TREE PLANTATION ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN ON LARGE SCALE

In early days of my career, when we were working with farmers for organizing cooperatives as well as other farmer development activities at GCMMF (Amul); farmers of the region at that time were facing difficulties in terms of depleting sources of groundwater, lesser pasture availability, low availability of fodder, etc.

In order to have long-term solution to this problem, we came upon this idea of conducting State-wide Tree Plantation drive. Further, we combined this with the Independence Day celebrations on 15^th August. This is ideal time being middle of monsoons in the country and ripe for new plantations, aligning with the sowing season.

This was a complete bottom-up approach, where basic awareness was created with the farmers on the long-term benefits of creating a large tree cover and targets for tree plantation were sought from individual societies itself. To help prepare farmers for such a large drive, we coordinated with the local nurseries operated by State Social Forestry Department as well as large farmers and aligned enough saplings to be prepared beforehand. Further, we also arranged transportation of these saplings to the society level. Farmers would prepare enough pits for putting the saplings and make available fertilizers as well as regular water availability.

On 15^th August, after flag hoisting ceremony, all the farmers and their family members were involved in the Tree Plantation drive for the whole day and the scene at village level used to be like a large festival with everyone in the village helping out in this initiative. This lasted for 2-3 more days, depending on the no. of trees to be planted and quantum of work. We also ensured trough regular follow-up, that more than 60% of these saplings survived through the season and attained enough growth to look after for itself.

At the beginning, we started with around 25 lakh trees planted, which soon increased to more than 4 crores trees within a short span. While being a very small initiative for us, the involvement of all farmers, size of the spread and consistent efforts over the years have led this to a transformative movement for rural Gujarat, aiding in green cover expansion.

While I don’t have track of the current status of this initiative, but the learning has left a deep impact and formed a habit for me. This year as well, we have planted around 200 Trees in our land and are looking at planting more than 500 next year during the same time i.e. Independence Day. Some snaps of recent plantations are as below:

 

 

 

Hope such initiatives spread across the country and we attain true independence in terms of

Greening of the ecology as well!