CASE ON DILESWARI SABAR’S CABBAGE GARDEN Dileswari Sabar is a farmer in the Larki village of Komna Block
of Nuapada District. She has 2 children. Her husband works as a wage labourer. Dileswari has 4 cent of paddy land. For many years she has been cultivating paddy and has not made good profits. Because of her very low profits from cultivating Paddy, she thought about planting vegetables. But before she made a decision, Dileswari made a careful survey in the market for which types of vegetables are in demand and command higher price. She went to several market places of her near by areas and found out that
cabbage sells at a very high price and was in high demand. She went to an agricultural technician of Council of Professional Social Workers (CPSW) and asked how cabbage is grown. Fortunately there was a
workshop to be given on cabbage cultivation for 2 days. She attended the 2 days workshop and learned how to raise cabbage. Since the workshop was basically conducted through demonstration and field practice, Dileswari learned how to plant, watering, application of fertilize, weed management and harvest of cabbage. She also learned that on 4 cent of land, she will need 400 rupees for land preparation, fertilizers, chemicals, labor and other incidental expenses for cabbage production. Dileswari had only 100 rupees. She went to her group (Mahalaxmi SHG) and requested to members for a loan of 300 rupees at 1% interest per month. Then she went to the market place and secured the commitments from buyers for her cabbage produce. With a ready market for her cabbage, she started to grow cabbage in her land. She strictly followed what she had learned from the workshop at CPSW, Kendubhatta. She recorded all her production expenses on cabbage production. After 3 months, she started harvesting cabbage and selling them to her buyers. She also recorded all her sale of cabbage. Her total sale amounted to 1600 rupees. She made a profit of 1200 rupees. Out of the profit, she paid her loan of 309 rupees to her group including the interest. All the rest of the profit, she reinvested in cultivation of ladies finger and brinjal by taking lease of an additional 4 cent of land. She has also a plan to purchase some goats for rearing to get additional benefits.