
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Essar Foundation has now initiated a campaign to distribute high-yielding seed varieties to the target group and will closely monitor its usage as well as document the best practices. A series of camps were held on December 25 and 29, 2013 in different villages of Ralegadda Panchayat, where the seeds were distributed. About 165 small farmers benefitted from this program.
