Progress of Project 

>> Activity was started from 1^st April 2009, so half season completed successfully. The whole team is struggling hard for the successful completion of the activity. Mostly, Field Facilitators spent extra time in the field because the area was very vast and the number of farmers were also very large. Some time they have to work on Sunday. Now all the facilitators are providing advisory services to the farmers and Expert Field Facilitators are regularly monitoring and supporting them. Besides these Expert Field Facilitators, Project Coordinator and Technical Supporting Officer are also visiting the field and supporting them to tackle various field issues. WWF-P is also regularly monitoring and supporting them, so the things definitely bring a healthy change regarding OVOF activity.

>> Sowing of cotton crop is completed in June. There are some acres those were early sown, mostly cotton is sown timely and some area has late sowing due to lack of irrigation water.

>> The area where a Field Facilitator is working is called a block. So both UC’s area divided into eleven blocks & eleven Field Facilitators were assigned in these blocks. Each block contains 1600 acres on average. The area was divided & defined block wise with the help of Expert Field Facilitators. After going into the field, all the Field Facilitator defined their area & boundary. Then they collected data about cotton growers and their acres. So this year total cotton growers in these two union councils were 2498 and total acres of these farmers for cotton crop were 17863.

>> First of all, the Field Facilitators gave advisory services to the farmers about soil sampling so that they should know about their needed inputs. For this purpose all the Field Facilitators were asked to collect randomly 10 soil samples from their block and each sample will be collected from 0"-6" and 6"-12" depth. So total 116 samples were collected. 63 from UC Chak no. 24/BC and 53 from UC Jamrani Kohna. According to the soil sampling results, there is too much shortage of Organic matter, Potassium & Phosphorus in soil. After the results of these soil samples, now farmers know that what is the need of their lands. Now they are using balance fertilizers which are needed. 

>> Every crop starts from land preparation, so our Field Facilitators provided best advisory services about land preparation. In the result farmers adopted BMPs and prepared their lands using minimum resources. In 2008 farmers used average 4-5 ploughs to prepare their land but now, in 2009 farmers used mostly 2-3 ploughs. So saving at least 2 ploughs on preparing land a farmer saved 700/- Rs per acre. It is a great achievement in the start of activity.

>> Due to shortage of irrigation water, our Facilitators advised farmers to sow cotton on first irrigation (Kachi Roni), as a result some farmers adopted it and they sowed cotton on first irrigation (Kachi Roni). In this way most of the cotton has sown well on time not being late. Using this method, farmers saved extra expenses of second irrigation and extra ploughs for sowing. It is estimated that minimum 3 hours of tube well water cost which was 450/- Rs per acre, is saved. On sowing after 2^nd irrigation farmers normally used 2 ploughs costing 700/- Rs per acre which was also saved.

>> Base Line Survey (BLS) is also an important activity. All the facilitators visited their area and surveyed the questioner forms. Total registered farmers were 2498, out of those 1991 (1250 from UC Jamrani Kohna & 741 from UC 24 BC) farmers are surveyed. The remaining 507 farmers were not surveyed because they were the brothers or sons of already registered farmers and also sharing the same land. With the help of these forms we have collected information about farmers and their living style also. These forms showed what expenses they spent and what they earned. Some farmers were going in loss. Now they are trying to adopt BMPs in order to reduce their expenses and increase their savings. Now farmers know what type of expenses could be reduced.

>> A Field Facilitator on average covers 1600 acres of cotton crop which is a vast area. So it was very difficult for a facilitator to cover the whole area and he needed a person which will support him to cover all the area. For this purpose, activists were selected locally. Activist training was also initiated by WWF-P. Total 20 activists participated in first session of each union council, 10 from UC Jamrani Kohna & 10 from UC 24 BC. All these activists are regularly working with Field Facilitators and also regularly participating in trainings.              

>> The following BMPs were applied in the fields:

>   Use of ridges sowing according to the land texture.

>   Use of DAP by double drill at the time of sowing.

>   Seed germination test.

>   Plant population counting and maintaining required number of plant population

     per acre by gap filling after germination.

>   Laser leveling, in order to reduce irrigation expenses.

>   Broad casting of urea after irrigation.

>   Urea application by hand method (Hand Kera).

>   Application of DAP by drill.

>   Use of various plant materials such as Korr Tumma and Neem extract as

    repellent against harmful   insects as alternatives of pesticides.

>   Use of cold water against white fly.