Despite facing difficulties, most farmers of Rajasthan's Rawatpura village are smiling

By Bharat Dogra

Visiting several villages of Karauli district (Rajasthan, India) recently, it was generally not difficult to reach them. However the situation changed dramatically when going to Rawatpura village located in Sapotra block. Here the paths were very difficult to negotiate and at the same time very dusty too. The paths to various widely scattered, remote villages are not at all easy to identify and the task is best left to local persons or those with the experience of very frequent coming and going. One long stretch of a difficult path merely gives way to yet another.

However, the warm welcome provided by the people of Rawatpura, who are not used to receiving many visitors, more than made up for the long drive. As I soon learnt, lack of proper paths is only one part of the several difficult conditions the people living here face. One is lack of electricity connection. Those who can afford to do so have purchased solar panels and batteries which are used to get a little light in the dark nights and charge mobile phones.

However it is very difficult to get connectivity on their mobile phones and people have to go to a high place or certain identified places to be able to talk a little on phone before the connection is cut off abruptly.

Despite several problems many farmers in this village are nevertheless happy and enthused. The reason is that they have been able to increase food production significantly during the last three years or so. The factor which made the biggest contribution to this increase related to the creation of several new ponds or similar water sources as well as improvement of existing ones with the help of a voluntary organization SRIJAN. About 13 new water sources have been created here by SRIJAN and almost an equal number of existing ponds or pokhars have been improved. As a result of this nearly 200 acres of previously uncultivated land is being cultivated now, while on even more farmland additional rabi or winter crop is being taken. As a woman Subabai says, she had earlier never seen wheat in cultivation form on her farm and now they are growing a lot of wheat, mustard, gram and some vegetables too, and the productivity of the kharif crops, which was earlier entirely dependent on rainfall, has also improved. Bilasi, another woman of this village says-- earlier there was hunger in this village, not enough to meet our basic food needs, but now we are meeting our needs and earning good income from sales of farm produce too.

Devi Singh, a farmer, says that nearly half of his land was lying uncultivated earlier while the yield on the remaining land was low and uncertain. Now he is able to cultivate almost all his land, and has increased the production on the land that was being cultivated previously also.

As such benefits are visible clearly, farmers are willing to share the costs of works like land levelling, bund construction and deposition of fertile silt, even though the bulk of the support comes from Srijan. When the poorest farmers face some difficulties in this, some solutions are worked out by the people themselves in the course of discussions at village development committee.

The farmers of this remote village were already cultivating more or less on the basis of natural farming, but inter-action with SRIJAN has also led to further emphasis on this. The availability of good quality crops in substantial quantity attracts traders to the village to purchase the produce. This saves farmers the bother of going to the market for selling, but the traders offer lower rates while purchasing crops from the village. Farmers are thinking of linking up with a farmer producer organization to get better rates for their mustard crop.

Such changes can be seen not just in this village but also in several other villages in this area. All along the route at several places we could see these water sources which provide a very welcome relief from the dusty and hot surroundings, with many birds and animals also finding shelter here. Some other voluntary organizations like Gram Gaurav have also contributed to such efforts.

Srijan’s main emphasis here has been on protecting sustainable rural livelihoods, but in addition the cause of the protection of many animals and birds has also been advanced.

However some problems still persist. These include drinking water shortage in acute summer season in several villages including Rawatpura. As team leader of Srijan Bhawani Singh explained, in difficult conditions here it will take some time for water recharge from new water sources to raise water levels significantly. Hence this work must continue and expand more. Its value is increasingly accepted also by government development officials of the region who have been encouraging and appreciating the work of Srrijan. On their part, I found in the course of my discussions in Rawatpura, that farmers here are only too eager and willing to extend their cooperation for more work along these lines.

This work of Srijan, supported by the corporate social responsibility (CSR) fund of ABCF (Aditya Birla Capital Foundation) is also helping to improve climate change adaptation capabilities. This work provides a good example of how good, carefully planned utilization of available CSR funding can bring very useful and meaningful changes for people and communities who face very difficult conditions for reasons beyond their control.

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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include 'Protecting Earth for Children', 'Man over Machine" and 'A Day in 2071'

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