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Details Of Innovation
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Balwatsinh Laxmansinh is a farmer from the Surendranagar district of Gujarat, a region near the little Rann of Kutchchh (desert). Most of the land is dry, and saline and rainfall is scarce in these parts. When monsoon waters inundate the Rann, people produce salt by making pans to hold the water, which evaporates and leaves the salt behind. Balwantsinh uses an innovative method to make the land cultivable, slash and burn to farm. He spreads the organic waste of farms and hedge such as dry straws, stalks, and leaves on the surface of the entire farm and sets it on fire. This method not only solves the problem of waste disposal but also reduces the salinity of the soil, and the ash left behind acts as a fertilizer. He uses the waste of mesquite, cotton, mustard, castor, millet, pigeon pea, etc. How he came up with the idea; he uses the thorny stems of mesquite (Prosopis juliflora) for hedging. When cutting the fresh stems for repairing the hedge, he discards the old ones and burns them, thereby avoiding injuries to the passerby by the sharp thorns. Once, after the rains, he saw grass and other vegetation growing on the patch, where he usually burned the mesquite waste. He then decided to try on his farm.
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