leisa india-september 2008 final · salam majalah pertanian berkelanjutan the indonesian edition in...

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Magazine on Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture A

L E I S A I N D I A • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 82

September 2008 Volume 10 no. 3

INDIALEIS

LEISA India is published quarterly by AMEFoundation in collaboration with ILEIA

Address : AME FoundationNo. 204, 100 Feet Ring Road,3rd Phase, Banashankari 2nd Block, 3rd Stage,Bangalore - 560 085, IndiaTel: +91-080- 2669 9512, +91-080- 2669 9522Fax: +91-080- 2669 9410E-mail: [email protected]

LEISA India

Managing Editor : K.V.S. PrasadEditor : T.M. Radha

EDITORIAL TEAM

This issue has been compiled by T.M. Radha,K.V.S. Prasad and Arun Balamatti

ADMINISTRATION

M. Shobha Maiya

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Contact: M. Shobha Maiya

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

S Jayaraj, Chennai

PRINTING

Nagaraj & Co. Pvt. Ltd., Chennai

COVER PHOTO

Photo: S Jayaraj for AME Foundation

Different editions

LEISA MagazineThe Global edition in English

LEISA Revista de AgroecologiaThe Latin American edition in Spanish

LEISA IndiaThe Indian edition in English

SALAM Majalah Pertanian BerkelanjutanThe Indonesian edition in Indonesian

AGRIDAPEThe West African edition in French

Agriculturas, Experiencias em AgroecologiaThe Brazilian edition in Portuguese

LEISA CHINAThe Chinese edition

The editors have taken every care to ensurethat the contents of this magazine are asaccurate as possible. The authors haveultimate responsibility, however, for thecontent of individual articles.

The editors encourage readers to photocopyand circulate magazine articles.

Wishing you a very happy and prosperous new year!

We are happy to share with you that the year 2009 happens to be the 25th yearof LEISA global edition. Together with you, LEISA India completes ten years ofsharing LEISA experiences as an Indian edition. We look forward to more inten-sive support from you in the future in promoting awareness and practice of LEISA.

We had the pleasure of organizing yet another face-to-face meeting with LEISAEnthusiasts, this time, in North India. The meet generated lot of positive energies,created another opportunity to hear each other’s innovative experiences instrengthening LEISA movement. (details on back cover page).

We have just made a beginning in preparing translated editions of LEISA India,based on selected articles from English editions into Kannada, Hindi and Tamil.Please keep us informed about efforts in translating LEISA India articles intoseveral other Indian languages, on your own.

In the new year, 2009, we shall be exploring with you how we could strengthenour movement to be financially sustainable. We look forward to your cooperationand patronage.

The Editors

Dear Readers

LEISA is about Low-External-Input and Sustainable Agriculture. It is about the

technical and social options open to farmers who seek to improve productivity and

income in an ecologically sound way. LEISA is about the optimal use of local

resources and natural processes and, if necessary, the safe and efficient use of

external inputs. It is about the empowerment of male and female farmers and the

communities who seek to build their future on the bases of their own knowledge,

skills, values, culture and institutions. LEISA is also about participatory

methodologies to strengthen the capacity of farmers and other actors, to improve

agriculture and adapt it to changing needs and conditions. LEISA seeks to combine

indigenous and scientific knowledge and to influence policy formulation to create a

conducive environment for its further development. LEISA is a concept, an approach

and a political message.

Board of Trustees

Dr. R. Dwarakinath, Chairman

Mr. Aloysius Prakash Fernandez, Member

Dr. Vithal Rajan, Member

Mr. S.L. Srinivas, Treasurer

ILEIA is the Centre for Information on Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture.ILEIA seeks to promote the adoption of LEISA through the LEISA magazines and otherpublications. It also maintains a specialised information data base and an informative andinteractive website on LEISA (www.leisa.info). The website provides access to many othersources of information on the development of sustainable agriculture.

AME Foundation promotes sustainable livelihoods through combiningindigenous knowledge and innovative technologies for Low-External-Inputnatural resource management. Towards this objective, AME Foundation workswith small and marginal farmers in the Deccan Plateau region by generatingfarming alternatives, enriching the knowledge base, training, linkingdevelopment agencies and sharing experience.

AMEF is working closely with interested groups of farmers in clusters of villages,to enable them to generate and adopt alternative farming practices. Theselocations with enhanced visibility are utilised as learning situations forpractitioners and promoters of eco-farming systems, which includes NGOs andNGO networks. www.amefound.org

Dr. M. Mahadevappa, Member

Dr. N.C.B. Nath, Member

Dr. K. Shivashankar, Member

Dr. C. Ramasamy, Member

Dr. P.G. Chengappa, Member

6Addressing the conditions for gettingout of povertySílvio Gomes de Almeida, Paulo Petersen,Adriana Galvão Freire and Luciano Silveira

Worldwide, thousands of projects and programmes aim to reduce poverty. But, what doesit mean to be poor? An NGO in Brazil studied this and concluded that, apart from economicpoverty, the feeling of being cut off from opportunities in society makes people feel poor.

Programmes were re-designed to build onfarmers’ own livelihood strategies and link themto government initiatives such as credit andaccess to land programmes. The combinationappeared to provide powerful ways out ofpoverty.



From exclusion to empowerment –women of the Siddi communityAga Khan Foundation

Marginalised communities, such as Siddis in Gujarat, often acceptentrenched poverty, deprivation and exclusion as a way of life.Development under such circumstances is not just about reachingthe unreached, it is about contending with low esteem, lack ofconfidence, limited livelihood options, low levels of literacy, andabove all, remaining sensitive to distinct racial and culturalidentities. The article delves intothese issues, describing theprocesses adopted by AKRSP(India) and the collective journeyof the Siddi women as they movefrom strength to strength.Confident in themselves andwith a desire to achieve, thesewomen are today venturing out,taking business risks andplanning for their future, and thefuture of their children.

8

30Communities of Faith and ActionSiddhartha

Communities of Faith and Action (CFA) process integrates thespiritual life of village people with their social and ecologicalconcerns. It includes the re-interpretation of traditional festivalsand sacred symbols creating a common ground for both religiousand secular people to celebrate festivals that lead to social andenvironmental action. With these interventions, there is a definiteshift in the thinking process of the local communities – a shift fromcoping with problems to transforming them.

CONTENTSVol. 10 no. 3, September 2008

Including Selections from International Edition

4 Editorial

6 Addressing the conditions for getting out of poverty

Sílvio Gomes de Almeida, Paulo Petersen, AdrianaGalvão Freire and Luciano Silveira

8 From exclusion to empowerment –women of Siddi community

Aga Khan Development Network

11 Women breakdown barriers in Mali

Jonas Wanvoeke, Rosaline Maiga Dacko, KalifaYattara and Paul Van Mele

13 Empowerment of Soliga tribes

M. Jadegowda and M.N Ramesh

15 Building human capital of small scale farmers: aCoalition approach

Ch Ravinder Reddy, Ashok S Alur, Belum V S Reddy,P. ParthasarathyRao, CLL Gowda and R Ratnakar

17 Including the poor through participatory actionprocess

Chandrashekhar S. Hunshal and A.T. Patil

18 Themes for LEISA India

19 Caring for the caregivers in Mozambique

Simon Mukwaya

20 People with learning difficulties develop confidencethrough care farming

Natasha van Dijk

22 Visually impaired students grow better maize

Humphrey Nkonde

23 Natural conservationists: struggle and success

Rajesh Paudel

24 Home gardens are within reach of marginalisedpeople

Rojee Suwal, Bimal Raj Regmi, Bhuwon Sthapit andArjina Shrestha

25 The Free Farmers Union and their fight for land

Abdul Syukur and Ngadiyono

27 Villages join hands to combat land degradation

Sanjay Joshie

28 Learning from an effort to scale up local successes

Shiva Khanal

29 The Narayana Reddy ColumnEnsuring livelihood for poor farmers

30 Communities of Faith and ActionSiddhartha

32 New Books

33 Sources

35 Networking

36 LEISA Enthusiasts Meet in North IndiaMeeting of Minds - Exchange of Experiences

24

People with learning difficultiesdevelop confidence through carefarmingNatasha van Dijk

“Care farms’ which exist in many European countries combine careof the land with care of vulnerable people. The Kiem care farm inthe Netherlands, which started 60 years ago, provides a means forvulnerable people to grow and develop by developing theirpossibilities, strengths and potentials rather than focusing on theirlimitations – by engaging them in agricultural activities.

Home gardens are within reach ofmarginalised peopleRojee Suwal, Bimal Raj Regmi,Bhuwon Sthapit and Arjina Shrestha

People with low status in rural Nepal often have small plots ofland around their houses that they can use. Such plots areparticularly meaningful for women as they can cultivate themalongside their household duties. A project supported such peopleto turn small bare plots into rich vegetable gardens. This helped toproduce additional vegetables, but also improved their status inthe village, as they had seeds and vegetables to offer.

20


Understanding social exclusion

Poverty has both material and non-material dimensions.Because of its tangibility, the material dimension has gainedimportance and recognition over the non-material aspects.

However, social exclusion is an important and often overlookeddimension of poverty. The exclusion of the poor from participationin and access to opportunities and activities is a major non materialdimension of poverty which needs to be recognized and addressed.

Social exclusion is a multi-dimensional concept. People may beexcluded from livelihoods, employment, earnings, property,consumption, education, citizenship, personal contact or respectetc. It refers to the exclusion in the economic, social and politicalspheres. Social exclusion implies a focus on the relations andprocesses that cause deprivation.

In other words, social exclusion is the process or state of beingexcluded from the ordered life of a community. Being excludedcan sometimes be in itself a deprivation. For example, not beingable to relate to others and take part in the life of the communitycan indirectly impoverish a person’s life. This additionally reducesthe economic opportunities that come from social contact.

There are two types of exclusion - active and passive exclusion.Active exclusion is fostering exclusion through deliberate policyinterventions by the government or other external agents, whereaspassive exclusion works through social process (Amartya Sen).

Exclusion can happen at various levels in a society. People maybe born into an excluded group (in the case of ethnicity, caste, orbeing born with a disability), or may become excluded either dueto changes in circumstances (such as migration, acute illness, ordisaster) or to chronic processes (such as long-termunemployment). People may also be excluded because of wherethey live (for example, people who live in remote areas or slums).There is no single criterion for identifying the socially excluded,nor is it always agreed who the socially excluded are in a givensociety.

The consequences of social exclusion can be seen in terms of lowagriculture growth, low quality employment growth, low humandevelopment, rural-urban divides, gender and social inequalities,and regional disparities etc. It is now recognised that to reducepoverty, inclusive growth should be the ultimate goal of economicgrowth. One way of achieving this could be by focusing on smalland marginal farming communities, addressing neglected regions,maintaining sustainable farming and environmental systems.

There are practical needs and interests to be addressed. There arelong-term concerns about structural improvement while removingthe causes of exclusion. These may be addressed through thegovernment, through innovative inclusive social processes adoptedby the NGOs. Multiple strategies are necessary. Based on thegroups and the issues to be addressed, strategies for social inclusionwill differ.

Many of the cases presented in this issue of the LEISA Magazinefocus on such efforts.

Issues of Food security

Food security is the key element in sustainable humandevelopment. Food crisis does have a negative impact on humandevelopment, more so, on the poor. The negative effects may beexperienced today as well as in the future. Some of the factorscontributing to food insecurity are unsustainable land use practices,poor governance, lack of land rights and tenure, discriminationand social exclusion.

Discrimination and social exclusion in general prevent somegroups from accessing food. Poverty and unequal distribution ofresources are some of the major causes leading to thisdiscrimination. For instance, women have often less access toadequate food than the men in the household. Full participation ofboth men and women can help in development process. Forinstance, promoting homestead gardens was a way of ensuringsome vegetables for the family consumption and also some incometo women (Suwal et al. p. 24). The status as shared by one of thewomen – “Before, these hands were put forward to receivevegetables from others, but now, they are put forward to offersome”.

Certain groups like the tribal communities depending primarilyon forests have been leading an isolated life, but, always inharmony with nature. Their livelihoods and food security arethreatened when government policies are implemented in the nameof development. In such changing situations, it becomes inevitablethat these communities who have been excluded from developmentprocesses, either actively or passively, need to be involved in asactive partners for two reasons - for sustaining their livelihoodsand for respecting and recognizing their traditional knowledge.VGKK, an NGO has successfully helped the Soliga tribes inKarnataka to reorient their lives in changed circumstances andmake ecological farming as an opportunity for improving theirlivelihoods (Jadegowda, p.13).

Building social capital

Social capital, which is based on trust, reciprocity, networks andcollective action, takes time to develop and needs particular andconcrete attention. Organising communities has been one of thefirst steps towards building social capital. Various approaches havebeen used for achieving this. For instance, participatory approacheshave helped the poor to get involved and draw their own plans ofaction.(Hunshal and Patil, p.17). On the other hand, FirefliesAshram, an NGO based near Bangalore charted a creativelypowerful approach - the approach of faith and spirituality.Communities of Faith and Action process was followed to integratesocial and ecological concerns into the spiritual life of village people(Siddhartha, p.30).

Civil Society Organisations play an important role in organizingpoor communities, promoting participation, strengthening theirdecision making abilities as well as in being directly involved inservice delivery. Thus, excluded groups can be effective driversof their own change by forming or participating in organisationsthat represent group interests. For instance, AKDN helped the SiddiCommunities in Gujarat to get organized and experience puttingtheir innate abilities to work, and successfully achieve.

Involving various stakeholders can also bring in a holisticperspective while addressing development issues. Synergies

Farming andSocial Inclusion

Editorial


among diverse stakeholders in a development process will have agreater impact in making lives better for the excluded communities.Building social capital, creating learning situations, forging durablelinkages among diverse stakeholders lead to tangible outcomesbeneficial to farming communities (Reddy, p.15).

Markets for marginalised farmers

It is widely believed that free trade can help small farmers to getreturns for their hard work. Production and marketing in groupsprovide farmers with access to markets that they never could accessalone. Yet, markets are places of competition between strongcompanies and small farmers. They tend to exclude those whocannot produce the right products of the right quality, in the rightquantities and at the right time.

Small scale farmers in Andhra Pradesh were enabled to accesstechnology, credit and market through a coalition effort of variousstakeholders. Systems of storage, bulking and grading wereintroduced, linkages were strengthened with produce markets. Allthese support systems along with collective action of the farmershelped them to get a better price for their produce.

Gender dimension

Women form one of the most excluded and discriminated segmentsof the population in varying degrees across resions. The neglectof the interest of women relates closely to their being excludedfrom employment opportunities, basic education, and landownership. Though they form the major workforce in agriculture,they are still being excluded in receiving technical inputs as theyare not considered as ‘farmers’. How can agricultural programmeshelp in addressing this?

In many cases, the role of external agents becomes crucial ininvolving the women into development processes. AKDN, forinstance brought about a significant change in the lives of poorwomen from the Siddi communities in Gujarat. Organizing women,building them into federations and helping them to accesseconomic benefits has brought out significant changes in theirsocial life as well. Women are more confident with improved selfesteem and heightened social awareness contributing inturn a lotto the community at large. Khanal (p. 28) shows how anagroforestry programme in Nepal successfully targetedwomen and poor groups. Such strategies are options for localgovernance to contribute to poverty reduction, provideddistribution of such resources is done fairly.

Focusing on the ‘differently abled’

Disability excludes people from participation in education,livelihoods, social life and medical care. At times, the experienceof social exclusion is as much as disability itself. The care farmsin Europe offers immense hope for the disabled to live a life withdignity. Van Dijk (p.20 ) describes how a network of care farms inEurope helps physically disabled or mentally ill people to focuson their capabilities rather than on their problems. In Africa,schools for disabled people often have a horticulture or livestockcomponent. Nkonde shows how visually impaired peoplesuccessfully grow crops in a formalised programme.

In some parts of Africa, the number of orphans is growing fast.These communities also need support to raise income. Raisingsmall livestock, like chickens, is an option, as Mukwayademonstrates (p. 19). Agriculture, thus can be actively pursued, ifthe limitations and capabilities are closely studied, enabling themto focus on the latter.

Inclusion reduces social unrest

There are close links between social exclusion and conflict andinsecurity, both in terms of causes and consequences. There arenow convincing arguments that some forms of social exclusiongenerate the conditions in which conflict can arise. This couldrange from civil unrest to violent armed conflict and terroristactivity. Severely disadvantaged groups with shared characteristics(such as ethnicity or religion) may resort to violent conflict inorder to claim their rights and redress inequalities. For example,the MMBKSS, a people’s organization in Nepal, was born to fightfor the right based approach to development and continued theirstruggle against anti-poor conservation policies and exploitationof fishing communities.

Public policy

State policies can enhance or moderate group consciousness andcan exacerbate or reduce exclusion. Most states now havelegislation to ban overt discrimination. In some countries,governments have introduced targeting through various forms ofaffirmative action. Policies might put farmers into poverty:liberalisation policies have had devastating effects on the poorestfarmers.

There are strong social, economic and political reasons forachieving broader and inclusive growth. Lack of inclusive growth,socially, leads to unrest among many people. Similarly, economicmeasures that are inclusive lead to higher economic growth aslarge unemployed and unproductive population can otherwise bea drag on the nations economy. Lastly, political too, no governmentin a democracy can afford to ignore large sections of the population.It can result in severe social tensions. Thus, for social stabilityand equitable growth, conducive policies are a necessity.

Tackling social exclusion at a national level requires a concertedand long term effort. Measures can range from implementing legalframeworks which assure basic rights of all groups to access theinstitutions and resources of society, to affirmative action policies(within, for example, employment, education and politicalrepresentation). There is evidence to show that policies designedto tackle social exclusion can lead to more equitable forms ofgrowth. Excluded groups gradually gain greater access toeducation, employment and business opportunities. Targetedpolicies can have an impact on increasing human capital andwidening economic markets, whilst reducing the risk of politicalinstability and its overall impact on economic growth.

