The document summarizes PRAGATI's work in Koraput district of Odisha, India. It discusses [1] PRAGATI's geographical reach and focus areas, [2] its Digital Green partnership project to improve farmer livelihoods using ICT, and [3] some success stories and challenges. The project uses videos in local languages to disseminate best agriculture practices to over 4,000 farmers across 134 villages. This has led to more adoption of organic farming and increased yields. Continued challenges include linking with government programs and improving infrastructure and sustainability.

1. digitalGREEN @ Partners Meet
20 September 2011
Greetings from
PRAGATI,KORAPUT
PRAGATI, KORAPUT,
At: Pujariput ,Po & Dist: Koraput ,Pin; 764020
Email: pragatikoraput@gmail.com
Phone No: 09437025045
Website: http://www.pragatikoraput.org

2. Organization Overview
Geographical area :
• 949 Villages in Koraput District - Directly operational in 221
villages in 21 Gram Panchayats of 4 blocks (Koraput,
Nandapur, Kotpad & Borigumma).
• Promoting Community Forest management & implementation
of Forest Rights Act in Koraput District in association with 22
local NGOs.
• Scale up of System of Rice Intensification covering 5200
small farm holders in Koraput District involving 14 Local
NGOs.
Years of operation:
19 years – (Established on 26th January 1992)
Main areas of focus:
• Building people’s organisation fro Empowering communities
to access their rights and entitlements
• Promotion of livelihoods through conservation , utilisation and
management of natural resources( land, water & forests)
• Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture through organic
practices.
• Formation and strengthening of women SHGs and Self Help
Cooperatives.
• Value addition and market linkage of Non Timber Forest
Produces.

3. Digital Green @ Partner Overview
Project Title: “Ensuring Livelihood Security of Small &
Marginal farmers using ICT”
• Objectives:
”Using DG technology and social organization components to
improve the cost effectiveness of existing people based extension
systems by improving operational efficiencies and increase the
rate at which farmers adopt better agriculture practices, through
production and dissemination of videos having local content in
local language”.
• Progress (Quantitative)
• Reaching out to 134 villages ( 114 Dissemination villages and 20
control villages) in 2 blocks.
• 4361 Mediated Disseminations conducted in 311 groups (with
39 % of women viewers).
• 6140 Adoptions of different agriculture practices.
• 114 Videos produced and uploaded on agriculture practices,
Govt. programmes and success stories.
• Trained staff on DG Concept, preparation of story board,
production and editing of videos and service providers on
mediated dissemination and community mobilization skills.
• A team of thematic experts for approval of story board and
videos ,ensuring proper implementation and monitoring.

4. Progress (Qualitative)
• Integrated with ongoing community development programmes- adding
value to our ongoing work.
Experiments with quality assurance, impact assessment, and/or sustainability
• Village meetings have become a regular practice. Demand generated by farmers for
production & dissemination of relevant videos.
• Systematic adoption of agriculture practices starting from seed bed preparation to
plant protection measures- changed Mindset of farmers.
• Environment created for sharing of information/exchange of ideas among farmers.
• Adoption of organic manures & pesticides reduced use of chemical practices.
Farmers start comparing organic vs. chemical.
• Adding annotation to videos for better understanding of farmers. Farmers feedbacks
and suggestions helped improved quality of videos.
• Critical points developed to ensure proper tracking of adoptions.
• Documentation of case stories and best practices.
• Sharing of concept of Community contributions started in all villages and community
contribution already started in 11 villages.
• Contribution of women recognized in agriculture extension services- 61 women
already featured in videos.

5. Case-studies
ICT-Reaching out to remote areas
Sitama Khora , of Jai Jagannath Group in Padalput village of Nandapur block has harvested almost two times of maize
crop after adopting the line sowing method as she watched in dissemination. Previously she used to plant two to three
plants in one place and in a haphazard manner. Another important observation was that pest attack was limited to few
plants, which could be controlled ,but previously it spread to all plants.
Increased adoption through mediated dissemination:
Only one farmer of Pogra village in Chatwa GP has been adopting SRI since 2008. Though the other farmers of the
village have also participated in trainings and even saw field demonstrations, they never gave a second thought to adopt
SRI. They found it to be a complicated process. But after they saw the principles through mediated disseminations, they
found it easier and in Kharif 2011, 13 farmers of the village have adopted SRI. For Nukana, the farmer adopting SRI
since last 3 years, it is almost unbelievable because he has motivated them several times, but failed.
A window to disseminate knowledge:
Tulsa Nayak ,of Desnaikguda(Koraput block) is now very popular among the farmers of Koraput & Nandapur blocks
after she has featured in a video on preparation of organic fungicide/pesticide using tobacco leaf (Dhungia patra Oso).
Though she knew about the practice she did not find an avenue to disseminate her knowledge. Now the video has been
disseminated to 2549 viewers leading to 105 adoptions. ICT has created opportunity for a women in remote village to
disseminate her knowledge. She is now an active leader of her SHG.
Change of practice- Chemical farming to organic :
Padmanabh Kartul, aged 32 years, a farmer of Barba village has been following chemical farming practices ever since he
started his career as a farmer, 15 years ago. But after watching dissemination , he has adopted only organic practices to
raise brinjal and chilly. Before watching dissemination, he believed that following organic practices would ever benefit
him. Now he feels that it has reduced his investment cost and he got good harvest.

6. Learning:
Learning and Challenges
• Community accept videos in their day to day agriculture practices- Expectation of input
support of community reduced.
• Opportunity for documentation of local practices/technology .
• Increased knowledge base and confidence of CSPs.
Challenges:
• Linkage with Govt. scheme and programmes.
(MGNREGA, NHM, RKVY,FRA, Green revolution-2 etc.)
• Lack of infrastructures like irrigation.
• Mobilization of community contribution.
• Turnover/Availability of CSP at community and cluster level.
• Demand from control villages for dissemination.
What need to be improved :
• Liasioning for establishment of linkage with Govt. and other agencies.
• Improve quality of videos.
• Community contribution has to be institutionalised for sustainability.
• Identification of CSP at community level.