The challenge: creating an action plan to scale up the production of dairy

Our task was clear: help these group of women involved in dairy production scale-up. 

The ecosystem of dairy for SRIJAN involved an interaction of different actors: SHG members produced milk. The Federation grouped different SHGs and organized them to fund a company called Maitree. Maitree bought the milk from the SHG members and sold it to the wholesale consumers, earning a greater profit than what would been attained if the milk was sold to middle-man.  SHG members were stockholders of Maitree, which lead to the profit margins being redistributed to them.

Each of these actors face a different challenge in terms of sustainability and scale: i) SHGs need to ensure that the livestock model is sustainable at a family level. This implies knowing that families can actually make a profit from getting cattle and selling the milk, and that they have mechanisms to deal with uncertainty (such as sickness of cows or bulls); ii) the Federation needs to be profitable and useful in terms of mobilizing resources for SHG groups; iii) Maitree needs to survive, be profitable and redistribute as many resources as possible back to SHG members. We decided to focus on this last one. 

The women in Tonk had done plenty of progress: they started with small savings, then bought cattle, later produced milk for self-consumption, created a milk-collecting company and now were about to heap into the operationalization of a pasteurization plant. Some of these women, who were the CEOs of the firm, had just learned how to read or write. Thousands of dollars were on their hands. 

Four things stood up to us:

•Commitment-  We did not see one single person that wasn’t fully engaged with the mission/vision of the organization. It was contagious to  us, who after cant been able to stop thinking about dairy!

•Knowledge-  Agents understood the context, market, and the methodology to reach this women and create change at the grassroots levels. Not a single one of our questions were left unanswered. In fact, we learned more that what we imagined. The team had implemented world class methodologies for aspects such as training for Pashu Sakis. 

•Results- they surrounded us throughout all out trip. On the numbers that resulted from the Pashu sakis; on the women who are visibly empowered; they were evident when we talked to people and heard their stories. However, we also realized that the women were not measuring these results, and that they were hard to report to donors.

•Opportunity- the commitment, the knowledge and the experience for impact bring forth plenty of opportunities. Individuals had the knowledge, and just needed to organize it.

However, the profitability of the company was on the line. As Ronnie Brodsky researched, the demand for milk in India is growing and most of it comes from the unorganized sector. However, the competition in the market of milk is fierce with Amul and Nestle having control over much of the market (Ajita Shashidhar, link). The following diagrams summarize the overall situation of the market:

To face this challenge, we broke the profitability problem of Maitree into pieces according to the following diagram: 

First, we analyze revenue streams and mechanisms to increase prices and volume. In parallel, we analyzed ways to decrease expenses by reducing fixed and variable costs. To stabilize prices we covered the possibility of working in new products to have more value-added; ensuring an adequate supply of inputs for existing and new products; finding more buyers so as to have more power to negotiate; and differentiate the product. For each category, we analyzed the progress that the company had made so far, the challenges that lied ahead and identified potential actions to face these challenges. After doing this, we created an action plan with defined milestones and metrics to analyze if we were getting to them.

Step 1: Following the value-chain of milk

It all starts with a 6 hour train to Jaipur (Rajasthan). We are advised not to eat anything in the train, and we happily drink chai and read a case study that we think summarizes what we are about to see. We reach Jaipur late at night, and start our day early in the morning after some hours of sleep. Four hours later, we reach Tonk. In Tonk we meet with the Srijan team that is working on the area. All of the team members are men. All of these men are working to empower women. Where are the women? 

Dairy producers in Maitree's collection center

We start with the usual: a general overview of the project. Its mission, "to empower 100,000 rural poor families by increasing their annual income by Rs. 50,000 by 2020, through SRIJAN;s unique livelihoods cluster approach, and by enhancing their capacity to demand and access public resources they are entitled to". Its vision, "An Organization of Excellence recognized as a resource agency for developing and replicating unique and innovative community owned sustainable livelihoods models leading to dignity for all". Its current state: after four years in tonk yet have formed an important number of self help groups (SHG hereinafter). 

These SHG are made up of vulnerable women who have come a long way. They tell us that before joining the group they had no contact with anyone outside their household. They got permission from their husbands to participate because this gave the family the possibility of accessing a loan. After, they met wonderful women and felt safe and liberated by being able to talk without being judged. They helped each other grow every day even teaching each other to read. 

SHG meeting

This women have been trained in veterinary practices and help other SHG members and the community by providing vaccination for the cattle, giving advice regarding feeding practices, provide artificial insemination, etc. this helps women gain social standing in their communities while improving the livelihoods of their regions.

SHG member who has also been trained in veterinarian practices. Her daughter (on the back) plans to attain a college degree.

At the same time, they receive cattle which serves multiple purposes: One one hand, it is a source of income for the household, increasing the welfare of these vulnerable homes. On another hand, it also leads to economic empowerment of women in their households. 

Children with cattle bought with the grant given by the SHG

The women in Tonk realized that middle men that bought their unpasteurized milk and sold it to bigger players were getting much of the margin. Therefore, they created a company called Maitree that collected the milk and sold it. The profits were then divided among SHG members. Recently, they also saw that there was an unexploited market opportunity related to adding value to the milk with the production of pasteurized milk, cheese, etc. They bought a pasteurization plant which will start operating within the next few months.

