DUS successfully completed 4 month long (Nov, 2015 – Feb, 2016) campaign on ‘promoting grassroots innovationations by combining scientific knowledge and local wishdom’ in association with ADRRN. The objective of the campaign was to identify the best practices performed by the advanced farmers of DUS programs on salt resistant cropping practices, justifying their scientific ground and disseminate the information to the vulnerable community using different media. The campaign activities included five workshops in different places with the participation of stakeholders of various levels i.e. Government officials, relevant development workers and farmers. These workshops identified the good practices, challenges and demands of the local farmers which are addressed and discussed with the service providers. Along with these workshops several exposure visits were organized to the DUS intervened fields with salt tolerant crop cultivation. DUS promotes cultivation of several salt resistant and high yielding varieties of paddy to the lead farmers with technical and financial supports after a successful piloting. DUS also promoted the cultivation of salt tolerant variety of several vegetables, i.e. bean, cucumber, banana etc. The huge success of these cultivators were disseminated and demonstrated through community radio program on Radio Sagardwip and cultural programs i.e extempore speech, Gamveeras etc to the other farmers of salinity intruded region of the Htiya island as per the campaign objective. ADRRN representative Ms. Shalini Jain participated the campaign activities along with DUS officials.
