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CHALLENGE<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
Allai is an administrative subdivision of Battagram District in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province – that also contains the Allai Valley. Nature has blessed the valley with highly fertile land and plenty of irrigation water. The average land holding in the valley is one acre per household. In spite of huge potential of organic agricultural production, farmer\u2019s income and agricultural productivity is very low which has transpired food security issues and other social problems by inflated prices and scarcity of various fruits and vegetables. The low agricultural productivity has dragged more than 20,000 farmer families from the valley into various economic, social and food security issues. The farmers in Allai rely on unprocessed animal dung as bio-fertilizers are not widely available in the local market. The use of unprocessed animal dung with low nutrients is resulting in insects and pest problems with a de-creased yield.<\/p>\n
Advantages Of Bio-Fertilizer:<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
Chemically bio-fertilizer adds nutrients to the soil and the humus substance in them helps in development of plant roots and this in turn helps plans in drawing water as well as other nutrients from soil. In mountainous areas pellet shape fertilizers are easy to use, equally good for all crops, all types of soils and beneficial for all seasons. It improves soil texture and tilt, thus provides better environment for root development and aeration. In short the use of bio-fertilizer can increase the quantity and quality of yield and generate better profit and returns.<\/p>\n
Sungi Organics (Pvt.) Ltd established in 2010 has been running a small bio-composting unit to address farmer\u2019s income, employment and agriculture productivity issues however its production capacity\/quality was very limited due to low grade machinery (approx. 10,000 bags\/year \u2013 50 KG bag). In order to address the aforementioned issues there was a huge need to transform the existing composting unit to a bio-fertilizer processing unit.<\/p>\n
INITIATIVE<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
To address the challenge of poverty, food security, low income and unemployment in Allai valley, SOL approached USAID\u2019s Small Grants and Ambassador\u2019s Fund Program for assistance. A grant worth USD 99,906 was awarded under U.S Ambassador\u2019s Fund Program to:<\/p>\n
Improve agricultural productivity by promoting the use the use of bio fertilizer in Tehsil Allai of District Battagram.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Improve production and supply of bio fertilizer through up-gradation of existing bio composing unit to a new and more feasi-ble location.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Establish a system for farmers to easily access bio fertilizer through the platform of government farm service center and vil-lage committees.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
RESULT<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
After up-gradation, the plant is able to produce approx.14, 300, bags\/month. This has facilitated the small farmers to increase their agricultural productivity and address their food security issues on sustainable basis. The estimated cost of one 50 Kg bio-fertilizer bag is approximately PKR 625 however farmers are able to purchase these bags at a subsidized price of PKR 500.<\/p>\n
During the project period, approx. 3,000 male farmers and 2,000 female farmers from 04 UC\u2019s of Tehsil Allai, District Battagram has benefited from the bio-fertilizer distribution and use, during one cropping season. However, in the long run, it would benefit 20,000 farmers.<\/p>\n
Adult female literacy Program has benefitted 3,750 women in today in 5 Union Councils. The program has enabled these women to read newspaper, utility bills, write letters and supervise the homework of their children studying at initial stage of schooling.<\/p>\n
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[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1528362857681{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1\/1″ id=”blogpost”][vc_column_text] CHALLENGE Allai is an administrative subdivision of Battagram District in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province – that also contains the Allai Valley. Nature has blessed the valley with highly fertile land and plenty of irrigation water. The average land holding in the valley is one acre per household. In spite of huge potential of organic agricultural production, farmer\u2019s income and agricultural productivity is very low which has transpired food security issues and other social problems by inflated prices and scarcity of various fruits and vegetables. The low agricultural productivity has dragged more than 20,000 farmer families from the valley into various economic, social and food security issues. The farmers in Allai rely on unprocessed animal dung as bio-fertilizers are not widely available in the local market. The use of unprocessed animal dung with low nutrients is resulting in insects and pest problems with a de-creased yield. Advantages Of Bio-Fertilizer: Chemically bio-fertilizer adds nutrients to the soil and the humus substance in them helps in development of plant roots and this in turn helps plans in drawing water as well as other nutrients from soil. In mountainous areas pellet shape fertilizers are easy to use,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22011"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22483,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22011\/revisions\/22483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrsp.org.pk\/sgafp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}