Pabitra Bordoloi, is the son of a tribal farmer of village Khulagaon, Mayong Block, Morigaon. He has got 2.5 bighas of cultivable land, while his father distributed his landed property among his sons. The piece of land inherited by Pabitra is on high land without any irrigation facility, so he was very upset. He knew only Paddy cultivation and the land was not suitable for Boro paddy cultivation.

The rain fed Sali crop could not be raised in that part of Morigaon as the land remains under flood water through out the monsoon season. So for livelihoods he went to work as labourer in a nearby stone quarry. Meanwhile, he got married and started facing hardship with meagre income from daily wages.

When Cross Border Project adopted the village Khulagaon and identifying beneficiaries through various events like group meetings, Shri Pabitra became curious and succeeded in enlisting his name as participant in field crops and vegetable domain. Through various trainings and interaction with LSPs and input support from project he raised various winter vegetables and adopting simple technology like multilayer vegetable cultivation.

He irrigated his vegetable garden by borrowing water from neighbor’s field. He earned Rs 30,000 in one season (Sep to June). After June the area remain as usual submerged under flood waters till the month of September. Pabitra took initiative and learnt the technique of raising vegetables through floating bed technology provided by the project. He became one of the very active members of BMC (Business Management Committee) of their 25 member farmers’ group and the group constructed 75 numbers of floating beds of water hyacinth. Through this activity the group earned a net income Rs 18000/- in 3 months (July-Sept).

With this profit the group purchased 7 piglets which were distributed to interested members of the group for fattening and subsequent selling. Pabitra expressed interest and got one piglets for fattening. After rearing for 9 months the said piglet attained 107 kg weight and sold to markets at Rs 10,700. The half of the sale proceeds so received was retain by Pabitra while the other half gone to group’s kitty fund.On the other hand, Pabitra with the help of one LSP approached local banks for loans and succeeded in getting a KCC loan of Rs 25000 with that amount he bought a pump sets part of which is subsidized by Department of Agriculture and setup a bore well within the farm. Now, Pabitra cultivates winter vegetables (pesticide free) and sells 50 kg of vegetable daily. His total income from vegetables during this season is about Rs 45,000.