Social inclusion is not an act of charity. While “Social Inclusion”has the connotation of external initiatives actively targetingparticular groups (and is therefore top-down), “empowerment” ismore about farmers forming groups and claiming their rights (andis therefore bottom-up, or through own initiatives). Explicit effortsand a true belief in the power of the marginalised are crucial. Allpeople have the right to live in dignity. Agriculture can providemany marginalised and disabled people food, income and arespectful life, as some of the examples in this issue illustrate.

�

References

1) Amartya Sen, Social exclusion: concept, application, andscrutiny, Social Development Papers No. 1, Office of Environmentand Social Development, Asian Development Bank, June 2000

2) www.gsdrc.org


Addressing theconditions for gettingout of povertyTo what extent do rural development programmes allow fordiversity in the social situations where they work? In particular,how can they take this diversity into account when seeking toinvolve and empower the poorest families? How can anagroecological focus and a gender approach help these familiesovercome poverty? These questions formed a central part of astudy undertaken in Brazil’s semi-arid region to improve thelocal development programme run by the non-governmentalorganisation AS-PTA.

Sílvio Gomes de Almeida, Paulo Petersen,Adriana Galvão Freire and Luciano Silveira

The Agreste region of the state of Paraíba, in Brazil’snortheast, is known for its erratic climate, and oftenexperiences long periods of drought. The environment

influences the variety and composition of local agricultural systems,resulting in low yields and low production levels. Family farmsmake up 95 percent of rural establishments (or approximately 14000 units), yet occupy only 52 percent of the land area. With littleland available, the families have to intensify their land and soiluse, making it difficult to maintain or regenerate the ecosystem’sfertility. This creates a vicious circle of environmental, economicand social unsustainability.

Since 1993, a Brazilian NGO, Assessoria e Serviços a Projetos emAgricultura Alternativa (AS-PTA), has been implementing a ruraldevelopment programme in this region, aiming to promoteagricultural innovation and thereby encourage the agroecologicalconversion of local production systems. The programme is basedon the hypothesis that the vicious circle of poverty can be overcomethrough making a transition to agroecological family farmingsystems, increasing incomes while also conserving the physicaland biological base of the agroecosystems.

Starting with a few communities in three municipalities, by 2002the programme covered 16 municipalities and includedapproximately 5000 families. Although this increase in theprogramme’s geographic and social coverage was striking, it raisedquestions for AS-PTA about whether it was adequately reachingthe most impoverished families. To address this concern, a studywas conducted in three communities of Solânea, a municipalitywith a large number of families living in extreme poverty.

Studying poverty

The first objective was to arrive at a shared understanding of theconcept of poverty. Discussions between agricultural leaders andcommunity representatives revealed that poverty takes many forms:precarious access to land, water and biodiversity; hunger and foodinsecurity; marginalisation in terms of access to markets; pooraccess to basic services and to the benefits of public policies; andexclusion from local development processes. It became clear thatpoverty needs to be regarded as a combination of complex and

interdependent elements. Poverty cannot only be seen as the lackof material goods – there is also a political and cultural dimension.In addition, poverty changes over space and time. For example, indry periods, poverty worsens, and the number of poor rises.Moreover, although we usually take “poor families” as a referencepoint, we cannot disregard the existence of different levels ofpoverty within each family.

The initial data showed that not owning or not having access toland was a key element in defining the category of the “poorest”families. These are the ones who face the most barriers to joiningactivities related to agricultural development. This category iscomposed of the landless, families with very little land, and thosewho live on their parents’ land. And within families, it is the womenand the young (particularly young women) who have the mostdifficulties. They face serious cultural barriers to participating indecision-making, and are unlikely to get the same benefits fromtheir family-based work compared to male adults.

Different expressions of poverty

The study found that extreme poverty is expressed in four mainfields, each of which hinders local people’s access to innovationsand maintains their exclusion from social development processes:access to basic material resources, access to the benefits of publicpolicies, access to markets, and access to civil society organisations.Along with restricted access to land, the main material needs comefrom problems in accessing water, food and income. Among thepoorest families, 64 per cent had no land, or had to work withinvery restricted conditions for its use. Historically, this adversesituation led to relations of economic and political dependency onthe use of third-party lands. This discouraged the uptake ofinnovations which could improve the infrastructure of localagricultural systems – for example, 70 per cent of the families hadno facilities for collecting or storing water. Food insecurity wasalso found to be another permanent part of life for these families.Virtually all family members had to look for any kind of work.

Poor access to markets is another way in which the poorest familiesare excluded. As they lack access to transport, they can rarelyparticipate in markets or fairs, and thus have to buy and sell their

With access to land, people can start growing crops for homeconsumption or for selling on the local market.


goods in unfavourable conditions. The poorest families are alsopenalised when it comes to benefiting from public services. Accessto formal education, public health and transport were found to beprecarious. Although government social programmes provided animportant part of household income for quite a number of families(e.g. providing gas for cooking and a basic allowance),implementation of such programmes was frequently irregular. Inaddition, these funds were often misused by local authorities fortheir own political benefit, and therefore did not reach their targetpublic.

Finally, the weak participation of the poorest families in localorganisations was also identified as a contributing factor to socialexclusion. Families could not afford transport, or good clothes towear to the meetings. And many social organisations lacked policiesor programmes designed to tackle the specific conditions andquestions concerning this sector.

Empowering the poorest

Having looked at poverty in detail, this study helped to definespecific strategies to deal with the persistence of sociocultural andeconomic exclusion. The first and most significant finding wasthat the poorest families have their own survival strategies, whichfocus on ensuring the minimum conditions for the family to get byin the short-term. They are not enough to break out of poverty,while they do reveal the creative capacity of such families to managetheir limited options. Among these, we could identify different socialmechanisms which help lessen the most extreme hardships. Forexample, the tradition of voluntary working groups, or the borrowingor lending of seed, food and water. Individual strategies have alsoevolved, although these most frequently work through various typesof “unequal partnerships” (including, for example, informal loansfor buying food). In most cases, these strategies help maintaineconomic and political dependence on landowners, traders or localpoliticians. They also show how difficult it is for the poorest sectorof society to escape the situation they find themselves caught in.The study therefore showed the need to redirect the programmetowards building on the potential capacities of the poorestcommunities. Analysing the impacts of the programme’s earlierinitiatives in the three studied communities showed that many ofthe innovations being adopted by less impoverished families werenot adapted to suit the situations of the poorest, even though theyvery often matched their needs. These innovations includedreforestation, improvement of the livestock farming system, or theconstruction of water supply infrastructures.

Five years after the study was conducted, and after its results werefed into AS-PTA’s strategy, some significant changes have takenplace in the living conditions of the poorest families. These changesmark the beginning of breaking the vicious circle of poverty, andhave been made possible by the combination of two factors. Firstly,activities were adjusted to encourage the poorest families toparticipate in local processes of agroecological innovation,providing better conditions for them to take up, or feel part of,innovative ideas that had been developed locally. Secondly, greaterinvolvement of these families in community processes made itpossible for them to take advantage of government policies,especially those related to guaranteeing access to and use of land.Some specific changes to the programme deserve highlighting:

1. Diversifying financial options, and modifying the revolving loanfunds (RLFs). Until 2002, RLFs were mainly meant to provide fundsto build cisterns to store water for domestic use. Since then, thecreation of a community savings scheme has allowed the collective

generation of funds in a way which is more sensitive to individualsituations and needs. The funds can now also be used to buy otheritems such as organic manure, or materials for fencing andinfrastructure.

2. Improving kitchen gardens. This initiative aimed to intensifyproduction from domestic gardens. As well as having positiveimpacts on food security in the poorest families, this activity hashelped to empower women, who now see their work in the gardensacknowledged by the wider community.

3. Establishing local markets. The agroecological fair in Solâneaprovided better conditions for the poorest families to bring theirproducts to market. As well as enabling them to display theirproducts, the fair has become a useful place for families who onlyproduce small quantities, to sell their goods.

Additional advantages came from the initiative of thirty landlessfamilies, who organised themselves in order to benefit from agovernment land-access programme. A settlement area was locatedwhich assures 17 hectares for each family and five hectares for thecommunity as a whole. With this, the families now find themselvesable to take advantage of the innovations promoted by AS-PTA’sprogramme, and are no longer marginalised. Being able to managetheir own production systems to generate income, and provide foodand water security, these families are now freed from political andeconomic subjugation. At the same time, they have begun to takepart in the programme’s training events.

Two main challenges

This study and its consequences have drawn attention to two mainrecurring challenges for rural development programmes:

1. It is important to recognise community survival strategies whichare based on mutual exchange and local resources. This shouldlead to programme activities which strengthen these strategies. Theagroecological perspective on which the programme was based wasable to enhance the social processes, enabling survival strategiesto be transformed and built into a collective local developmentproject.

2. Only when the poorest family farmers are able to develop theirown social inclusion projects will they benefit from policies whichaim to assist them to escape from the mechanisms that perpetuatepoverty. Social policies alone cannot overcome poverty, but theyremain necessary as a response to social emergencies. Economicdevelopment policies are equally unable to break the cycle ofpoverty since they are based on technical and economic ideas thatdo not match the experiences and expectations of the mostimpoverished families. In order to include extremely poor ruralpopulations in development programmes and ensure theirempowerment, public policies must reflect the sociocultural andeconomic dimensions of marginalised and socially excluded people.

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Sílvio Gomes de Almeida, Paulo Petersen, Adriana GalvãoFreire and Luciano Silveira.Assessoria e Serviços a Projetos em Agricultura Alternativa,AS-PTA. Rua da Candelária 9, 6º andar, CEP: 20.091-020, Rio deJaneiro, RJ, Brazil. E-mails: [email protected] ;[email protected] ; [email protected]; [email protected]


The Siddis are a tribal community, whose ancestors werebrought from Africa by Arab merchants around 500 yearsago to serve as soldiers or slaves under the Portuguese and

British authorities, or as servants to the Nawabs. Rough estimatesput their present population at around 20,000-30,000 spread overthe states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra.The majority of Siddis reside in Gujarat, largely on the peripheryof the Gir Forest.

In Gujarat, the Siddis reside for the most part in Junagadh district,particularly in the Talala block, around the Gir Forest and the GirNational Park. The Siddis are a scattered community. There are1,089 Siddi households spread over 19 villages in the Talala and

From exclusion to empowerment –women of Siddi community

Veraval blocks. Except in Jambur and Sirvan villages, they are aminority in most areas.

Siddi household economies have few options or opportunities forlivelihood. Their traditional source of livelihood was the Gir Forest,from where they collected dry wood and other raw materials. ManySiddi women still engage in ‘head loading’, collecting dry woodfrom the forest and selling it in nearby markets. While this is nowtechnically ‘illegal’, the practice persists. Coupled with the lack ofopportunities, skills and reduced or no access to the forest, evensubsistence poses a major challenge.

Conflicts between the villagers and the forest department over thecutting of fuel wood, grazing and traversing the protected area forcommuting to nearby villages are common. Several attempts havebeen made by various government departments and civil societyorganisations to support the Siddis and provide them with someemployment opportunities. In the absence of a long-term sustainableempowerment strategy, these efforts have not been entirelysuccessful.

Role of AKRSP

The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme - India (AKRSP(I)) hasbeen working in the area from the late 1980s, mostly on alternative

Hirbaiben, along with other Siddi women members of the Federation producing organic compost.

Marginalised communities, such as Siddis in Gujarat, oftenaccept entrenched poverty, deprivation and exclusion as away of life. Development under such circumstances is notjust about reaching the unreached, it is about contendingwith low esteem, lack of confidence, limited livelihoodoptions, low levels of literacy, and above all, remainingsensitive to distinct racial and cultural identities.

Aga Khan Foundation

Photo: AKDN/Vijay Kutty


energy projects. An integrated and targeted approach began todevelop and gather momentum from 2002 under the EuropeanCommision co-financed Sustainable Community-based Approachesto Livelihoods Enhancement Project (SCALE Project). From mid-2004, this momentum almost became a movement.

Activities under this project include the formation of savings andcredits groups with women, creating income-generating options,popularising non-conventional energy uses to reduce fuel woodconsumption, land development activities, providing agriculturalknowledge and inputs to increase productivity, protectingagricultural fields from wild animals and participatory forestrymanagement.

The household and the community became the focus of all effortsto reduce the pressure on the Gir Forest. Sustainable alternativelivelihood options for the Siddis had to be found.

Organising women into groups

In the mid-1990s, activities with the Siddis largely focused onnatural resource management and mobilising the Siddi women forestablishing Mahila Vikas Mandals (MVMs) or WomenDevelopment Groups. Since earlier experiences with forming multi-community MVMs had proved counter-productive, these MVMscomprised Siddi women alone. The first two MVMs were formedin 1994 in Jambur village. By 2002, there were 16 MVMs covering10 villages which functioned as user-owned savings and creditgroups. Initially, working with these groups was challenging.

For creating mass awareness, the first Siddi Sahiyar Yatra wasconducted on 1 July 2004. Around 800 women and 160 menparticipated in it. The idea was to focus on livelihood issues forwomen. During the yatra, prominent Siddi leaders like Hirbaibenand Aminaben gave inspiring speeches. Messages on voluntarysavings, afforestation and women’s empowerment werecommunicated through plays, slogans and songs. At the end of theevent, the women took an oath to save collectively in groups. Theseefforts bore fruit when by August 2004, 12 new savings and creditgroups were formed.

Growing as a federation

While the MVMs were proving to be effective at the village level,there was a need for women from across villages to come togetherto have a more forceful, effective and efficient presence. The Siddisare scattered over different villages—sometimes 10–15 householdsin a village, making a standard self-help group (SHG) approachdifficult. This is when the idea of forming a federation gatheredmomentum and subsequently an Advasi Mahila Sangh (SiddiWomen’s Federation) was formed in January 2004.

Two members from each MVM represented the federation. Theyare selected by the group, and are usually women who have playeda leadership role. Often, women attend the meetings on a rotationalbasis so that they all get adequate exposure and representation inthe federation. These representatives are responsible for attendingfederation meetings and liasing between their groups and thefederation.

On 1 July 2005, the Siddi Women’s Federation opened a federationoffice in Talala with a 10 per cent contribution from the federationand a 90 per cent contribution by AKRSP(I). The second SiddiSahiyar Yatra and Sammelan was organised by the womenthemselves. This again drew an overwhelming response. Due tothe mass awareness drives, two Siddi villages from Veraval blockshowed interest in joining the federation. What had previously not

been possible was now achieved. By July 2006, 42 MVMscomprising 525 members covering all the Siddi villages had beenformed.

Para workers play a vital role in the functioning of MVMs and thefederation. These are usually women who have displayed leadershipqualities in their MVM and are selected from among the membergroups through an informal process. Para workers are trained onissues that include communication, record keeping and accounts.While this training was initially provided by AKRSP(I), paraworkers themselves are increasingly taking on the responsibilityof training. Many of the benefits of federation membership areavailed through the involvement of para workers.

Enterprises for additional income

The federation has undertaken several activities over the past fewyears. It has reached out to all 19 Siddi villages and succeeded informing MVMs in all of them. To reduce the pressure on the GirForest, alternative livelihood models were necessary, which wouldin turn improve the socio-economic status of the Siddis. While landtreatment was an option for the landed households, various non-farm-based activities with the potential to generate income wereinitiated with landless households.

These activities were conducted largely through the federationbecause it could give them access to credit and provide a commonplatform to share and learn from each other’s experiences. Eachincome-generating activity was initiated only when the womenshowed an interest in the idea and contributed something of theirown. Training programmes and exposure visits were also organised.Once the micro-enterprise is launched, financial records areprepared by the women and submitted to the federation office, whichin turn submits it to AKRSP(I).

Several activities were piloted through a core group consisting offour women community leaders with support and some assets,which put them in a position of being able to take risks. Ratherthan simply support one type of activity, the organisationexperimented with 16 different models of micro-enterprises,continuing those that proved to be viable and familiar to the Siddicommunity, sometimes covering up for losses. This list includesprovision of handcarts, neem oil marketing, selling old cloth, dryand fresh fish, opening a grocery shop, selling fruits and a paan-bidi shop, among others.

Figure 1. Structure and management system of the Siddiwomen’s federation


Producing organic manure as an enterprise

The enterprise that has involved the most number of women andachieved considerable success has been the production andmarketing of organic compost by the Jambur group, a collective of24 women from five MVMs.

The idea for producing and selling organic compost originally camefrom AKRSP(I) projects in Sayla and Netrang. The activity startedwith the Nagarchi MVM in Jambur village under the leadership ofHirbaiben. In order to motivate and inspire confidence in the women,she promised to buy all 200 bags herself in case they didn’t sell.She offered her farm premises for making compost andoffered occasional cups of tea and snacks to the women working atthe site.

The manufacture of organic manure has turned out to be a viableactivity for the Jambur group. Panchtatwa, the brand under whichthe compost is selling, is made from five different materials – poultrymanure, neem oil, castor oil, tobacco dust and farm yard manure –which are combined and kept in a composting pit for 90 days.

Starting modestly in 1999 with the production of 200 bags and abuy-back guarantee from Hirbaiben, one of the members of theMVM at Jambur, production had reached 749.65 tonnes by July2006: 15,315 bags weighing about 48 kg each had been producedat a cost of Rs 1,912,560 (US$ 42,501) and sold at Rs 2,664,000(US$ 59,200), making a clean profit of Rs 752,440 (US$ 16,721)or Rs 31,315 (US$ 696) per person.

One of the important new products is the addition of neem cake toa mix of dung and vermi-compost. Dry compost that requires nocomposting time has also been developed.

Diversification also allows more employment opportunities sincethe production of organic compost runs on an annual cycle lastingfour months a year, providing 60–70 working days. Nagarchi MVMis manufacturing vermi-compost as a part of its overall organiccompost activities. Before launching vermi-compost production,the group went on an exposure visit to a farm in Anand. This MVMis also using vermi-compost as an ingredient in certain types oforganic compost that it produces. Vermi-compost costs Re 1/kg(US$ 0.02) to produce, inclusive of all costs. The market rate forthe compost is Rs 3/kg (US$ 0.06).

