Ernakulam District Cooperative Bank will launch farmers’ club at each of its 60 braches by the end of October to propagate organic farming, draw young people to farming activities and to provide technical and financial assistance to farmers’ groups.
Each farmers’ club will have 10 members and will receive assistance to the tune of Rs. 10,000 each from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, said General manager of the Bank M. K. Radhakrishnan here on Sunday.
The bank will join hands with the Department of Agriculture for the farmers’ clubs project.
The move to launch farmers’ clubs takes a cue from the success of the bank’s experiment with providing “poison-free” vegetables during the Onam season. He said that the move was a great success with substantial quantities of vegetables, sourced from the Palliakkal and Manjapra societies being sold with the bank’s assistance.
Meanwhile, the bank’s efforts to spread poultry farming and dairying have met with success, drawing hundreds of people to these activities.
The bank has set aside Rs. one crore for the poultry farming ( Mutta Gramam ) programme of which over Rs. 40 lakh has been distributed as loans to 250 five-member groups in panchayats like Parakkadavu, Puthenvelikkara, Nedumbassery, Kunnukara, Kizhakkambalam and Thiruvaniyoor. The programme is being implemented in collaboration with the voluntary body Bharat Sevak Samaj.
Each of the Joint Liability Group comprises five people and get a total loan of Rs. 75,000. A total of 200 more applications for the poultry farming programme is pending.
The dairying ( Ksheera Samrudhi ) programme has seen 22 units with two cows each being established already.
Source : The Hindu
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