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.
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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 Farmers in meeting with beneficiaries |
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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.
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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…
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