While the production of organic compost involved the maximumnumber of Siddi women, there were other ventures that wereexperimented with as potential sustainable micro-enterprises likeNeem oil marketing, marketing dry fish etc.

Taking men along with the women

While women are the focus, efforts were made to involve the mentoo so that they support their wives. In 2002, a land treatmentprogramme was started with members of the community who ownedagricultural land, which elicited a positive response from the men.Also, as the men saw the benefits of joining a Mandal and thefederation, they were gradually convinced about the programmeand supported their wives.

Impact

Today, the Siddi women are more confident, their self esteem hasgone up. They are highly respected in their communities. Theynow want to improve themselves, their homes and the community.The women have begun to appreciate economic realities. Theybelieve now that they will have to improve their economic status,themselves. With the social support available through the MVMand the federation, the women now know that they are not alone.

There is heightened social awareness as well. They understand theneed for education and family planning. The education of theirchildren is often on the agenda of informal and formal meetings.They recognise the need of involving their entire community andalso other villages. They not only have a vision for the future butalso have an idea of how to achieve it.

Building on their strengths, the Siddi women today recognise thatthey have to continue to move ahead. They now dare to dream,optimistic that the chances of realization are high.

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Land treatment – case of Abdul

In 2002, AKRSP(I) started treating the unproductive sathni landthat was provided to some Siddi households for agriculturalpurposes. While the soil was generally good, the sloping landand the boulders made agriculture impossible. “For more than20 years I was giving my land for Rs 500 (US$ 11) to otherlanded communities so that they could graze their animals,”says Abdul.

Abdul was from Surwa village and one of the first to be part ofAKRSP(I)’s land treatment programme. Tractor-loads of stoneswere removed from his 1 hectare land and were used to enclosethe field. The land was leveled and he was sent to JunagadhAgricultural University to learn the basics of farming. A tubewellwas dug between two plots for irrigation purposes and a 40,000litre capacity water tank was constructed. To provide electricityfor running the motor for the tubewell, his wife, Jenaben,member of Gabensah MVM, took a loan of Rs 15,000 (US$333). Now, the cotton crops and vegetables are repaying theloan. “If there was no Mandal, all this would not have beenpossible. I would be standing amongst tufts of grass and bouldersinstead of this green fertile land,” says Abdul.


Women breakdownbarriers in MaliIn the village of Zamblara, gender differences as well ascaste division have long been clearly defined. Ten yearsago, a group of women set up its own organisation of riceproducers. Through Participatory Learning and ActionResearch (PLAR) activities, the group has not only man-aged to increase rice production, but the regular sessionshave broken down traditional barriers between women andmen as well as between castes.

Jonas Wanvoeke, Rosaline Maiga Dacko,Kalifa Yattara and Paul Van Mele

Surrounded by rolling hills, Zamblara looks like many of thevillages found in the semi-arid region in the south west ofMali. Most inhabitants rely on agriculture. During the brief

rainy season, men grow maize, sorghum, groundnuts and other cropson the higher ground, while women grow rice in low lying,seasonally-flooded areas near the villages. During the long dryseason, men and women grow vegetables in the low areas afterharvesting the rice.

While all farmers face many difficulties (lack of seeds, water, creditor assistance), women face additional barriers and hardships. Inthis part of Mali, women are rarely considered equal to men insocial and economic status. There is a gender bias at all levels ofsociety, and the agricultural sector is no exception. Women, forexample, cannot inherit or own land. Furthermore, Zamblara, likemost villages in this region, is also divided according to caste –some families are assigned a higher status (as “nobles”) while othersare grouped as descendants of slaves. The direct implication ofthis division is the social separation of tasks within the village.

More than 10 years ago, a group of women decided to form anorganisation of rice producers, and to help themselves increaseproduction and incomes. Known as “Kotognogontala” or “mutualrespect”, the group was set up as a way to exchange knowledgeand good agricultural practices among the community. In 2002 itsleaders approached the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), interestedin the training activities carried out by the Participatory Adaptationand Diffusion of Technologies for Rice-based Systems (PADS)

project. This project began in 2000 with activities in Côte d’Ivoire,The Gambia, Ghana and Guinea, and since 2002 also in Mali. Itsoverall objective was to contribute to an increase in rice production,crop diversification and rural revenue generation. It would do thisthrough the development and adaptation of appropriate innovationsfor improved crop management. In short, it hoped to improve thelivelihoods of resource-poor farmers in western Africa. To obtainthe greatest benefit from relatively small investments, PADSfocused on the inland valley systems because of their great potentialto become the food basket of Africa. It was also felt that water,irrigation and drainage activities can unite farmers and bring themtogether for bottom-up social learning processes.

Firstly on an experimental basis, and later throughout the project,PADS adopted the Participatory Learning and Action Research (orPLAR) approach (see box). PLAR follows some of the FarmerField School ideas (such as weekly sessions supported by afacilitator, working from land preparation to harvest) whilestimulating experiential learning. It combines them with differentPRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) tools that help make processesand procedures visible, helping farmers and facilitators interact tolearn about local agriculture and its constraints.

Local innovations

Even before the project, the women of Zamblara used few chemicalinputs, as they are expensive and not always available. Most peoplerely on traditional practices. As well as encouraging them, the PLARsessions worked on developing these options further, confrontingthe major problem related to external inputs: their affordability andavailability. During the PLAR training, the women organised theirown trial to compare compost vs. chemical fertilizer vs. a blend

Making use of group experiences

The Participatory Learning and Action Research approach is an adultlearning methodology which makes use of the experiences of themembers of a group. Working with groups of about 25 people,different sessions cover the whole cropping season. Activities –inthis case– follow the development of the rice crop (following acurriculum specially developed for inland valley rice cultivation).Farmers analyse their own practices, discover problems and lookfor ways to solve them. The curriculum teaches new practices (e.g.transplanting), but instead of transferring technologies, the facilitatorsencourage farmers to share and reflect on their own experiences.Through this, they can find the solutions themselves, and experimentwith new ideas to find techniques which are practical and adaptedto specific local solutions.

PLAR places more emphasis on local innovations and farmerexperimentations than do either Farmer Field Schools or PRA.

Farmers are not considered to be potential “recipients” or “adopters”of new technologies; the idea is to create a process which stimulatesthe farmers into discovering and innovating themselves. Unlike theFFS approach, which focuses on a group learning plot, PLARencourages each farmer to experiment on a small portion of his orher own land. PLAR presents farmers with new ideas every week,which each farmer is free to try (or not) at home. The team of PLARfacilitators often includes one member from extension services,research or an NGO, and one farmer. PLAR’s weekly sessions usemany learning tools, such as cropping calendars, maps, diagrams,field observations and monitoring forms. These tools help makethings visible so that the group and facilitators interact and learntogether. In 28 sessions, the learning tools cover all aspects ofintegrated crop management, such as land preparation, nursery andtransplanting, water management, weeds and pest management,but also harvest, post-harvest and marketing.

Women in Zamblara sing one of their compositionsabout new rice technology


(compost plus chemical fertilizer). As a result, they now favourcompost mixed with small amounts of urea and rock phosphate.They have also developed their own strategies to control pests.These include using neem (Azadirachta indica) powder; a mix oflaundry detergent and kerosene; or simply by weeding the edges ofthe rice plot with hoes to eliminate the places where moths layeggs which hatch into stem borers.

PLAR has helped increase rice production in the village, and manyof their neighbours are now interested in the new techniques. Thefour PLAR groups that were formed in Zamblara each had a farmer-facilitator. Although the PLAR modules were written in French,they have been (verbally) translated into the local language,Bambara. The women have adapted the content, composing songsand poems about the rice-farming modules.

And while the women of Zamblara have their own small plots ofrice land, the group also works one collective field of one and ahalf hectares. They grow rice in the rainy season and vegetables inthe dry season. When the women harvest the rice from this plotthey sell some of it and keep it as a group fund. They have beendividing some of the rice among themselves, and keeping the restto use for their meals during group activities.

Breaking barriers

From an original group of 27 people, the association has grownand now is formed by four groups with 115 women and two men.In Mali, most women’s groups have at least some men in them. Inthis one, the village chief is the honorary President and anotherman attends to monitor the women’s activities. They all feel thatthe group has helped improve relations between men and women.The group gives the women a place where they can talk about theirproblems with men, and give each other advice. Participantsrecognise how women are less scared to talk in village meetings,participating more actively in them, and contributing every time adecision needs to be taken. Furthermore, the association is nowaccepted by the men in the village, a fact seen in their willingnessto leave land for the women in the association to grow a crop.

PLAR has helped minimise the difference between categories ofpeople. In the training, people experiment together, eat togetherand sing together, disregarding gender or caste. The weekly PLARsessions helped increase contact between all villagers, in particularbetween women of different origins. The gap between the two casteshas broken down. The women are so united that they have built asmall house where they can meet. It is made of adobe (mud) bricks,but has a corrugated sheet metal roof and wooden windows and adoor. They built it themselves and paid for the materials with moneythey earned on their collective plot. The women feel less lonelyand isolated. As one woman said: “Low caste and noble persons

are the same since PLAR”. With the PADS project and theimplementation of the PLAR approach, this stigmatisation has beenbroken down and the unity of people was strengthened.

Furthermore, this new cohesion is not limited to agriculturalpractices. The PADS project helped the women conduct a “well-being analysis” (similar to “wealth ranking”). When the womenrealised that some of their neighbours were too poor to afford toeat three meals a day, they began to help each other with food andlabour. The women’s groups are strong and the men have acceptedthem. The women now participate more in village activities(infrastructural development, milling machine establishment). Thesolid partnerships that the women have created with NGOs andgovernment agencies, improve their power in village decision-making. Women’s improved financial and material standingempowers them and erodes the cultural barriers in this region ofMali, where until recently village decisions were taken largely bymen alone.

The group currently contributes to infrastructure development andis becoming a pressure group in the village. The group is viablethrough their own fund coming from members’ contributions,collective land crop selling, or labour services payment (especiallywhen these women work on men fields). Some are also on thewaiting list to join the group.

Reinforcing social relations

Most women are glad that they are growing more rice and findinglow external input pest control measures. But even more important,they say, is that they have now found unity. “The future belongs tothe organised people,” states one Zamblara woman. The women inZamblara say that PLAR reinforces the social relations andstrengthened the human capital. Although the initiative came fromthe community itself, it was by adding the well-being analysis thatthe community was able to visualise their individual and overallwell-being and that action for social inclusion received a boost.The PADS project has already ended, but the groups are still workingtogether.

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Jonas WanvoekeResearch Assistant, Africa Rice Center (WARDA). 01 B.P. 2031,Cotonou, Benin. E-mail: [email protected] Maiga DackoPADS Coordinator Mali. Intercooperation au Sahel (IC Sahel). BP94 A-IC San, Mali. E-mail: [email protected] YattaraResearcher, CRRA Sikasso, BP 16, Sikasso, Mali.E-mail: [email protected]

Paul Van MeleProgram Leader Learning & Innovation Systems, Africa RiceCenter (WARDA). 01 BP 2031, Cotonou, Benin.E-mail: [email protected]

References-Defoer, T., M.C.S. Wopereis, P. Idinoba, T.K.L. Kadisha, S. Diackand M. Gaye, 2004. Manuel du facilitateur: Curriculumd’apprentissage participatif et recherche action (APRA) pour lagestion intégrée de la culture de riz de bas-fonds (GIR) enAfrique sub-Saharienne. WARDA, CTA, IFDC, CGRAI, Cotonou,Benin.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dr. Jeff Bentley for the photos, discussions and forcommenting on an earlier version. This work was supported by theInternational Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) andmanaged by the Africa Rice Center (WARDA)

Social differences became unimportant after the group’ssuccessful activities. Here, women chat outside the house theyall built together.

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Soligas are the major indigenous tribes of BR Hills situatedin Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka state in south India.Since time immemorial, Soligas have led a semi-nomadic

life and were engaged in shifting cultivation. Collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) like honey, lichens, soap nut, rootsof Magali (Decalapis hamiltonii), fruits of Amla (Emblicaofficinalis), Chilla (Strychnous patatorum) and Alale (Terminaliachebula), is another important, but relatively recent occupation.

Nearly 50% of the Soligas (meaning those who originated fromBamboo) income is from sustainable harvesting of minor forestproduce. They live in podus or settlements of 10 to 50 thatchedhuts. Each of their headmen is highly knowledgeable with respectto nature and traditional, sustainable agriculture.

Soligas practice subsistence agriculture for their sustenance. Theindigenous cropping systems, animal rearing and other agricultureactivities are in tune with the rituals of the tribes. Soligas are alsoknown for their rich knowledge on soil fertility and ecofriendlyagricultural practices. Since time immemorial, Soligas werepracticing shifting cultivation. The Soligas seldom plough the landand they do not use chemical fertilizers or other chemical pest anddiseases control measures. They have been practicing what themodern man refers to as organic and natural farming practices.

Soligas have been leading their life in harmony with nature andposses a rich wealth of indigenous knowledge on forest conservationand sustainable agriculture.

The Soligas isolated life with the nature stopped when B.R.Hillsforests was declared a ‘protected’ area, in 1974. This led to theeviction of the Soligas from their interior podus. Shifting cultivation,hunting and collection of minor forest produce were not allowed.There was a shift from forest based production system to farmgrown production system.

Exploitation by landlords and indebtedness often resulted in bondedlabour. The Soligas remained ignorant of the government schemesand could not gain much from them.

Health as an entry point

Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK), a non sectarianand a humanitarian organization was founded by Dr.H Sudarshanin 1981. It started working with Soligas with the motto ofsustainable development of tribal people through rights-basedapproaches to health, education, livelihood security and biodiversityconservation.

Empowerment ofSoliga tribes

The interventions started with the most basic need of thecommunities, i.e., health. At that time, the Soligas were very shyand were hiding themselves in the forest. The initial help renderedby Dr.Sudarshan in curing poisonous snake bites and in de-worminggained the confidence and love of the Soliga community whichfostered an unbreakable bond between the great humanitarian doctorand the innocent, and nature loving Soligas. Dr. Sudarshanunderstood the basic need of the people in terms of their medicalrequirements and promoted curative, promotive, rehabilitative andsustainable health care practices.

Organising communities

To bring in overall development of the communities, it was feltthat they need to be helped beyond their health aspects. A leadershiptraining workshop was conducted in 1985 which resulted in settingup of development councils called Soliga Abhivrudhhi Sanghas(SAS), to protect them from rapacious outsiders and resolvingdisputes within the community. Their work is coordinated by theSoliga Abhivrudhhi Maha Sangha, which helps the tribals in gettingback their land and ensure that the forest department employs onlySoligas in work to the plantations.

The individual podu sanghas are grouped into taluka sanghas. AllSoliga men and women are members of the sanghas. Efforts arebeing made to include at least one woman in the committee. Localproblems are discussed and solutions worked out. Very often contactmeetings are organized along with officials to iron out contentiousissues. The Sangha, through its programmes, have sorted out issuesof alienation of tribal land by conducting systematic study andcollection of accurate facts and figures. This helped in educatingthe people on the latest developmental programmes. It has beensuccessful in getting pensions, training and developmentprogrammes, housing and agricultural projects and bank loans forthe people. After initiating the Community DevelopmentProgammes at village, taluk, and at the district level, the exploitationof the innocent locals by contractors and the forest departmentstopped.

The sangha has co-ordinated with the Forest Department for thesanction of tree patta (right to harvest the produce of certain trees),irrigation, housing and drinking water schemes. By far, the mostimportant contribution of the sanghas has been the sustainablemanagement of minor forest produce by the people themselves.Further, the Soligas systems such as their traditional Nyaya (Justice)

Tribal communities are a rich source oftraditional knowledge. Initiatives that respecttheir knowledge while taking them through theprocess of development could be enriching to allthe partners involved. Here is a case of apartnership which has been mutually enriching.

M. Jadegowda and M.N RameshSoligas living in harmony with nature.


have been rejuvenated by the unity that the SAS has created. Instrengthening the community organization, street plays, Jathas orcommunity meetings, and festivals have been effectively employed.The Soligas have evolved the strategy of the three Ps – Petitioningthe authorities; airing their grievances through the local Press andfinally, Picketing and mass demonstrations. The local communityis fighting effectively against the illegal granite quarrying and otherenvironmental issues.

Settled agriculture

Soligas were helped to adopt settled agriculture which they werenot following traditionally. Every effort was made to preserve theirtraditional knowledge.

Mixed cropping system and multi-storied cropping systems arefollowed. They maintain intraspecific (genetic) diversity amongthe crop plants. In one case, they have grown eight varieties offinger millet. The field crops grown are finger millet, maize, fieldbeans, pigeon pea, horsegram, beans, mustard, amaranthus, foxtailmillet and pearl millet. Vegetable crops include, cucumber,pumpkin, tubers, perennial beans, etc. Most of the farmers growfinger millet and maize as staple food. Pulses like pigeon pea andfield bean, oil seeds like mustard and castor, besides grainamaranthus are grown as mixed crops in the field of maize andfinger millet. Several local varieties of these crops are grown withoutapplying chemical fertilizers. Some cultural operations likemulching of crop residues, thinning, weeding etc., are carried outby them. In different crop species such as ragi, maize banana etc.,they cultivate more than 6-12 varieties on each piece of land.

Agricultural operations are associated with certain rituals of tribalseg., Ragi Habba (Festival) which is associated with harvesting ofmillets. Soligas have their own method of forecasting rain,controlling diseases and pests, through their indigenous tribaltraditional agricultural calendar. This traditional calendar representsthe agricultural activities and rituals associated with the Soligas ina calendar year. It also gives an insight into the comprehensivetraditional agronomic practices and rituals by the Soligas.

