How NGO helped change the life of Rajasthan's adivasi Meena households facing high levels of poverty
Ezan, a woman from Meena adivasi community, is tired yet happy. “Yes, I have been working very hard in my new orchard, as I must make a success of this. However at the same time now I am much more enthusiastic and hopeful than before as now we have something to look forward to. A lot has been happening in our village in recent times which gives us hope for the future.”
Till just four years back things were looking quite adverse for most of the adivasi Meena households living here in Kalyanpura village of Suhagpura block, Pratapgarh district, a part of Rajasthan troubled by high levels of multi-dimensional poverty. As expenses were increasing but yields were stagnant, dependence on migration was increasing. It was at this stage that a voluntary organization SRIJAN (Self Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action) encouraged women to get organized in producer groups here. Taking forward a program of improving nutrition and sustainable livelihoods along with protecting environment, the HDFC Parivartan project initiated here helped more and more households to create multi-layer vegetable gardens and fruit orchards ( with special emphasis on guavas) on a part of their land.
What is more, this was taken forward on the basis of natural farming methods and preparation of vermicompost, resulting in the availability of more healthy food while also improving soil health and reducing expenses of farmers. Women in this village like Laxmibai are particularly happy with the presence of many more vegetables in their food now, leading to better health. Kitchen gardens have also contributed to increased availability of vegetables, mostly for self-consumption but in some cases also for sale.
What is more, the natural farming practices initially promoted in orchards, vegetable and kitchen gardens have also increased the confidence of farmers to introduce these gradually on agricultural fields as well, raising hopes of the village gradually moving almost entirely towards natural farming with its promise of healthier food and soil as well as reduced expenses and increasing self-reliance.
In Semaliya Khurd village of the same block a farmer Amba Lal explained that the response to spread of natural farming has on the whole been very positive, but in the initial stage of making the change sometimes difficulties are experienced and so farmers like to spread the change over a number of years. After some time, Amba Lal says on the basis of his recent experience, the situation stabilizes and then good yield can be obtained while reducing expenses.
Similarly in the context of introduction of guava orchards, earlier there was some hesitation as people did not want their staple food production to decrease. Then after group discussion it was decided that it is possible to inter-crop in the orchard so that a significant part of the staple food crop continues to be available.
One encouraging aspect of recent mobilization efforts has been that as villagers and particularly women are meeting and discussing more frequently, several solutions are emerging from these discussions. In Semaliya Khurd the erratic supply of electricity was a big problem for irrigation. SRIJAN came with the offer of helping to provide solar pumping sets, but keeping in view its own resource limitations, farmers had to pay a part of the expense while SRIJAN contributed the other part. Many farmers were very enthused by this but did not have the resources to meet even a part of the expenses. 
However again discussion helped and several farmers now have pumping sets to meet their own irrigation needs as well as to provide water to others for a reasonable charge, helping to recover a part of their own investment. Perhaps arranging such irrigation at community level can be more helpful in terms of reducing per farmer costs.
Such efforts have spread to many more villages and nearly 140,000 fruit trees have been planted under this project during the last 3 years in over 50 villages of Suhagpura block. Several senior officials have appreciated these and extended their help and encouragement, while also obtaining the cooperation of SRIJAN in their own work like recently distributing about 500 vegetable seed kits. This has also raised hopes of further strengthening of this project’s work and achievements. As SRIJAN’s team leader Premnath Yogi explains, one of the important future areas of progress is for the women producer groups (like Dhan Laxmi in Kalyanpura) to get together to set up a producer farmer company of farmers, named Dolmashree, which can take up value adding and processing activities like extracting mahua oil, so that households do not have to pay others for this, while they also get better quality oil and save the oilcake as well.
However there are also some constraints particularly those relating to the scarcity of water in many villages. Even as many women were talking very enthusiastically about their guava orchards in two group discussions I had in this area recently, a shadow would invariably appear on their face whenever they talked about the difficulties of arranging adequate irrigation for their orchards during the season of water scarcity which had already started and would remain till the monsoon rains come. Hence not just the improvement of irrigation based on existing water sources is needed but what is important is to increase water sources and to get more water in all water sources. As senior SRIJAN representative Mohd Saquib says, water availability is perhaps the most important factor in the realization of several development objectives here. Hence water conservation in these conditions should get the highest priority.
---
The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food, Man over Machine, Protecting Earth for Children, and A Day in 2071
Comments