Maitree's processing center (which will have the pausterization plant)

Vehicle to collect milk from farmers owned by Maitree

Going back to the basics: the theory of change

Family of a member of SHG 

This idea of giving women power sounds compelling. But how does it really work? This blogpost will walk you through my understanding of the process. Please note that although it is informed by my work with TRI, SRIJAN and IMAGO, it doesn't describe the official theory of change of either organization.
It all starts with vulnerable women and their families in rural india: those with the lowest wealth that belong to backward or scheduled castes.  Grasroot NGOs like Srijan contact these women, and encourage them to form Self Help Groups (SHG).  They guide the establishment of these groups, showing them how to elect a leader, monitor participation, and how important it is to particpate regularly. Importantly, the SHG serve as a safe space for women where they question their staus-quo. An important component of SHG is financial inclusion: by belonging to SHG, women access group savings and credits. This serves as an incentive for women to join SHG and for their families to allow them to participate. Additionally, it shows members that they are powerful if they work together. The SHG empower women: members see that they face similar problems, they treat each other as equals and with respect, they see that they can reach a better life when working together.  They gain three types of agency:

1. Personal agency, which is related to have autonomy to go out of the house by themeselves; the possibility to think by themeselves; and a decrease in the domestic violence for instance. 
2. Economic agency,  seen by women getting jobs, having income of their own that they can spend, making decisions regarding sales of purchase of assets in their household, etc.
3. Political agency, which is associated to getting involved in politics by voting, participating in Grahm Sabha meetings, etc.

This agency improves the public service provision of goods and services in a way that responds to the needs of rural families that are in backward tribes or castes. Ideally, this would lead to better welfare (health, education, income, etc.) for the most vulnerable families.

Simplified version of TRI's theory of change

Horticulture

We embark in a new journey: horticulture. In Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh), SRIJAN has worked for more than a decade with tribal families. At first, the project was focused on water resource management and soil conservation. This resulted in better land productivity and ultimately, in a significant improvement in families’ standard of living. Next, SRIJAN focused on reducing input costs by teaching families to produce organic fertilizer using the available natural resources. The last step was to incentivize organic horticulture so that families could increase their income by putting their improved land and their fertilizers into use. Given that horticulture can lead to three or four times more income that agriculture in the long term, SRIJAN provides families with fruit plants (mango, guava, pomegranates) and border crops (lemons, jack fruits and bamboo) as well as training and handholding on a package of best practices.  

Consistent with SRIJAN’s trademark, the community forms self-help groups (SHG) of women. These groups access a safe-space where they are empowered and incentivized to improve the welfare of their communities by contacting the panchayat and demand better education, health, etc.  Women also start saving and access credit, and they improve their livelihoods by producing and selling organic fertilizer as a group. However, the model is different from the usual SRIJAN practice because the horticulture activity involves both males and females. The reason is simple: tribal communities are extremely poor and patriarchal. Often, their only asset is land, and the family depends on what is produced out of this territory. Therefore, the decision to allocate land to horticulture is critical and has important implications on the allocation of labor and on the cash flows received by the entire household over a period of 5 to 10 years. As the decision had to be made at a family level, male involvement was essential.

Meeting with SHG members

In the field, we meet with the SHG groups. They proudly show us their organic fertilizer plot. At first, they say, it was very hard to keep the worms alive and no one wanted to touch them. Now, they know how it works and have seen how useful it is in making the soil produce better crops. They use most of what they produce in their own plots, and sell the excess to SRIJAN. We ask them about their role in family decisions. For instance, we ask about who decides if a child goes to school. Playfully, they say they do. Is it real?

Members in front of their organic fertilizer plot

We accompany them to a meeting with a micro-finance institution. Proudly, they state that they have never missed a payment, and that whenever a member runs short, the other ones finance them so as to avoid extra fees and bad records. With the loans, they have financed their own entrepreneurial activities, and now own spice shops and tailoring.

Meeting with micro-finance institution

We meet the Federation, a group made up of two members from each SHG group.  These women have fantastic stories about how they have changed the world together. For instance, they noticed that teachers did not attend school and that kids had limited learning as a result. They decided to go to the school and talk to the School Director and the teachers. They also went to Government officials and demanded a change. Most importantly, they were heard and achieved improvements in teacher placement. They proudly tell us that they also worked together so that the road in front of us was built. They mention that they were trained in book-keeping, and that they follow standard meeting practices like taking attendance and keeping summaries of meetings.

Secretary recording summary of the meeting

Federation meeting

We talk to a group of farmers that are beneficiaries of the horticulture intervention. We discover that most have plots of 1.5 acres or less, work with little technology, and have not seen the result of the program: after more than 3 years of wait, trees are still growing without a fruit to be seen. They are hopeful, but report a lack of access to water, a high mortality of mango trees, and a need for short term income. All attendees are men. Are women really part of agricultural decisions?

Farmers in meeting with beneficiaries

The adventure continues when we visit some plots of land that have benefitted from the project. We are greeted by a man and his wife, along some other male family members. They tell us that when the project started that land was full of rocks and unproductive. They worked hard to remove the rocks, one by one. With the help of SRIJAN they started planting fruit trees. Since trees are only productive until 4-5 years, they did some intercropping to cover their everyday expenses. They are really happy with their results. The conversation is driven mostly by the male head of the household. I can’t really understand if this reflects a lack of empowerment or if it’s merely a reflection of culture. After all, my translator is a male and it is customary to talk to people of the same gender. Among the group of farmers that follow is another woman that tells us that her tree has not yet given her fruits. She mentions that she would not plant more trees if offered. My job is clear: helping SRIJAN ensure that their horticulture project is a good business.

That afternoon, we venture into the office with our heads bustling with ideas. In order to make the model financially sustainable, horticulture activities must be a business for farmers even when SRIJAN is not around. We start by asking the most basic question of all: what are the main income sources and the main expenditures for farmers? How can we increase revenue? Two days of workshop later, the team has the skeleton of an action plan outlining specific aspects that can increase the profit of beneficiaries in the short, medium and long term. Planning, however, is just the beginning…