In order to preserve this wisdom, VGKK initiated a novelprogramme known as organic village. This progamme is beingimplemented by the assistance of State Department of Agriculture,Karnataka. Presently, it is undertaken in 3 tribal villages of BRHills in an area of 100ha. The main objective of this venture ispreserving indigenous seed diversity, encouraging the use of eco-friendly manures, conserving seed diversity through seed banksand promoting soil conservation practices like live edge fencing.Under this progamme, tribes are empowered through variousactivities like compost making, vermi-composting, constructing andmaintaining farm ponds, seed fairs and seed campaigns. In additionto this, all benefits from the line department are made available.

As part of this programme, women self help groups (SHGs) wereinvolved in seed storage. Many women have won prizes for theexcellent collection of local seeds. VGKK is starting a organicselling center in the campus. Farmers are encouraged to supplyorganically grown vegetables, fruits, reared chickens, honey, wildedible products and food grains.

Totally 71 varieties of different crop seeds have been collectedfrom 97 farmers’ fields in different villages of the project area.Training on importance of local seeds in agro diversity, and organicfarming is being given to farmers as well as to gram panchayathmembers. Several seed fairs (Beeja mela) and seed campaigns(Beeja yathre) have been conducted. Awareness programme on seed

multiplication, seed mapping, seed storage technology anddocumentation and inventory of different practices are the othercomponents of the project.

Biodiversity conservation and sustainable harvesting of minorforest products

The local people have been living here for centuries and more than50% of their income is derived from the collection of Non TimberForest Products (NTFPs). In order to conserve the rich bio-wealthof this area, the tribal people were given training in ParticipatoryResource Monitoring (PRM). They have learnt methods formapping the resources, estimating productivity, quantifying theextraction and evaluating the extent of regeneration. The Soligasare very selective and systematic about their indigenous way ofcollecting products like lichen, amla honey, fruits and fibers. Neitherit is random nor exploitative. Fruits and berries are harvested onlyfrom trees which flower profusely and when very ripe. Raw fruitsare not collected. This method leaves enough fruits behind for birds,small animals and insects which depend on them. They harvest29% of fruits of one variety each year and 60% of fruits of anothervariety of goose berry. The percentage of overall collection of fruitsdoes not seem to have a negative impact on the natural regenerationof fruit trees, a measure of sustainability in extraction.

Conclusion

In more than two decades of its association with soliga tribes,VGKK opines that it is not just the Soligas who have beenempowered in the process. VGKK had also imbibed many of thestrengths of Soligas in building their organization. It was apartnership based on mutual learning.

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M. JadegowdaAssistant Professor,College of Forestry, Ponnampet.email: [email protected]

M.N. RameshAssistant Professor,University of Agricultural Sciences,Bangalore - 571216, Karnataka.

References

Jadegowda, M., 2000, Effect of Farmyard Manure on Maize andfingermillet Based intercropping system in BRHills. M.Sc.Thesis,University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.

Ramesh, B.R., 1989, Evergreen forests Biligiriranagan hills(Ecology,Structure and floristic compostion). Ph.D. Theses, Universityof Madras.

Sharmila Rudrappa, 1993, Land use changes in the B.R. Hills. M.Sc.thesis, University of Wisconsin, USA.

Sudarshan, H., 1998, Traditonal Medicine and health care system ofSoligas: in Biligiri Ranga Swamy Wild Life Sanctuary, Natural History,Biodiversity and Conservation (K.N. Ganeshaiash and R. Uma Shaankereds.), Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra, Chamarajanagar,pp. 17-19.

Veena, N., Prashant N.S.and Vasuki, B.K.2006. Our Forest and OurLives.Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra, BRHills.


Sorghum and pearl millet are the only crop options for thesmall and marginal scale farmers in most of the semi-aridtropical countries. Small and marginal farmers with livestock

continue to depend on these crops so as to meet their food andfodder needs. The area under these crops has declined and havebeen pushed to more and more marginal areas. Also, farmers inthese areas are often confronted with limited market mechanisms.

International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics(ICRISAT), Patancheru, India, in collaboration with partners,initiated a project focusing on improving the livelihoods of smallscale farmers in Asia. The project aims at building human andsocial capital of small-scale farmers in Andhra Pradesh andMaharastra clusters. This is achieved by strengthening theircapacities, skills and knowledge on improved productiontechnologies and strengthening farmers associations by buildinglinkages with input suppliers, credit and market. The projectexecuted in Coalition mode (Fig. 1) has the partnership withuniversities, private seed companies, feed manufacturers, inputsuppliers, NGOs and farmer groups for effective input deliverymechanisms. The project was funded by Common Fund forCommodities (CFC), Netherlands.

The small scale sorghum and pearl millet producers face severalconstraints in production, processing and marketing of their farmproduce due to several reasons. Some of them include decrease inmarket demand; changes in consumer preferences; availability ofsubsidized wheat and rice to poorer sections through PDS; issuesof physical access to markets; structure of the markets; andproducers’ lack of skills, information and organization. The projecttherefore focused on organizing farmers into groups/associations,enhancing their capacities for better production and increasing theirbargaining power through infrastructure support and collectiveaction.

To help the farmers’ access efficient and more equitable marketopportunities, several interventions were made. This includedsupporting the constitution of commodity oriented farmersassociations, helping and training farmers to identify new/alternative markets, linking farmers with end users and processors,providing market information to the farmers etc.

Building farmers’ associations

As outlined above it was felt that formation of farmers associationsat the village level was the first and foremost important step in

bringing them together to build social capital. The farmers growingsorghum and pearl millet were brought under the commodity groupsat the village level. The elected group leader is a member of thefarmers associations at the cluster level. Each cluster comprised of7 to 10 villages. The number of members in each group varied.

Several joint meetings were organized with partners and farmersto identify needs. Farmers were supported based on the needs andguided through several field exposure visits and training programsto further enhance their knowledge and skills in various aspects.There was active participation of farmers groups, farmersassociation and SHGs in project planning, implementation,monitoring and evaluation.

Inclusion of women

As women play an important role in agricultural operations in thetarget villages, women self help groups (SHGs) leaders wereenrolled as members in the association. They were trained alongwith other members in seed based activity and bulking, storing andmarketing of produce at village level.

Two models were developed and tested for meaningful involvementof women farmers in project activities.

One model was to involve SHGs in seed distribution; cultivarselection and procurement of seed was done jointly by partnerinstitutions, PMU and ICRISAT. The seed procured was handedover to farmers association to redistribute to respective selectedSHGs in Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Maharastra (MS) clusters. SHGswere trained on importance of improved cultivars and its benefitslike resistance to pest and diseases, tolerance to moisture stress,stover quality and better yield when compared to local cultivars.SHGs were given 5% incentive on total sale amount to keep theirinterest effective. Advantages of this model will enhance awarenessand capacity of SHG to understand the importance of improvedcultivars in crop production. The message of availability and accessto improved cultivars will spread across all communities in thevillages.

The second model was on bulking, storage and marketing. Similarto the above model, SHGs were trained in respective activity tomake them understand the importance of each activity, both in termsof quantity and quality for better remuneration. To increase thefinancial capacities of SHGs for grain procurement from project,farmers were linked to credit institutions. SHGs approach the projectfarmers immediately after harvest and procure the grain by paying50% amount of the prevailing market price and store the grain inthe godown. The balance amount will be paid after selling theproduce to poultry feed industry in a month or two. SHGs share5% on the total amount spent for procurement and pay for godownstorage charges to farmers association @ Rs. 2 per quintal grain.This process ensures better price and prevents distress sale of grainto middle men or agents. Also, as the farmer receives 50% price ofgrain immediately after harvest he/she will able to meet his/herimmediate needs. Moreover, bulk marketing is a win-win situationfor both producer (farmer) and the buyer.

Building human capital of small scalefarmers: a Coalition approach

Small and marginal farmers benefited from the coalitionapproach in accessing some of the resources such astechnology, credit and markets. Improvement in theirlivelihood through enhanced production and highermargins in bulking, storing and selling their produce solelydepended on the strength of collective action.

Ch Ravinder Reddy, Ashok S Alur,Belum V S Reddy, P. ParthasarathyRao,CLL Gowda and R Ratnakar


Capacity Building of farmers association

Several training and capacity building activities were planned todevelop the skills of farmer groups in areas such as crop production,improved seed/fertilizer/chemical and credit accessibility, grainbulking, storing, grading and marketing within the target regionsand management of godowns. It involved training of farmer groups,representatives of input supply companies, feed and poultrycompanies. The development of training and other disseminationmaterial was done by coalition partner members on variousapproaches and processes used in initiating and gearing up the inputand product market chains. On-farm advice and field support (cropproduction aspects) has been extended to the farmers associationsby coalition partners during the entire cropping season in all clustersin both regions. Periodic field visits by the experts, organizingtraining programs, field days and exposure visits were useful inbuilding confidence on improved crop production technologiesamong the farmers. The impact of these activities resulted in highergrain production per unit area in the cluster villages.

Farmers association and SHGs were trained in construction,management and operation of storage structures and the ear headdrier. The operation and management guidelines for the storagestructures and the driers were developed jointly with partners andthe farmers. The driers were installed in all clusters and are beingused to dry sorghum and pearl millet ear heads harvested duringrainy season. The use of drier has helped reduce the moisture contentof the grain to 10-12% and prevent mold attack during storage.

The systems of bulking and grading were introduced to the farmers.The importance, advantages and the requirements of grading bulkingand storing were explained through trainings and exposure visitsto government warehouse. These trainings were helpful in changingthe mindset of the farmers positively towards bulking practices.

Collective action

The farmers were resorting to distress sale of grain soon after theharvest owing to debt and lack of adequate storage facilities. Theyplanned to construct storage structures for which land was required.Firstly, they identified gram panchayat land in the village andconvinced the gram panchayath (village organization) members toallocate the land. The land allocation in all the clusters was passedthrough a resolution by gram panchayath in spite of hurdles fromvarious groups and local political interference. In one cluster, dueto non availability of suitable gram panchayat land, a group memberdonated the land for the project. The next step was to construct thegodowns. Farmer associations constructed storage structures withthe technical and financial support from the project fund.

The godown construction and management committees wereformed from the farmers’ associations. The farmer groups in thecluster villages anonymously elected members for construction andmonitoring of storage structures. These committees shoulderedthe responsibilities of the construction of storage structures andhave successfully managed the completion of the construction withlot of cooperation, skills, network and values among themselvesand support from the group members.

Building linkages

The project facilitated interaction between bankers and the partnersfor easy flow of institutional credit to farmers. Two joint meetingswere organized at ICRISAT with State Bank of India and StateBank of Hyderabad where in all partners including farmersparticipated. Farmers explained the bankers the hurdles in gettingcrop loans. The bankers agreed to cut short the documentation

procedures, which paved the way for extending Kissan Credit Cards(KCC) to farmers groups in cluster villages. Around 900 farmersin Andhra Pradesh cluster and more than 450 farmers fromMaharashtra cluster availed bank credit.

Market linkages between farmer associations and feedmanufacturers were strengthened. The meetings between farmersassociation and different feed manufacturers were helpful ininitiating the process of entering into formal and informalagreements. Besides feed manufacturing companies, alcohol andfood processing industries were the other potential buyers dentified.In the second year, the farmers association was able to bulk andmarket the produce to poultry feed industry.

Proper grading, bulking and storing of the grain in the villagegodown was helpful in enhancing collective bargaining power offarmer groups. There was significant increase in the income due tobulk marketing.

Conclusion

Small-scale farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra clustersachieved positive economic outcomes because they are adaptableand are willing to change. The farmers association members andwomen farmer groups found that by combining their knowledgeand skills, they were able to achieve better outcomes from theirfarm and bulk marketing.

Efforts to increase agricultural productivity can be effective only ifthey are linked to an appreciation of market potential; and it callsfor integrated approaches along the full continuum of production,storage, processing and marketing. Building social capital, creatinglearning situations based on extensive interactions, forging durablelinkages among stakeholders lead to tangible outcomes beneficialto farming communities.

�

Ch Ravinder Reddy, Ashok S Alur, Belum V S Reddy,P. ParthasarathyRao, CLL GowdaInternational Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics,Patancheru, Andhra Pradeshemail: [email protected]

R RatnakarEEI, ANG Ranga Agricultural University,Rajendranagar, Hyderabad - 560030

Figure 1. Coalition flow diagram


The rural space around Hubli and Dharwad twin cities situatedin Karnataka State in South India, is heavily influenced byrapidly changing land use patterns, growing population, new

industries and employment opportunities. These changes are makingthe poor more vulnerable, forcing them to either adapt or to takeadvantage of new opportunities, for survival.

To understand the situation of the communities, their problems,priorities and possible solutions, a participatory process wasinitiated. This process identified research design and developmentalissues pertaining to natural resource management (NRM) andlivelihoods. Participatory Action Plans (PAP) were developed forNRM and livelihoods for five peri-urban (PU) villages in Hubli-Dharwad, by a multi-institutional team. The team consisted ofacademics from University of Wales Bangor, University CollegeLondon, and University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, theUniversity of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad and threeNGOs i.e. India Development Service, Dharwad (IDS), BAIFDharwad and Best Practices Foundation, Bangalore (BPF), in India.The process of preparation of action plan began in 2000-01 andtheir implementation continued till 2004-05.

The process adopted in selected villages of Gabur, Kelageri, Mugad,Kotur and Channapur is presented here.

The initial months were spent on rapport building with thecommunity. The NGOs placed one staff member in each village.This helped NGOs to build a strong base and identify themselvesmuch more with the villagers. Also, it gave first hand experienceof the conditions and problems faced in the village and allowedpoor and marginalized groups to interact with the organizers ontheir terms at times convenient to them. Approaches like streetdrama, exhibiting posters and conducting exposure visits were alsoused for building rapport.

Situation analysis

Several PRA-type exercises were used to gather information onvarious aspects of NRM and livelihoods and also for identifyingthe poor. PRA exercises were used as an entry point to thecommunity where people together could visualise their village interms of assets, produces, and natural resources. Meetings continuedthrough the PAP process where people were able to graduallyidentify, prioritize and articulate their issues at a pace they werecomfortable with. Different groups were brought into the planningprocess through encouraging them to articulate their issuesseparately.

Pre Planning process

Action planning was done in a collaborative or participatory processbringing together various stakeholders. The process was done to

Including the poor through participatoryaction process

analyse problems or key issues affecting their livelihoods anddevelop strategies to change their situation.

A series of preparatory meetings, PRA exercises, team meetingswere organized by the project team to select workshoprepresentatives to brainstorm and articulate with the communitywhat issues they would like to present and prioritize. Eachgovernment institution (Department of Agriculture, Horticulture,Forestry, Livestock, Fisheries, Watershed Development), organizeda separate meeting. The team drew up a list of issues at the end ofthe meetings.

In the diagnostic workshop, community representatives presentedthe problems and situation in their villages. In-depth exercises withcommunity, government and NGO representatives on the problemsand solutions were conducted.

A participatory logical framework process was initiated in Gabburand Channapur villages. Preparatory team meetings first took placeto train the team on log frames and then to decide which stepsshould be defined by the community. Here, it was decided that theoutcomes and activities to achieve those outcomes should be definedby the communities of Gabbur and Channapur. Meetings took placein Gabbur where men and women formed separate groups to discusstheir issues, possible solutions and outcomes.

Preparing action plans

Three working groups developed action plans for Gabbur andKelageri; Mugad and Kotur and Channapur villages. The groupsdepicted the problems and solutions in the form of problem-treesand solution-trees. Based on each issue, each action plan listed theinterventions, persons responsible for implementing eachintervention, along with the time frame. One of the action plansproduced by the working groups in the workshop is presented inTable 1. Similarly, action plans were prepared for other villages.

In response to lack of water availability, the group came up withshort and long term plans. The long term intervention here is thewatershed development and agro-forestry, while the short termsolutions include desilting and tank repairs. Similarly, the groupcame up with short and long term plans to deal with the pollutionof the Kelageri tank by sewage and other pollutants and healthowing to sewage irrigation in Gabbur. Gabbur and Kelageri wereput together to plan because both came under HDMC and both hadsimilar issues.

The Mugad action plan was formulated by sangha representatives,and representatives from the potters and fishermen’s associations.The sanghas here being ten years old were involved throughout incommunity issues and well versed in the problems related toforestry. They also had some experience in dealing with thegovernment on this issue. Women were able to make a clear cutplan with a variety of solutions. This was further aided by thepresence of a forest department official who was willing to listenand be supportive of the women’s plan. This official played afacilitative role and the sangha women were extremely articulatewhich allowed them to take the lead in this planning process. Thiswas just the reverse in the case of other working groups where

Approaches that include the poor in the developmentprocess are required to bring about a meaningful changein the livelihoods of the poor. Participatory Action Processis one such approach.

Chandrashekhar S. Hunshal and

A. T. Patil


none of the representatives were from sanghas at this stage andtherefore not as articulate as Mugad group.

Implementation

Various Income Generating Activities (IGA) based on NaturalResource (NR) and non NR were taken up. Efforts were made toinvolve the poorest of the poor in the process of implementation.The Participatory Indicators on Natural Resource Managementclearly brings out that the strategies promoted have benefited thepoor. For instance, with use of vermicompost, there was a reductionin fertiliser use. The average reduction in fertilizer use was to thetune of 57% varying across villages from 25% (Mandihal) to 88%(Kotur). Similarly the reduction in pesticide use was about 71%where IPM practices were adopted.

Formation of SHG was the key activity for linking with banks forcredit and strengthening the activities through the revolving fund.In the year 2002, the per cent of funds utilized for agriculture wasslightly higher compared to IGAs and non-IGAs. In the year 2003and 2004, the funds utilized were slightly higher towards IGAsthan agriculture and non-IGAs.

Impact

The villagers were exposed to new concept of developing projectson their own for solving their own problems. The government alsosaw what participatory planning would look like.

