A series of technical training sessions were held at Natural Integrated Farm, Wahpati, Moodymmai organized by Society for Urban & Rural Empowerment (SURE) in collaboration with NESFAS for the ALC members from April to May, 2022. They were facilitated by Bah Helpme Laloo, entrepreneur and owner of the Natural Integrated Farm, and saw the participation of farmers from the Agroecology Learning Circles (ALCs) of Jaintia Hills, Ri-Bhoi and East Khasi Hills. The training sessions are part of the ongoing NESFAS’ project “Empowering Indigenous Communities through Agroecology Learning Circles (ALCs) for resilient, integrated and innovative natural resource management”, which is supported by MBMA and funded by the World Bank.
The sessions focused on addressing the issues and knowledge gaps on soil and pests faced by the ALCs. The objective is to build the capacity of the farmers in order to be able to carry out and utilize the learning in their own communities. The training sessions were held in his farm where he explained and demonstrated the various experiments to the ALC members on soil and pests using a low-cost budget.
During the sessions, Bah Laloo shared the story of his initiative- Natural Integrated Farm- it was initially established in the year 2015 and focused on vermicomposting and at the same time planting organic vegetables in the farm. Bah Laloo shared, “I named it ‘Natural Integrated Farm’ because whatever I make use in the farm, it comes from Mother nature only”. He also expressed his gratitude to the SURE and NESFAS team for involving him from time to time to train farmers in different districts of the state.
Bah Helpme Laloo addressed, “I urge my fellow farmers and our local youth to take this lesson and imbibe it, and at the same time to conserve this method of producing traditional healing solutions in order to sustain it for the upcoming generations. I further request others to take these trainings diligently and embrace it for they will be blessings in our future”.
Many ALC members shared that they have been enriched with the knowledge they received from the training. The ALC members also agreed to start implementing the knowledge they have attained practically and stated that the training is very different from the others that they normally receive every now and then.
Kong Shida Suting, custodian farmer, Sohmynting, remarks, “It was a free of cost method that we learnt; the resources and materials used are locally available. These resources are gifted by nature and are grown naturally in our fields”.
Bah Manshuwa Syngkon, ALC farmer, Iooksi, “ I have gathered a lot of information from the training on pest management and with the knowledge I have received I will carry it forward to implement it on my own”.
“Through this exchange visit, we came to know about different techniques of pest and soil management which were not known to us before”, added Roshan Klien, an ALC farmer from Plasha.