Mobilization of 45 women SHGs helped to increase their access tocredit, to markets, their asset base, their incomes and finally theirlives as they now have a support system in place.

The formation of the Village Development Sangha (VDS) havehelped women in better representing their needs in the Grama Sabhaand with officials, resulting in better linkages to governmentprograms.

Through extended interactions among stakeholders, there was animproved awareness and change in attitudes of the target institutionson NR Management issues.

Lessons learnt

It is extremely important to formulate working groups with villagesclose to each other so that they can work with each other. A clusterapproach with geographically close villages allows the naturalgrowth of people’s organizations into cluster level federations, whocan work together, is useful.

When a large number of institutions are involved, it is importantthat the roles of each institution have to be clearly defined.Institutions need to be involved based on their strengths and thepartnership should be allowed to evolve organically.

At the village level, grassroot government functionaries need to beinvolved. More intensive capacity building initiatives are neededfor the poor to participate fully.

�

Chandrashekhar S. HunshalDirector of Instruction (Agri),College of Agriculture, Bijapur, Karnataka.email: [email protected]

A. T. PatilProfessor of Extension, Directorate of Extension,University of Agriculture Science, Dharwad, Karnataka.email: [email protected]

Table 1: Channapur and Kotur Action Plan

What Duration Who

Watershed development 3-5 years Farmers, Watershed department,

NGOs, Social Forestry

Repairing tanks 1 year NGOs-Desilting Minor Irrigation Department

Management of water storage 1-2 years FarmersScientific use of water 1-2 years Watershed Development DepartmentFodder development 1-2 years Agriculture Department, NGOs and

UAS, Veterinary Department, SocialForestry

Agroforestry (fruit and fodder trees) 3-5 years Farmers and Social Forestry

Themes for LEISA India

Volume 11 no. 1, March 2009

Diverse Farming Systems

The last 50 years has seen expansive growth of entrepreneurialand market-driven agriculture with the help of technicalpackages from the “green revolution”. At the same time, smallscale family farmers have continued to develop and adapt theirdiverse agricultural systems. In harsh environments such asmountainous and dry areas, smallholder systems are stilldominant, whereas in other areas they have largely beenreplaced by more specialised market-driven farming.

Family farming continues to be a crucial source of livelihoodand food security for an estimated 600 million families. Itharbours and nurtures biodiversity, it safeguards the resilience ofagro-ecological systems against natural and human-madedisasters, and it serves as custodian of cultural traditions and aflexible labour force. Family farmers have found ways to holdtheir communities together even when others abandoned them.

Government policies often undermine agriculturally diversesystems. For example, by subsidising technology that does notbenefit smallholders, allowing the market to be flooded withcheap competing products, or by denying newcomersownership and user rights, if for instance, farmers’ childrenmigrate out. Also, smallholders are often hurt by market-drivenpolicies of large-scale international food corporations, forinstance, leading to loss of water or land rights.

How do family farmers maintain their knowledge and lifestyles?How are they coping with, staying independent from, orsuccumbing to mainstream developments such as fluctuatingglobal markets, subsidies for inputs, or migration? How canfamily farmers be supported to maintain their way of life whileadapting to changing circumstances? We are seeking articlesabout initiatives that explicitly recognise the value of diverselandscapes, diverse ways of life, diverse crops and agriculturalsystems and stand up against policies and developments thatundermine an independent family farmers’ way of life.

Deadline for submission of articles is 31st March 2009


Irene Tivane lives in Ndonga, in the Guijá District inMozambique. In recent years, she has seen the number oforphans in her community increase. She has been doing her

best to provide care for some of them, but with little means ofsupport herself, is finding it increasingly difficult. This is only oneof the many communities in Africa which have been witnessing agrowing number of orphans since the advent of HIV and AIDS.Local women identified more than 1200 orphans whom they wantto care.

Once either parent falls ill due to HIV and AIDS or related illnesses,the children’s lives begin to change. In fact, they start a long journeyof deprivation. Access to education, shelter, clothes and health,among other things, becomes difficult for them. In view of thissituation, Samaritan’s Purse (SP), an international relief organisationworking in the district, initiated training for local caregivers likeIrene. Commonly known as educadores, or educators, they visitthe children and provide for their short term needs. After a year ofworking in the community, the educators’ efforts were wellrecognised. Their influence was growing. So was the demand fortheir services. This soon became overwhelming for them as theystarted to face many requests to assist the orphans, but they too arepoor, with no means of support. They needed some extra income tohelp them continue to assist orphans in their community. To meetthis need, in May 2007, SP started a broiler chicken business with25 women in the district, divided into groups of five.

Learning to raise chickens

The educators had eight-weeks training in chicken rearing. Thiscovered all the topics needed when starting such activities, includinghow to construct a shelter, the need for ventilation, diseases andtheir control, and record keeping and basic finance. In addition tothis, participants also went to visit other chicken rearing projectsin the neighbouring district of Chokwe. This helped them toappreciate the practical issues involved in running the business.After the visit, SP assisted the participants to construct the shelters,providing materials and a trained builder. Labour and other non-financial costs were met by the participants. Site selection for theshelter took various factors into consideration, including proximityto clean water, feeds, beneficiaries and market.

Prior to receiving the chicks, some conditions had to be in place,such as bedding, a lantern for light, a charcoal stove to raise theroom temperature when needed, and feeders and drinkers. Uponreceiving the chicks, the participants conducted a bird count withSP staff, and recorded the number of birds received and theircondition. A total of 1300 one-day old chicks were distributed. Thismarks the beginning of a cycle which spans thirty-five days. Duringthe growth phase, the project veterinarian assisted the educators toconduct regular monitoring to check on the management of the

chicks. Feeding, quantities consumed, sanitation, vaccines,sicknesses and deaths are followed up.

The chickens are ready for sale after the thirty-five days. Thechickens are sold within the community through word of mouth,and through scouting trips in nearby markets. After selling, theproject staff hold a meeting with the participants to review theprevious cycle’s income, to put aside funds for the next cycle andalso to share profits amongst the participants. To date, the resultshave been encouraging. The 25 women have managed to raiseUS$ 4940 per cycle. Sixty percent of this is reinvested into thebusiness whilst the remaining 40 percent is shared as profit. Theshort term impact on the lives of more than 114 orphans they carefor has been significant, and lives have been changing. Thecaregivers can now meet the children’s financial needs withoutdifficulty. Things like uniforms for school, exercise books, pens,food and health care are now being provided to the once deprivedfamilies.

As good as a husband

After three cycles, the experience so far shows that small livestockare a viable source of livelihood for the resource poor, such asfamilies with orphans. A key lesson learnt is that the communitygroups can run the broiler chicken projects with minimum supportfrom SP. Caregivers can earn an income in a short span of time andcan meet the immediate needs of the children under their care. Theproceeds are not only useful for the orphans but also their caregivers,all of whom were already struggling to make ends meet prior tostarting this micro-enterprise. According to Irene, “I no longer havea husband to provide for me and my needs. He died a long timeago. But, thanks to this business, it’s like having a husband again.We are excited with this opportunity. We are now making somesavings so that we can expand the business.”

�

Simon MukwayaProgramme Manager, Samaritan’s Purse.Rua 1.301 Sommerschield,35 Bairro da Sommerschield, Maputo, Mozambique.E-mail: [email protected]

In an HIV-stricken district in Mozambique the number oforphans is growing. Committed women want to take careof them, but they are very poor themselves. A relieforganisation supports caregivers and orphans to rearchickens for the local market.

Simon Mukwaya

Caring for the caregivers in Mozambique

Angelica Mundlovo, one of the community educators who hasbecome proficient in raising chickens to assist with the costsinvolved in caring for orphans.

Photo

: Si

mon M

ukw

aya


“Care farms” combine care of the land with care ofvulnerable people. Such farms exist in many Europeancountries. In the Netherlands, the Kiem care farm has sixtyyears’ experience in involving mentally disabled people inagricultural activities. The farm sells a wide range ofhorticultural products, while the participants have founda worthwhile function in society.

Natasha van Dijk

People with learning difficulties developconfidence through care farming

In the south-east of the Netherlands, where patches of forestborder on idyllic meadows, lies a small farm called the Kiem(meaning “germination”). The Kiem is the oldest biodynamic

farm in the Netherlands, and is home and workplace for acommunity called Bronlaak. About 200 adults with learningdifficulties, mental health problems and other special needs live,learn and work together with a staff of twelve families. It wasfounded in 1948 when parents of children with learning difficultiessought a place for them to live and work once they became adults.Life in the community is based around two ideas: biodynamicagriculture and anthroposophy. The latter is a philosophy whichteaches that all people, no matter what their learning difficulties,have a healthy core element in them, giving rise to special abilitiesand talents. Biodynamics is a method of organic farming based ona holistic approach that regards soil, plants, animals and people asinterrelated. Biodynamic agriculture has always been at the heartof the community, because it sees healthy food and care of theearth as important to people’s health and well-being.

Sixty years on, Bronlaak is now financed by the government aswell as gaining income from sales of farm and artisan products.All residents join in at least one of the many work areas. Theseinclude a horticulture garden, a livestock farm with a cheese-makingunit, and a managed forest. In addition, artisan activities includepottery making, wooden utensil carving, weaving, candle making,and growing flowers and perennial plants. A laundry unit and centralkitchen are the other two work areas.

Daily routine at the Kiem horticultural garden

The Kiem garden (at 1.6 hectares) includes over 40 varieties ofvegetable crops, seven types of fruits, and over 60 types of herbs.Honey is also produced. The day starts at 8.30 am with a groupplanning meeting. The 22 adult participants sit together with fouror five work supervisors in a big circle. Tasks are divided and theworking day begins. At midday there is a break, and everyonecontinues with a different activity. Often in the early morning hours,vegetables, herbs and fruits are harvested and processed. In thelate morning or afternoon, crops are weeded or hoed depending onthe need. In the autumn months, compost-making is an importantactivity; in the wintertime, tools and infrastructure are maintained.Winter is also an excellent time to process all the dried herbscollected earlier, into herbal mixtures for teas, cooking, medicines,as well as for herbal oils and ointments. Work ends at 4.30 in theafternoon.

There are many things to consider when deciding about taskdivision. As the garden produces a wide variety of crops as well asseedlings, there are many tasks to choose from. The levels of

learning difficulties vary. Some people can work ratherindependently while others are only able to push a wheelbarrow.Participants have various types of disabilities: there are people withDown’s syndrome, different forms of autism, mental disorders suchas borderline syndrome, as well as physical disabilities such asvisual limitations, deafness, and epilepsy.

All the horticultural products are marketed. First, the community’scentral kitchen has a contract to buy a large daily share of the gardenproduce. The kitchen staff (which also includes participants) preparemeals for 210 people. Products are transported by horse-cart andmanaged by residents. A second market outlet is a local shop runby the Bronlaak community. This sells fresh and processed productsfrom the garden and farm, as well as handicrafts. Customers aremembers of the community as well as outsiders, including localrestaurants. Lastly, a number of external horticulturalists buy up to10, 000 of our seedlings per year.

Care farming in the Netherlands

The Kiem is an example of “care farming”, which combines careof the land with care of vulnerable people. Care farms seek toempower vulnerable people by developing their possibilities,strengths and potentials rather than focusing on their limitations –by engaging them in agricultural activities.

Until the 1990s, few care farms existed in the Netherlands. Thecombination of agriculture and social care is a promising concept.It contributes to the diversification of agricultural production, whilealso providing an alternative innovation for the health care sector,which subsidises the enterprises. At present, there are 900 carefarms in the Netherlands. About 8000 vulnerable people work andsometimes live on these farms. The target groups of care farms arevery diverse, ranging from people with physical disabilities,psychiatric problems, suffering from mental breakdowns orAlzheimers disease, drug addicts, long-term unemployed people,or ex-prisoners undergoing rehabilitation. The National SupportCentre of Care Farms has developed a quality trademark for itsmembers, which guarantees a minimum level of care and safetystandards.

Two participants at the Kiem care farm harvest a variety of lettuces.

Photo

: N

atas

ha

van D

ijk


Some lessons learned about care farming from the Kiem:

People need meaningful tasks in their lives. In our garden this isclear: we supply fresh food products to meet a daily demand fromsociety. Everybody contributes in his or her own way and level.The garden provides meaningful work that empowers theparticipants because they are given responsibility, no matter howsmall. Meaningful work allows people to learn to make their owndecisions, for instance being able to choose between different tasks.This is fundamentally different from so-called “day-care” activities,where people simply pass the time of day and often have few goalsor little perspective.

All workers are part of a small, but important, social network whichincludes the Bronlaak community, staff, vulnerable participants aswell as shop customers. People meet each other, not because oftheir disabilities, but because as a group, they are responsible for ahealthy, tasty and beautiful product. Furthermore, people with andwithout learning difficulties have to co-operate and interact witheach other – which is not always easy. Social events are alsocelebrated with the larger community of Bronlaak.

A sense of equality is key. Work supervisors at the Kiem havedegrees in both horticulture and pedagogical care and are importantrole models, but they do work together with participants on commontasks. There is also a healthy level of pressure to ensure high qualitystandards. Working together also means communicating, chatting,singing, celebrating, quarrelling, and sometimes even fightingtogether.

People are empowered by a safe environment. Working in anagricultural setting makes people more aware of the rhythms ofnature, aside from daily, weekly and seasonal rhythms. Everybodyneeds rhythm in their lives, but people with special needs areparticularly comforted by the feeling that they are in a safe andconstant environment.

Working in an agricultural environment has a strong therapeuticvalue. The workers have to face the challenges of the elements,such as bad weather, sticky soil, getting dirty hands, carrying heavy

loads, and the never-ending weeds. Overcoming harsh elementshelps people to develop skills and good attitudes. Although someparticipants are motivated from the beginning, others need to bemotivated to keep working. But, we all do get a sense of pridewhen, for instance, 70 tonnes of compost are prepared at the end ofDecember. We celebrate this with a small ritual; adding biodynamicpreparations to the heap of compost, and telling a Christmas story.Sometimes, however, it is concluded that a person would fit betterin another work place, such as the pottery or weaving workshopbecause he or she needs a more confined space, for instance, thanin the garden.

Limitations of care farms

Everyone should be rewarded for the job they do. A limitation ofmost, if not all, care farms in the Netherlands is that participantsare not paid for the jobs offered. People with special needs, unlikethe farm staff, do not receive a salary. This deserves moreinvestigation: if you take people seriously, no matter what theirlevel of functioning, financial reward in the form of a salary shouldbe provided. At present, all participants do receive a social securityallowance from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, butthis does not carry the same status as a “salary”.

In our society, individualism, a demand-driven care system, andthe growing level of bureaucracy challenge the value of learningand the quality of professional supervision. Care professionals arepushed more and more into the role of administrators, because ofthe high level of accountability and quality certification processesdemanded by government.

Participant development

It is clear from the experience of the Kiem that care farms canprovide a means for vulnerable people with learning disabilities togrow and develop, particularly when they participate for a longertime. Those who have worked in the garden for many years becomephysically and mentally stronger. Shy and sensitive people, damagedby social exclusion in the past, have also become much strongerand less vulnerable as they experience respect from others. Theparticipants in the Kiem garden usually have such serious learningdisabilities that they need to work in a “safe” environment all theirlives. However, other vulnerable groups, such as ex-prisoners orthose suffering from nervous breakdowns, can go on to becomeintegrated into society. For them, working on a care farm is morelike temporary therapy.

�

Natasha van DijkWork supervisor, The Kiem horticultural farm, Bronlaak community.Gemertseweg 40, 5841 CE Oploo, the Netherlands.E-mail: [email protected]

References

- Elings, M., and J. Hassink, 2006. Farming for health in theNetherlands. In: Hassink J. and M. van Dijk (eds.) Farming for health:green-care farming across Europe and the United States of America.Proceedings of the Frontis workshop on farming for health,Wageningen, the Netherlands (16-19 March 2005). Wageningen URFrontis series. Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands.

- Gallis, C., 2008. Green care in agriculture. Health effects,economics and policies. Proceedings of the 1st European COST Action866 Conference, Vienna, Austria.

- Van Erp, S., 2002. Combining the world of farming and care, thesurplus value of a new development (original title:Zorglandschappen. Een impressie van zorgboerderijen). PON, Tilburg.

This article is the personal view of the author, and is not necessarily thatof the Kiem farm or the Bronlaak community.

Finding a place for people with special needs in society

Having a small community like Bronlaak, where safety and carefor vulnerable people are guaranteed, fulfills the needs of manypeople. This is often referred to as the “reversed integration”model. At Bronlaak, people live in a community, but others alsolive and work there. Outsiders are explicitly invited to visit thebeautiful landscape (walking and cycling routes are found there)and to attend cultural events.

The opposite of this is the strongly promoted model of‘integration”. From the 1980s onwards this called for vulnerablepeople to be integrated into all aspects of society. In earliercenturies in the Netherlands, the “fools” (as they were then called)of eachrural community did have a special place in society,including participation in agricultural activities. But, by the endof the 19th century, they were institutionalised, and in the 20thcentury, society took on the attitude that people with disabilitieswere abnormal. In the 1960s, liberty and democratic rightsmovements took place, resulting in the call for equal civil rightsand integration of all people in all aspects of life. However, inpractice, our society is not yet prepared for this idea. For example,employers lack sufficient incentives. Social isolation is verycommon among many of the people who live in so-called“normal” neighbouhoods. This integration model does not workfor many people, particularly the most vulnerable. Looking atthe model practised at Bronlaak, we see people engaged inworthwhile activities, having a job, and being respected andappreciated.


The costs of running the Ndola Lions School for the VisuallyImpaired have increased as a result of attracting more pupils,and higher food and transport expenses. Its premises now

accommodate 120 students, boys and girls aged 7 to 16. By 2006,the long-running government grant could no longer sustain theschool’s operational costs. The school administration then decidedthat the pupils should be involved in agriculture to make theinstitution self-sufficient in food, and to help raise some income.

Contribution to agriculture

In the early stages of crop establishment, the visually impairedcannot be involved in farming maize. This is because they cannottell which is the food crop and which is grass by sense of touchalone. Once the maize grows, however, blind students can feel thedifference, and are therefore capable of weeding. After the maizeis harvested, it is ground to produce Zambia’s staple food, nshima,to feed the students. Sometimes the students eat meat, from the

pigs that the pupils also look after with the help of support staff.The school now has a piggery for about 20 pigs. Left-over foodsupplements feed from millers, keeping the cost of running thepiggery low.

The students also grow bananas and vegetables, which supplementtheir food needs and provide income for the school. It is interestingto see how organised the students are. When the bell to go to thegarden rings, the partially blind pupils help keep their completelyblind colleagues in a line. Upon reaching the garden, one childconnects the hosepipe to the tap while others fill plastic containersand buckets to water the vegetables, tomatoes and bananas. Twoyears ago the school only had five banana plants, but the numberhas now shot up to almost 130 plants. With a borehole in place,there is abundant water for the bananas, which need a lot of water.The students’ commitment can be seen from the fact that the plantsare always watered. If there are problems, they are rectified bysupport staff.

It is commonly believed in Zambian society that the differently-abled, including the blind, cannot be involved in agriculture.Surprisingly, the school demonstrated the best agricultural practicesin the 2006/2007 farming season among over 50 basic schools inNdola. How did the pupils with partial or no sight at all producethe largest cobs of maize from the same seeds that were distributedto other schools? Clearly, people with disabilities can very wellcontribute to food security through small-scale agriculture. In fact,it is only lack of capital that prevents the students becoming involvedin other forms of agriculture such as chicken rearing or fish farming– there is a fish pond lying idle.

Beyond basic school

After about nine years at Ndola Lions School for the VisuallyImpaired, pupils attain the junior secondary school level of Grade 9.Those who make it to senior secondary school go to other parts ofthe country, where there are extensions for special educationmeeting the needs of the visually impaired. There is also theKang’onga School for the Blind in Ndola, where some former pupilsgo for advanced subjects such as basketry and handicrafts, thoughthis school also suffers from lack of funding. The main job thatsuits the visually impaired is working in exchange rooms astelephone operators, but with the advent of mobile phones, thesejobs have become scarce. Because of the agricultural knowledgethey gain at the basic school, many graduates continue to gardeneven when they are drawn into other professions, such as personnelmanagement or special education. Some graduates have establishedsmallholdings in Kang’onga, where they practise farming to makea living.

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Humphrey NkondeFreelance journalist,P.0. Box 70956, Ndola, Zambia.E-mail: [email protected]

Acknowledgements

This article is based on discussions with Daniel Mwamba, DeputyHeadmaster of the Ndola Lions School for the Visually Impaired, andwith the boarding master, Stephen Mumba.

In Ndola, Zambia’s second largest city, a special schoolfor the visually impaired recently added agriculturalproduction to its programme. The students learn to producevarious food crops as well as rear pigs. Last year, they wonthe prize for the best maize, outcompeting all the “normal”schools in the area.

Humphrey Nkonde

Visually impaired studentsgrow better maize

Being visually impaired is not an impediment to cultivatingtasty and beautiful bananas!

Photo

: H

um

phre

y N

konde


The Bote, Majhi and Musahar, are indigenous and landlessfishing communities of Nepal that reside on the banks ofthe Narayani River, part of which lies within the jurisdiction

of Chitwan National Park (CNP). Their traditional means oflivelihood had always been, fishing in the Narayani River, collectionof non-timber forest products and ferrying people and merchandisefor a fee. However, from the later part of the 1960s, the Nepaligovernment, with assistance from international agencies, began toimplement conservation policies. These policies were based on theassumptions that people' were the main culprits in the destructionof wildlife and, therefore, they needed to be excluded from theconservation areas. After the introduction of these policies, the entryof communities into the forest was severely restricted and fishingin the river became illegal. By mid-1980s, ferrying was bannedacross the river.

By the late eighties, conservation agencies started becoming awareof conflicts between local fishing communities and the CNP. Slowly,they began to implement the concept of partnership betweenconservation agencies and local people through developmentalprograms. But, exclusionary practices continued. In fact, inDecember 1992, armed guards of the CNP raided several villageslying along the river and seized all the boats, nets and most ofother fishing utensils from all the houses in the villages. This led toan unprecedented livelihood crisis in the fishing communities. Itwas in response to this crisis that a local people's organization namedMajhi, Mushahar, Bote Kalyan Sewa Samiti (MMBKSS) was setup in 1993 by the fishing communities. MMBKSS is working onrights-based approach to development, thus begun their struggleagainst anti-poor conservation policies and the exploitation of thefishing communities by the national park authorities.

Success story

As a result of a decade long struggle led by MMBKSS, nationalpark authorities were forced to bring about changes in local policiesand practices. For instance, they made provisions to issue six-monthfishing licenses to the members of fishing communities in 1994.However, the policy stipulated that the licenses were to be issuedonly to the adult fishing members and no new license would beissued thereafter. This created a problem for younger members asthey would not be entitled to fishing license after they complete 18years. This was again changed to incorporate provisions that anymember from fishing community would get license as soon as theyreach 18 years. The incidences of harassment and human rightsviolations also declined as the relation between park authoritiesand local communities improved.

Fishing communities now have access to Buffer Zone ManagementCouncil as a Buffer Zone User’s Committee member. Thiscommittee controls two major sources of resources: the communityforest lying within the buffer zone and a share of the revenuegenerated from the RCNP for the purpose of local community

Natural conservationists: struggle and successdevelopment activities. As their organization became stronger, theirpresence in the decision making process both in the managementof community forests and the development fund, also significantlyincreased.

There are also several external factors responsible for polluting theriver water causing harmful effect on natural resources and wildlife.Additional threats are posed by increasing use of pesticides infarming (leading to contaminated run-off), as well as the occasionaluse of dynamite for fishing. But innocent marginalized andindigenous Bote, Majhi and Musahar are always blamed for allnegative impacts. Hand made nets, hooks, and arrows did not reducethe number of fish because the methods used by them are compatiblewith nature. For instance, the communities stop fishing in the egglaying season - they worship dolphin and other aquatic creatures aspart of their mythology.

There are several opportunities to improve livelihoods of thesecommunities too. Sport and recreational fishery can be developedwith the involvement of the local population which create new jobopportunities and income. Many fish species can be farmed in low-cost cages, using feed gathered from their household surroundings,and also vegetable wastes.

Lessons learned

While the struggle of MMBKSS was aimed initially at dealingwith access to fishing, in the later period, it has been able todeliberate on access of local communities to other public resources.Non violent strategies and pressure tactics coupled with popularsupport can challenge the unjust structures and practices.

Since policies are also made at national level, it is also necessaryto campaign beyond the local. In this case, national level policiesdid not change, but because of campaigns at both national and locallevel, the local conservation practices of other agencies changed.The case also tells about how analysis of policies and practicescombined with the empowerment of people at the grassroots canachieve significant changes at public institutions. This can beachieved through continuous dialogue with all stakeholdersincluding policy-making agencies. Involving local communities isessential for making decisions that affect their livelihoods. Also ithelps in generating useful local knowledge.

Indigenous people are always natural conservationists whoselivelihood goes along with conservation of nature. Therefore, needsto be nourished.

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Rajesh Paudel. M.Sc.(Ag) student. Institute of Agriculture and AnimalScience (IAAS), Rampur, Chitwan Nepal.E-mail : [email protected], [email protected]

References:

Jana Sudip. 2007. Jeevan Ka Lagi Sangharsa. CommunityDevelopment Organization (CDO) and International Center forIntegrated Mountain Development(ICIMOD), Kathmandu, Nepal.

Jana Sudip .2007.Grassroot movement: Local Movement ofIndigenous Fishing Communities around Chitwan National Park;http://www.cdo.org.np.

Bhattarai Anil and Jana Sudeep.2007. Grassroots OrganizationEngaging Conservation Agency in Nepal: A case of indigenousfishing communities’ struggle for right to fishing in South-CentralNepal. http://www.cdo.org.np/case-studies.php.

Policies and practices combined with the empowermentof people at the grassroots can bring about significantchanges in the livelihoods of the poor. Involving localcommunities is essential for making decisions that affecttheir livelihoods.

Rajesh Paudel


In Nepal, development projects often focus on policy issuessuch as rights-based approaches, with less emphasis onlivelihoods. The impact on the poor of such an approachis often not immediately visible. This article describes howan NGO helps rural households to start home gardening,independent from local landlords or far-away markets.

Rojee Suwal, Bimal Raj Regmi, BhuwonSthapit and Arjina Shrestha

Home gardens are withinreach of marginalised people

Home gardening is a livelihood option for vulnerable groups.On plots of land around houses, people can grow a widevariety of vegetables, fruits, fodder and medicinal plants,

as well as livestock, poultry, small fish ponds and bees. Peoplemay even experiment with rare local species for domestication,and exchange seeds and planting material with each other. The sizevaries from 20 to 500 square metres. Local livestock is the majorsource of organic fertilizer, and family labour is sufficient for thehome garden production system. Nearly three-quarters of the poorand excluded households have access to plots for home gardening,where they can produce some food independent from landlords orlocal markets. A small amount of labour, complemented withtechnical support, changed one woman’s status from being a receiverto being a provider: “Before, these hands were put forward to receivevegetables from others, but now, they are put forward to offer some.”

Targeting excluded groups

Once people see the opportunity, they are keen to develop a goodhome garden. In 2002, Nepali NGOs (such as Local Initiatives forBiodiversity Research and Development, LI-BIRD) along withBioversity International, the Nepali Government and the SwissDevelopment Corporation, started researching the role of homegardens in rural livelihoods. They studied which groups are excludedand how. For example, groups include women, non-Sanskritspeakers, non-Hindus and low castes or untouchables (dalits). Theyhave poor access to production, or have a low level of self-confidence. Women, for example, cannot leave the house becauseof caring tasks. This makes them reluctant to participate indevelopment initiatives. To make things more complex, not all dalitsin a community are economically poor, but they are not seen as

valuable members of the local community and they cannot benefitfrom development efforts.

Three years of action research contributed to designing a programmeto overcome such difficulties. In the initial phase, it was difficultto involve people who usually do not participate in developmentefforts. The project therefore developed a “door to door” approach,in which project group members visit households and their homegardens and plant different vegetable species. Soon, people couldsee how useful such farming can be, helping them to decide toparticipate in the home garden project.

Women-only and mixed groups

The programme formed groups around home gardening. Some werewomen-only groups. The home garden is considered as an extensionto women’s domain, where she needs to combine activities likechild care, food processing and food preparation. In somehouseholds men migrate for long periods. As it is mostly men whosell the major cash crops, they control the resulting income. Womenoften control their own income from the home garden.

Mixed farmers’ groups stimulate learning from each other, andsharing knowledge and experiences. Groups’ programmes andnorms are designed to assist the process of social inclusion.Meetings are organised at appropriate times, and poor groupmembers are provided subsidised home garden planting materials.Establishment of a pro-poor fund enhances their confidence thatthey could also benefit from income generation activities. Elitegroups in the community serve as knowledge and seed banks forother members in the community. The coaching they provide isstrategically important. Without such coaching, higher castesdiscriminate against low-caste groups. Thus, at community level,home gardens become an important unit for enhancing socialrelations.

Home gardening alone is not enough

Vulnerable groups usually lack enough land to grow staple crops,but many of them have access to small plots which they can cultivateintensively. Home gardening can be a means for reaching excludedpeople, but it cannot address all their problems. More structuralmeans such as rights-based approaches are necessary to complementmore direct interventions.

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Rojee Suwal, Bimal Raj Regmi and Arjina ShresthaLocal Initiatives for Biodiversity Research and Development,LI-BIRD. P.O. Box 324, Gairhapatan, Pokhara Kaski, Nepal.E-mail: [email protected]; http://www.libird.org

Bhuwon SthapitDiversity for Livelihoods Programme, Bioversity International.3/10 Dharmashila Buddha Marg, Nadipur Patan, Pokhara-3, Nepal.E-mail: [email protected]

Earning our own income

Sumitra Nepali is a widow in the village of Hardineta, Gulmi.She has a daughter and two sons. Before the project, Sumitraearned an irregular income by working on others’ land, and hersons also sent her a little money. The family owns a small pieceof land around their homestead (250m2) which was left bare formost of the periods of a year. For Sumitra, the evening meal hadbecome occasional. She had been unable to the feed pigs whichwere a source of income for her. After the project, Sumitra hasbecome a nursery woman in her village. Many farmers now visither to learn about raising vegetables in a nursery. She works withmany crops, including: areca nut, guava, cauliflower, tomato,radish, carrot, winter beans, garlic and fennel. She has earnedRs. 6000 (about US $ 80) in a season from the nursery and sellingvegetables. She has started keeing pigs again, feeding them withkitchen wstes.

Women’s livelihoods inNepal have improved greatly

through intensive homegardening

Photo

: R

oje

e Su

wal


What can a small farmer do if his or her land gets grabbedby a powerful state organisation such as the Indonesiannavy? Forming a group and fighting for your rights is afirst step. Moreover, you need expertise from NGOs oruniversities, legal advice and perseverence.

Abdul Syukur and Ngadiyono

The Free Farmers Union and theirfight for land

After Indonesian independence in 1945, more than 2000families started growing crops on land that had previouslybelonged to the Dutch coffee and rubber plantations. In

the districts of Pagak and Batur, in Malang, East Java, theplantations’ foremen distributed the land to the local farmers.However, the tranquillity of farming life did not last long. In 1958,the Indonesian navy took over 400 hectares of the land in this areafor training facilities. They later took another 50 hectares. Tolegitimate the navy’s one-sided control over the land, the Ministryof Agrarian Affairs issued a special decree in July 1965.

Throughout the years, the farmers in these two districts tried toensure their right to live on and cultivate the land, but were largelyunsuccessful. There were many reasons for this. First, they wereall unfamiliar with the legal status of their land. Most local farmersfound it difficult to understand the rules and regulations governingagricultural land, especially those related to the land they wereworking on. Many of them took part in demonstrations against thenavy and tried to contact the local authorities, but these actionsproved useless. It was later clear that they were unsuccessfulbecause they were only acting at a local level.

Then, in 1998, big signs were placed around the farming plots,stating “Property of the navy. Whoever plants or builds in this landmust report to the navy”. The signs were put up after the navy hadpreviously announced a long set of rules: according to the firstruling, only local farmers holding land utilisation permits (petok)could plant the kapuk tree (Ceiba pentandra), teak (Tectonagrandis) and lamtoro trees (Leucaena glauca). Without the permit,farmers had no right to cultivate in the area. It was later agreed

that sugar cane farmers had to pay a contribution of Rp 20 000 perhectare every year. Thirdly, farmers were requested to get a writtenpermit, and to pay a fee, if they wanted to build a house or a mosque.On top of it all, they were told that if the navy needed the land, thelocal farmers could not demand any compensation. All theseregulations made it increasingly difficult to continue cultivatingthe land. Realising that a local struggle was fruitless, the farmersdecided to demand legal ownership at a higher level.

The struggle continues

Things started to look brighter in 1999 when the Research Instituteof Social Development (LPKP) offered assistance. This is a localNGO, working with different programmes in the East Java province,such as advocating for agrarian reform or carrying out an organicagriculture programme. LPKP wanted to develop an agriculturalproduction programme, but soon realised it was necessary to firstlook into farmers’ land rights in this area. A series of meetings withthe farmers helped the LPKP field officers understand the manyanxieties and uncertainties which the farmers faced. Farmers feltunsafe and were uneasy about the soil and water conservationactivities, as they wondered who would benefit from them in thefuture. How could they be sure that the navy would not force themto leave?

LPKP organised a series of training workshops on legal issues, tohelp farmers build their arguments as part of their struggle, andalso to help them identify actions which can be categorised as acrime. As a result, local farmers began to see the advantages ofworking together to fight for their rights. The political changes in1998-99 opened up the possibility to form farmer organisationsthroughout the country. This opportunity was taken up by thefarmers in Pagak and Batur, who set up the Free Farmers Union(Serikat Petani Merdeka or SPM) in May 2000. The specificobjective was to build a sense of togetherness among all the farmerswho lived and worked in the former Dutch plantations. The SPMwas to serve as a vehicle in their struggle for land rights. It wasalso founded to help fight the climate of fear and intimidation, and

Some members of the Free Farmers Union believe in lobbying as a way to bring about change. Others prefer a more visibleapproach, like here in Jakarta, where farmers demonstrate for agrarian reform.


to help farmers enhance their quality of life, both in a moral and aneconomic sense.

Building capacities

In order to achieve its goals, SPM has been trying to strengthenitself as an organisation, looking both at its internal policies andcapacities, and at its relationships with external partners. Theirperspective is that if an organisation is weak, then it can be easilyinfluenced by external factors. It has therefore worked hard indefining strategic plans for the next five years, conducting routineinternal meetings, and co-ordinating meetings with policy makersat different levels. Internally, SPM also strengthened its humanresources through trainings, seminars and workshops, withprogrammes that intensively involve the youth, men and women.Participative controls and evaluations have taken place every sixmonths, assessing the organisation’s activities and results, and alsolooking at the difficulties faced at the moment.

SPM leaders have been able to meet local and village authoritiesand district heads. In May 2002, LPKP arranged a meeting betweenSPM members and officers from the Malang RegionalAdministration. SPM also met with representatives of the NationalLand Affairs Authority and of the Regional People’s LegislativeCouncil. The discussions were meant to help gather clear andaccurate information about the disputed land. Moreover, they triedto look for solutions which would please all parties involved.Although no solution was immediately found, these meetings helpedbuild a good relationship between the farmers and the localauthorities.

Later on, in order to broaden the organisation’s presence, theydecided to appoint a district coordinator (korwil) in every village.This person would be responsible for digging up information andthen reporting the findings to the farmers in his or her district.Korwils are also in charge of communicating with the villageadministrative bodies, and reporting SPM’s most recent activities.

Needless to say, things have not always been easy within SPM,with frictions and disagreements arising among the members. Insome cases, farmers were requesting greater transparency(especially referring to the organisation’s finances andadministration). Members also expressed their different ideas onhow to proceed – some were more in favour of a “soft” approachlike lobbying, while others (especially those influenced by universitystudents) preferred to go for the “hard way”, organising large scaledemonstrations. Some of the SPM members think that the current

situation is good enough, as they can work on the land withoutbeing disturbed by the navy. Others want to continue their struggleuntil they can get legal certification or property rights. Intimidationand threats have also continued, and one of the SPM leaders haseven had to go into hiding.

These difficulties, however, have been minimal compared to theadvantages of working together. The sense of togetherness increasedtheir willingness to fight for their rights. The network that theybuilt helped them find the information needed to support theirstruggle. In general, their actions became more organised. As anorganisation, SPM was able to establish links with the AgrarianDevelopment Center, Faculty of Law, Malang Brawijaya University(in East Java). Interactions between farmers and the law studentsgave farmers useful ideas and information. They learned about legalterms and procedures, and about the possibilities for staging protestrallies in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. As a result, the organisationmembers believe that they will soon achieve their goal.

Lessons and challenges

There are some important conclusions that can be captured fromthis experience. First, the fight for the legal right to land takes a lotof time and is very exhausting. Therefore, all members need to beinvolved in preparing and defining tactics and strategies. Second,farmers’ struggles need supporters. Lack of support can increasethe organisation’s vulnerability. Increasing the organisation’snetwork is therefore crucial. It is necessary to be linked to otherfarmer organisations that have the same vision and concerns, eitherat a regional or national level. This may cement strong support tothe struggle. Lobbying with crucial decision makers like theNational Land Affairs Authority and the Regional People’sLegislative Council can put an end to the battle for legal status fortheir land. Moreover, the link with the media is vital. Support forthese struggles can be much larger if the organisations involvedare able to reach the general public and influence public opinion.

Even though the problems of land ownership have not yet beensettled, SPM feels that some results have been achieved. Forexample, the National Land Affairs Authority recognises now thatthe disputed land belongs to the state, and not to the navy or to thearmed forces. This is a very positive step, as the land’s legal statusis not vague anymore. Another positive outcome is the supportreceived from the village administrative bodies and the villagelegislative authorities. The number of SPM members (both menand women) is growing significantly in every village. Moreover,the second committee of People’s Legislative Council of theIndonesian Republic visited the disputed land, demonstrating itssupport for the struggles. This also confirmed the undisputedlobbying and negotiation abilities of SPM’s members towards highlevel authorities and decision makers. Most importantly, the localfarmers have demonstrated the courage to persist with the fight fortheir standpoint.

�

Abdul Syukur and NgadiyonoLPKP Malang. Perum Karanglo Indah I/4 Malang,Jawa Timur, Indonesia. E-mail: [email protected]

This article was first published in vol. 19 of SALAM, theIndonesian regional edition of the LEISA Magazine.

The sense of togetherness that members of the Free FarmersUnion experience, has increased their willingness tofight for their rights.

Photo

: SP

M


New legislation in India allows communities to take chargeof degraded forest areas. One village claimed to have legalrights over a particular forest area. But users fromneighbouring villages protested. An external NGO helpedthe communities to accept each other as legitimate forestusers. Jointly, the villages are rehabilitating the area.

Sanjay Joshie

Villages join hands to combat landdegradation

A majority of India’s tribal communities inhabit upland andforest dominated landscapes. They have little agriculturalland and are limited in livelihood options. There used to

be dense forests in the areas where they lived, which fulfilled a lotof their livelihood needs. But when the colonial state took awaythe legal rights of tribes to use their forests in 1878, traditionalprotection broke down and outsiders took away valuable forestproducts from the area. As a result, the forest cover in India droppedto 11 percent in 1990, down from 32 percent in 1900. Now,deforestation has led to widespread damage to downstream farms.

Chitravas, in the southern Aravalli ranges in India, is one of themillions of affected villages. Chitravas means “home of theleopard”, and the village has always had a dense and rich forest.When in 1988 new forest policies allowed people’s participationin the protection of forest, Chitravas was quick to form a committeeto protect the forest. But, three nearby communities protested thefact that Chitravas inhabitants were claiming the forest this way.They had been using the plot for as long as they could remember.

Village forest committee

In 2001, the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) started itswork in Chitravas, to help the committee come up with plans tomanage the plot. The FES team took advice from the DivisionalForest Conservator and organised a village general body meeting,where all the communities expressed their concerns. FES thenorganised repeated meetings to understand the traditional forestuse patterns in the area so that the real forest users could be included.Based on the evidence gathered in these meetings, the communitiesjointly prepared a customary user rights list. This helped in decidingthe voting rights for the Village Forest Committee.

The forest turned out to be actively used by two thirds of the familiesin Chitravas and the three surrounding settlements. These 325 forestusers agreed to protect and manage the forest plot through jointforest management. This led to a committee of 18 members in total.While this committee was bigger than usual, the inclusivedistribution of leadership ensured that representatives of all thecommunities supported the decisions made and would not boycottactivities.

Implementing joint plans

The new committee decided on an action plan, which was approvedby the forest department. First, communities rebuilt a stone wall toprotect the forest land. Planting of Jatropha curacus along the stone-wall provided an additional vegetative barrier.

The construction of loose boulder check dams, gully plugs, contourtrenches and gabions ensured in situ conservation of soil andmoisture. In addition, 50 000 saplings of various species and grasses

were planted. Women’s groups took up livelihood activities suchas kitchen gardening, and pasture development activities. Thisprovided poorer families with water and healthy food.

Organising in this way led to various improvements. Localgovernance improved – the community has been able to establish atrue form of local self governance. Now, the villagers have startedaccessing other programmes available with the local government,such as agricultural services. Protection has also resulted in moreand better biomass: from 140 t/ha in unprotected plots to 302 t/hain protected plots. In dense forest, soil losses are six times lessthan in open land. Women have been able to take part in thecommunity decision-making process and have even assumedleadership. Lastly, the plot now provides water. The number ofwells has increased from ten to forty. Flash floods used to happenregularly in the monsoon, and the banks of the stream were erodedyear after year. Now the plot stores water.

Problems to overcome

Of course, not everything went smoothly. In the process of comingto a shared plan for the use of the forest, the villagers encounteredmany problems. For example, farmers used to encroach on theforest. One villager planted a crop of around half a hectare insidethe forest. The villagers gave him time to harvest his crop, if hethen agreed to close the fence. But after the harvest, he startedpreparing the field for another crop, defying committee orders. Thecommittee called for village meetings on this issue. The farmer inquestion did not show up, and people started holding meetings infront of his house. So the matter was taken up with the localgovernment. Finally the community pressure was so intense thathe had to vacate the area. He then started to participate in the landconservation process.

To protect the land, the committee hired guards. This did not work,and so the community devised the “stick system”: three personsfrom different households carry sticks as a sign that it is their dutyto guard the plot. If they find any animals inside, they report this tothe village committee, who imposes sanctions according to thevillage norms. As people from Chitravas could not participate inthe stick system, they paid extra for products harvested. In the earliersituation, such concessions were unthinkable. This was because

This land cover change map shows that the area under communitymanagement has become greener after villages agreed to jointly care forthe land. (Source: FES)


Since 1989, authorities in Nepal can legally handoverdegraded forest to poor people for agro-forestry. Districtforestry offices identified the poorest households, and

handed over degraded forest plots to them, on a 40-year lease.From 1992 to 2003 a project funded by IFAD developed workingprocedures to institutionalise this leasehold forestry. Until 2003,government agencies and researchers supported almost 2000 usergroups that managed some 7000 hectares in a third of the country’sdistricts. Groups could plant annual crops and small trees. Thebigger trees remained government property.

Impressive results

With the forest plots being managed, fuel and fodder productionin forests improved. Women did not have to spend so much timecollecting food and were able to take part in training and income-generating activities. Less time spent on cattle grazing allowedchildren to attend school, while goat-keeping was a source ofincome for families. The forest became more dense, with moreplant and animal species, and there was less soil erosion. All inall, at project scale, participating households became better off,and forests became greener. The fact that the groups weremobilised by female facilitators – a deliberate choice – also paidoff; most lease certificates were issued in women’s names – quitean achievement in a male-dominated society.

Leasehold forestry, at the project scale, seemed a successful wayto improve the livelihoods of poor families. The nationalgovernment therefore commissioned its expansion in 2002. Intheory, leasehold forestry could be scaled up, to cover a million

With leasehold forestry, poor households are allowed touse a plot of degraded forest for a certain amount of time.In Nepal, a project showed that this helped poorhouseholds improve their living standards, while at thesame time reviving degraded forests. Implementingleasehold forestry on a larger scale was a logical nextstep. But in doing so, the Nepalese government ran intosome obstacles.

Shiva Khanal

Learning from an effort to scale up localsuccesses

hectares of degraded forest. A National Planning Commissionaimed to establish 100 000 hectares of leasehold forestry in thetenth five-year plan (2002-2007).

Why scaling up did not happen

Now, after the plan, this ambition seems to have largely failed.By 2007, the area under leasehold forestry increased by only afew thousand hectares rather than the planned 100 000. Thegovernment plan failed for several reasons.

First, not everybody warmheartedly supported leasehold forestry.Officials involved with wildlife management saw it as a threat.According to them, it meant turning forest into land for agriculture,and therefore they did not like it – even if it boosted biodiversity.

Second, some NGOs regarded leasehold forestry as a threat towell-established community forestry. In community forestry, forestis handed over to mixed groups of rich and poor households, basedon the community around patches of forest. A review has shownthat despite many initiatives aimed at poor households, communityforestry benefits rich households, with poor households oftenending up being worse off. Leasehold forestry could therefore bea good complementary approach. But many NGOs did not sharethis view.

Third, the new, decentralised district forestry co-ordinationcommittees still needed to develop planning procedures for landuse, enabling them to allocate leasehold forestry next tocommunity forest or parks. Last but not the least, on-goinginsurgency and political turmoil made it very hard for thegovernment to address all these problems.

The failed attempt to implement leasehold forestry on a largescale shows that success at the field level alone is not enough.Specific knowledge of how to link leasehold forestry with thegeneral forestry governance would be needed. In addition, localand mid-level policy makers, NGOs and bureaucrats must bewilling to support it in the longer term.

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Shiva KhanalAssistant Research Officer, Department of Forest Research andSurvey, Babarmahal, Kathmandu, Nepal.E-mail: [email protected]

before, the inhabitants from Chitravas did not allow families fromother communities to be committee members.

There are still occasional problems such as the guard on duty is notsincere or does not go to guard; cattle is found inside the plot; orfamilies not turning up for labour contribution on the site. But nowsuch things are resolved internally. The committee discusses suchmatters, refers to the byelaws, and then penalises the defaulters byfines or labour.

Incentive

Joint Forest Management has provided a degree of tenure security,and an incentive to local communities to participate in forestprotection and restoration activities. They thus link up conservationwith livelihoods.

The people in Chitravas, like in other villages, initially liked projectbenefits such as waged labour for wall construction. But now thatfarmers are seeing their forests regenerating, fodder growing, andstreams flowing for a longer period, it has made them see otherbenefits. Farmers have expressed what they see as future benefits,how they would ensure equitable sharing later, and how they wouldensure protection of their forests for eternity.

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Sanjay JoshieFoundation for Environmental Security (FES).Bhilwara, 119, Subhash Nagar Extension, Near Subhash NagarCommunity Hall, Bhilwara - 311 001, Rajasthan, India.E-mail: [email protected];http://www.fes.org.in


The Narayana Reddy Column

Bose, a small farmer, lived in a small village Keelappanchavady, in Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu. He owned3 acres of rainfed land growing sorghum, bajra and cowpea.

He had 20 sheep which supplemented his income. But, he had tosell his sheep to meet his son-in-law’s demands for a motor bike.On an ill fated day, his son-in-law met with a fatal accident. Bose’swife too killed herself unable to bear the tragedy. Following thetragic incident, Bose with his widowed daughter and her youngson left the village with dejection. He worked for seven years as asecurity guard in the nearby city and lived in a slum area.Meanwhile, he got addicted to alcohol and sold his 3 acre land inhis native village to meet various needs of the family.

When he lost his job and had to leave the city, one of his friendshelped him to get a job in an organic farm. He and his daughterKaliamma agreed to work on the farm for a monthly salary ofRs. 4200. They lived in a portion of the farmhouse, where the farmowner also lived. The farm owner employed them on the conditionthat he should not consume alcohol and should save 25% of theirwages in post office savings account.

The farm owner was living on the farm for 15 days a month. Hehad his family and another farm at 600 kms away from this farm.Bose with his experience on his own farm and the guidance of thenew farm owner, did everything possible to plant vegetables andfruits. He also maintained 3 local varieties of cows, using the milkfor consumption as well as for preparing panchagavya andfermented curd to spray on plants to control diseases. Cow dungand urine was used to produce biogas and organic manure(vermicompost and compost). After 14 months of joining the organicfarm, Bose was able to sell 300 kgs of papaya, 300 – 350 kgs ofbanana, 100 kgs drumsticks and 600 kgs of vegetables like gourds,brinjal etc. He transported the farm products on his bicycle andsometimes on the buses and sold them in two neighbouring towns.He was getting 15% incentive on sales.

After working on the organic farm, Bose, his widowed daughterand grandson were maintaining good health. They were happy after7 years of misery and sickness. It is just because of his firm decisionto give up the consumption of alchohol. Secondly, the cleanenvironment in which they are living and consuming farm freshorganic food everyday. The grandson joined the local primary schoolafter discontinuing for one year. Since Bose also teaches him inthe night atleast 15 days in a month, he is considered as the beststudent in his school. Now, Bose has plans of educating his grandsonMurugeshan to become at least a graduate, if not a doctor orengineer. He is determined to save money and own some land inthe future with some support from his farm owner.

It is surprising that many people in this country are poor inspite oftheir ability and health. There is no reason why any healthy person,whether a man or woman, should remain poor if they work regularly,have good habits and save a part of their hard earned money having

a goal of secured life in future. Poor farmers do not need theinefficient programmes of the government, like providingguaranteed jobs for the rural poor, paying money for no work done.This will only spoil them and destroy the country’s rural population.Now Bose and his family are leading a honourable and satisfiedlife with hope of good future. In future, only such good relationshipscan save the farms from being abandoned or sold to companies.

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L Narayana ReddySrinivasapura, Via Marelanahlli,Hanabe Post, Doddaballapur Taluk,Karnataka, India.Phone : 080-27601103

Ensuring livelihood for poorfarmers

Capacity Building on Knowledge Management in CSOsby K V S Prasad and T M Radha

Development organizations are deeplyinvolved in generating lot of fieldknowledge. Often these learnings are notadequately captured and widely shared.Building necessary understanding, systems,processes and skill sets required formanaging knowledge within institutions andsharing widely in public domain thereforebecomes crucial. This requires integratingpractices evolving from multiple disciplines,such as Management, Information systemsand Communication.

The programme of Knowledge Management in Civil Societiesis a new programme being initiated by LEISA India team throughshort duration Learning Workshops and long duration customisedprogrammes. This document is the proceedings of the firstworkshop organised for CSOs during 22-26 April 2008.

If interested in the initiative/ copies, please contact:

K.V.S. Prasad/ T.M. Radha,LEISA India, AME Foundation,No.204, 100 Feet Ring Road, 3rd Phase,2nd Block, 3rd Stage, Banashankari,Bangalore - 560 085.Phone: +91-80-26699512 / 26699522;Fax: + 91-80-26699410 E-mail: [email protected]: http:\\india.leisa.info


Communities of Faith and Action (CFA) endeavour tocombine inner spiritual transformation with outer societalchange. The CFA programme, on the other hand, as the

name itself suggests, instils a deep commitment to change oneselfand change society as well. The CFA process integrates personaltransformation, social change and ecological concern. Thephilosophy of CFA is promoted by Fireflies, an inter-culturalashram (community) located in a village outside Bangalore, inSouth India.

‘Fireflies’ works with poor peasants, women and youth. It has triedto see that the transformational process is not only one of actionand reflection, but is richly endowed with feeling and compassion.The sacred-song (bhajan) movement that was initiated, enhancedthese latter qualities.

The CFA organization

Each village has a CFA group that may number from ten to twenty.They meet once a week, usually on Sunday mornings, andparticipate in a satsang (a session that entails prayer, meditationand bhajans). This takes about an hour. After this, the village groupbrings up the problems it faces. The issue raised could be anythinglike domestic violence, inadequacy of drinking water or corruptionof the local government officials. Any problem that a person, orthe community as a whole, faces is brought up for discussion.After studying the problems, solutions are sought for. Someremedies may be found without too much difficulty; others maytake more time and entail systemic change.

Every month or so, the village officials are invited to participateand respond to the demands of the villagers. Every three months,senior politicians and officials are invited to participate and helpin finding solutions.

One significant instance must be narrated here. Eighteen monthsago a land-developer (or a land-shark!) from the city bought a fewacres of land next to Fireflies. He also illegally fenced one of thevillage lakes and covered it with earth, using a bull-dozer. Thereare four small lakes in the village and he had covered one of them.This was a social and ecological crime, since the village is seriouslyshort of water for agriculture and livestock. The people were tooscared, or too indifferent, to protest. The panchayat members werealso paralysed, or partially bribed. The ‘shark’ also managed tobribe some of the local government officials.

A discussion on the responsibilities of citizenship and local self-governance was initiated. People were informed that a villagelosing a lake was like a human being losing a lung. The water inthe lake percolated slowly and recharged the aquifers. (In thevillages around Fireflies the ground water table had declinedalarmingly in the past fifteen years from about 150 feet to 600 feetor more.) Majority of the people realised how serious an issue itwas, but they were still not motivated to act. About twenty people,largely led by women, went and met the local MLA. They explained

Communities of Faith and Actionthe problem to him and asked him to visit the village, which he dida few days later. When he came, the women took him to the earth-filled lake and pointed out how the village officials had connivedwith the land-shark. The MLA immediately ordered to see the villagemaps and when he realised that the lake had indeed been fenced inand filled-up, he asked the people to go to their homes and bringcrow bars to demolish the fence poles. The people did exactly this.The MLA then asked the peoples organisation to be responsible forthe village lakes. He promised financial help to restore the lakes.

The deepening of civil society processes

The CFA initiative helps give substance to the notion of citizenship.Here a citizen feels empowered and is able to change things in thelocal context. This is the basis of any meaningful local democraticprocess - a process that may eventually also have implications atlocal, national and international levels.

The CFA efforts also help in understanding local, national andinternational governance issues and the importance of bringing aboutbetter governance.

The CFA includes the re-interpretation of traditional festivals andsacred symbols as well as the prayerful chanting of sacred songs.Create a common ground for both religious and secular people tocelebrate festivals that lead to social and environmental action.

I would like to now relate two specific examples of re-interpretationof traditional festivals - our celebration of Ganesh festival and ourefforts to see Sita Devi as a figure to inspire ecological renewal.

The Ganesh festival - an experience in social and ecologicalawareness

Ganesh, perhaps the most endearing god in the Indian pantheon, ishalf elephant (the top half) and half human (the lower half). He isbelieved to be the remover of obstacles, the lord of knowledge. Heis the god to be worshipped before beginning a new business orventure. Each September, for the past six years, we have a weeklongcelebration of the Ganesh festival at Fireflies ashram.

To begin with, I must mention that the speculation that Ganeshoriginated from ancient animistic traditions as a pre-Aryan elephantdeity led to the tribals feeling that he was at origin, a tribal god. Thetribals in our village have been in the village for many generationsand have integrated Hindu beliefs within their faith system. Theyalso celebrate the Ganesh festival and it made them proud that hewas at origin, a tribal God.

With a group of villagers, we formulated three questions that wereto be discussed in all the villages. The questions ran as follows:

1. If Ganesh is the God of knowledge, and since true knowledge issynonymous with vision, what is the kind of vision we wish forour family, for the village, for the country, for the world? Arekindness, compassion and openness part of this vision?

2. If Ganesh is the remover of obstacles, what are the difficultiesand obstacles in our villages and how can we be co-responsiblewith Ganesh to remove them. What is our own responsibility ascitizens to overcome these social obstacles? What is the role ofthe Panchayat, our legislative assembly? What is the role of theprime-minister and parliament?

3. If Ganesh is half-nature and half-human, he represents the bondbetween the natural world and the human world. So, what arewe doing to preserve our environment? Instead of nurturing ourenvironment, are we polluting and destroying it? What is the

Fireflies Ashram, an NGO based near Bangalore charteda creatively powerful approach - the approach of faithand spirituality. Communities of Faith and Action processwas followed to integrate social and ecological concernsinto the spiritual life of village people.

Siddhartha


role of chemical pesticides and fertilisers in polluting our water-table? Are we growing more trees instead of cutting themheedlessly? Are we protecting our lakes?

The questions were phrased more simply than explained here. Thediscussions were uneven, with some people able to deal with thepersonal, social and environmental dimensions better than others.But, most people took an active interest in all the discussions. Onthe first day, we erect an unpainted six-foot Ganesh statue atFireflies. The statue is unpainted because of the toxicity of today’spaints, which contain lead and other carcinogenic chemicals in them.After a few days, our Ganesh is carried in a bullock cart throughthe neighbouring villages and eventually immersed in the lakebefore Fireflies. In the first year, the farmers remarked that theywere moved by the Ganesh statue being carried in the bullock cart.“These days,” they said, “we are used to Ganesh being carried intractors. This is like the old times.”

In the first year, people asked why the Ganesh was unpainted. Ourresponse was that the poisonous chemicals in the paint would insultand humiliate Ganesh by polluting the lake he was going to beimmersed into. Many people in the villages around Fireflies havesince got unpainted Ganesh’s. For those who want colour on thestatues, an artist at Fireflies uses natural dyes to paint the statues.

With climate change galloping along, we need to explore allmeaningful avenues of genuinely sustainable social andenvironmental change. Obviously the experiences outlined abovecannot be carried out as mere tasks, but should be deeply respectfuland participatory in nature. I was once asked if I believed thatGanesh was God, and that if I was not a believer could I claim anylegitimacy in participating in a process as sacrosanct as this. Myresponse was that there was often a common meeting groundbetween the sacred and the secular. In the celebration of the Ganeshfestival, any secular person, who was open, could completely sharein the vision that the villagers were trying to develop, couldempathise with the desire to overcome difficulties and obstacles,and could be in complete solidarity with the effort to create anecological consciousness.

And now to our participatory re-interpretation of the significanceof Sita Devi.

Sita Devi as Earth Mother

In the Indian context, we find that with rapid economic growth weare also contributing dramatically to large-scale pollution andclimate change. In the field of agriculture, for example, a weakpolitical process allows agriculture to stagnate, while

simultaneously seducing farmers (whose votes are important in theelectoral context) with free electricity, subsidized fertilizers,pesticides, etc. Most farmers today have only known the greenrevolution combination of hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, (withirrigation if they are lucky). And now industrial agriculture hasbegun to creep in, where the earth is simply seen as a commoditythat can produce other commodities.

The lure of development has been illusory for millions of Indianfarmers, but it continues to be a powerful, if deceitful, myth. Insuch a context can we take up the challenge and find myths that areboth earth-sustaining and life-sustaining, rather than the obverse.At Fireflies Ashram, we have attempted a process of re-interpretingthe sacred myths that are close to our farmers and agriculturallabourers, both men and women. One such sacred myth is the storyof Sita, wife of Lord Rama, known in India as ‘maryadapurushottam’, or the ideal human being. The story of Sita is knownby every woman, man and child in India.

It is extraordinary that the most well-known female figure in India’sreligious pantheon was born from a furrow of the earth and, whenin later life, her time came, the earth opened to receive her.

Our purpose here is to show that Sita Devi represents Earth Mother,and the fervent veneration of her is a commitment to practiseagriculture that is sustainable. In a larger sense it is a call to urgentlymove towards forms of development with zero carbon emissions.It is also an acknowledgement that Sita Devi is indeed the Earth,that our earth is therefore sacred, and that we cannot continue tospoil her soil, water, air, trees, mountains and glaciers.

At Fireflies we have a Sita Devi temple, where Sita’s festival iscelebrated each year on April 22nd, which is World Earth Day. SitaDevi is venerated here as Earth Mother, who watches over herhuman and non-human offspring, who guides and inspires. Thosewho nurture the Earth, and those who till the soil withoutendangering the planet, are particularly precious to Her. Sita Deviis also the goddess who watches over and protects women. Womenin our villages take their problems to her and find comfort.

The Sita Devi temple is not a social construction that emanatesfrom Fireflies ashram. It is the result of long interactions anddiscussions with farmers, women and youth about the meaning andNature of Earth Mother. It is a process that we refer to as ‘aparticipatory hermeneutics of hope”, where sacred tradition is re-interpreted and re-experienced in personal, social and ecologicalterms.

Conclusion

At Fireflies, our understanding of the relationship between religionon the one hand and social and environmental transformation onthe other is not an instrumental one. It is really a question of breakingthe artificial separation between the sacred and the secular, betweentradition and modernity. Our objective is to enhance the spiritualand material well being of people, located within specific culturalcommunities. We try to explore the space that exists between acritically thought out tradition and a critically thought out modernity,a critically experienced ‘sacred’ and a critically experienced‘secular’.

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SiddharthaPipal Tree, Fireflies Intercultural Centre, Dinnepalya Village,Kagalipura (P.O), Bangalore - 560082, India.Email: [email protected]; www.pipaltree.org.in

Sita Devi temple in the Ashram premises.


NEW BOOKSThe new peasantries: Struggle for autonomy and sustainabilityin an era of empire and globalization by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg,2008. ISBN 978-1-84407-558-4. Earthscan, 8-12 Camden High Street,London NW1 0JH, U.K. E-mail: [email protected];http://www.earthscan.co.uk

At a time when multinationals make billions on speculation with food,Van der Ploeg writes a book that shows how they undermine the ruralway of living worldwide. Smallholder farmers grow healthy produce,selling this and their labour to keep their independence. In contrast,food empires (such as Parmalat in Italy) link farms, factories andmarkets, producing little, but siphoning big money to banks, accountancyfirms and stock markets. The good news is that the peasant way of livingis far from extinct: all over the world millions of landless people aregoing back to independent farming. If you are ready to plough throughsome academic language, this book makes you see the impact of the so-called “free market” on farming and the way farmers resist.

Poverty reduction that works: Experience ofscaling up development success by Paul Steele, NeilFernando and Maneka Weddikkara, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84407-602-4. Earthscan, 8-12 Camden High Street,London NW1 0JH, U.K.E-mail: [email protected];http://www.earthscan.co.uk

This book reviews how innovative, targeted povertyreduction initiatives have arisen in Asia’s fast changing economic andpolitical context. It provides lessons on the nature of targeted povertyreduction initiatives and the factors that explain a successful initiative.The 20 case studies from around the world are analysed using a standardapproach to identify what makes good practice for targeted povertyreduction and how can such good practice be scaled up. The bookconcludes that there are inherent challenges and tensions in interventiondesign and implementation. However, when certain lessons are takenon board, and various challenges and tensions are resolved, scaling upis possible.

Farming like we’re here to stay: The mixed farming alternativefor Cuba by Fernando Funes-Monzote, 2008. 208 pp. Ph.D thesis,Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands.

This is the result of the author’s Ph.D. research, which lookedspecifically at the transition from specialized dairy farming systems tomixed crop-livestock systems. It highlights the advantages of mixedfarming systems, where, because of a more efficient use of the availableresources, farmers achieve higher yields and higher energy and proteinproduction levels. The situation that Cuban agriculture is currentlygoing through provided a very interesting setting. The results areexpected to help replace the input-substitution strategy which hasdominated Cuban agricultural policies over the last fifteen years,arguing for a mixed (diversified) farming system approach as aneffective step towards sustainable agriculture.

The state of food and agriculture 2007: Payingfarmers for environmental services FAO AgricultureSeries no. 38. ISBN 978-92-5-105750-6. FAO, Vialedelle terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy. E-mail:[email protected]

Agricultural production processes can bringenvironmental benefits such as improved watersheds,or less soil erosion. Policy makers and decision makers are searchingfor ways to encourage farmers to supply such ecosystem-based goodsand services. One potential way is to pay farmers for providing theseservices. This report examines in detail the many issues involved inthis promising and flexible approach – such as what the paymentsshould be made for, who to, what value they have, and what the demandis. It will make interesting reading for policy-makers, farmers and allthose interested in agriculture, environment and development.

India: Social Development Report 2008 : Development andDisplacement by Council for Social Development, ISBN –9780195696929; Price : Rs 445.00

Displacement by development projects has emerged as a major issuecausing widespread concern and demanding immediate attention. Some60 million people have been displaced and reduced largely to a state ofpermanent poverty since independence. This situation is unlikely toimprove given the pressures of acquiring land for private industry andnow the Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The Social DevelopmentReport 2008 focuses on the displacement crisis of the Project AffectedPeople who are seldom adequately compensated and resettled. Itadvocates development that ensures minimum disruption and a shareof its benefits to the affected. With contributions from well-knownsocial scientists, resettlement specialists, development practitioners,and human right activists, this Report: # presents new data on the sizeand impact of displacement # advises against opposition to every project# urges reforming the resettlement policy and the legal system # makespolicy recommendations to improve the lives of affected people Inaddition, it highlights the social impact of the right to information law,the national rural employment guarantee scheme, and the various recentinitiatives in education and health. It also provides an updated SocialDevelopment Index.

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Developmentby World Bank. Published by World Bank Publications, 2008. ISBN0821368079, 9780821368077. 365 pages.

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development seeksto assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effectiveinstrument for economic development, especially development thatfavors the poor. It examines several broad questions:

- How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities foragriculture?- Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured costeffectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectorsas in Africa?- How can agricultural growth be made more effective for povertyreduction?- How can governments facilitate the transition of large populationsout of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of ruralpoverty to urban areas?- How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected?How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained?

This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has beenpublishing the World Development Report.

Reforming Indian Agriculture: Towards Employment Generationand Poverty Reduction by Sankar Kumar Bhaumik (ed.), 2008. SagePublications India Pvt. Ltd. ISBN: 9780761936459.

This compilation includes original essays that examine past and currentstatus of the agricultural sector in Indian and delineate the challengesit faces in the era of economic reforms. It highlights the issues that arebeginning to raise serious policy discussions in India in view ofcontinuing agrarian crisis and the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12).Apart from providing macro level analyses, the collection also featuresstudies which are based on micro (field) data that reflect the realitiesof the Indian agrarian economy. In addition, Reforming IndianAgriculture: Towards Employment Generation and Poverty Reductionfocuses on the issues of employment, poverty, food and nutrition, andreviews other aspects of development policy like fostering inter-statecooperation for optimum utilization of resources, privatization policyto mobilize funds for social sector development and pattern of adoptionof improved technologies by small scale industries in the country. Thebook will be invaluable for students, researchers and academiciansworking in the fields of development economics, rural and agriculturaleconomics, and development policy analysis.



SOURCESThe resilient family farm: Supporting agricultural developmentand rural economic growth by Gaye Burpee and Kim Wilson, 2004.ISBN 1-85339-592-7. ITDG Publishers, Bourton Hall, Bourton-on-Dunsmore, CV23 9QZ Rugby, Warwickshire, U.K. E-mail:[email protected] ; http://www.itdgpublishing.org.uk

This clearly written and well-illustrated bookexamines the economic and ecological realitiesfaced by millions of small scale farmers all overthe world. It looks at why some farm familiesare more able to cope in times of hardship thanothers, and the role of development organisationsin supporting these farm families. It presentsexamples of successes and failures ofdevelopment initiatives, and draws out keylearning points. The authors attempt to bring thedeeper understanding of the family farm which they believe is necessaryto increase the successes, and prevent harmful interventions – thecomplexity of life on small scale farms demands complete responses,which are only possible when the rich interconnectedness of farm lifeis understood. This is a practical book which looks closely at thisinterconnectedness and provides many insights for practitioners in alldevelopment sectors.

Roots of resilience: Growing the wealth of the poor. WorldResources Report 2008 World Resources Institute, 10 G Street NESuite 800, Washington, DC 20002, U.S.A. http://www.wri.org

Produced by the World Resources Institute in co-operation with theUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, the WorldResources Report aims to provide policymakers around the world withanalysis and insight about major environmental and development issues.In its most recent volumes, this report has addressed the importantlinkages between development, the environment and governance. The2002-2004 issue argued that better environmental governance, basedon greater participation and access to information, leads to fairer andmore sustainable use of natural resources. In The wealth of the poor:Managing ecosystems to fight poverty, the 2005 report argued thatpoverty and the environment are inextricably linked, that the world’srural poor could enhance their livelihoods by capturing greater valuefrom ecosystems. World Resources Report 2008, Roots of resilience:Growing the wealth of the poor continues the focus on poverty and theenvironment. This issue argues that successfully scaling upenvironmental income for the poor requires three elements: ownership,building local capacity for development, and the establishment ofadaptive networks that connect and nurture nature-based enterprises.The result is communities with increased resilience: economic, socialand environmental.

Access of the poor to agricultural services: The role of farmers’organizations in social inclusion by Bertus Wennink, SuzanneNederlof and Willem Heemskerk (eds.), 2007. Bulletin 376, RoyalTropical Institute. KIT Publishers, P.O. Box 95001, 1090 HAAmsterdam, the Netherlands.

The aim of this book is to contribute to thedevelopment of guidelines for a proactivestrategy for the social inclusion of disadvantagedgroups or individuals. To do this, the authorsfocus on how the poorest of the poor gain accessto, and benefit from, agricultural services, andon the role which farmers’ organisations have orcan have. The first chapters look in detail at socialinclusion, exclusion and empowerment,presenting the characteristics, differences andsimilarities observed in five organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. Thesecond part describes these five cases in detail. They look at the current

role which each organisation has, and the conditions under which thesecan enhance social inclusion. The analysis of these cases provides thebasis for a thorough strategy for social inclusion.

Gender and development ISSN: 1355-2074. Oxfam GB. OxfamHouse, John Smith Drive, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2JY, U.K. E-mail:[email protected]; http://genderanddevelopment.org

This journal is presented as the only one “published to focus specificallyon international gender and development issues, and to explore theconnections between gender and development initiatives, and feministperspectives”. Published every four months since 1993, it is currentlyread in more than 90 countries. Each issue focuses on one particulartopic, such as rural livelihoods and agriculture, or gender-basedviolence. Vol. 14 (July 2006) looked in detail at marginalised peoples,with articles from many different countries, all of them analysing thedifferent factors behind marginalisation and dispossession. In additionto thematic articles, this journal contains book reviews on the latestpublications relevant to this field. There are also separate sectionscovering news and views on current events and trends in gender equalityand women’s rights, and interviews and debates on cutting-edge issues.

Unheard voices: The case for supporting marginal farmers by JohnMadeley, Karl Deering, Ra Tiedemann-Nkabinde and Ruchi Tripathi,2007. Concern Worldwide UK. 5th Floor Alpha House, 100 BoroughHigh Street, London SE1 0HX, U.K. http://www.concern.net/documents/514/concern_unheardvoices.pdf

This is a brief “discussion paper” prepared aspart of Concern’s international campaign. It isbuilt around the idea that marginal farmers facemany constraints (erratic weather, poor soils,remoteness) and donors and nationalgovernments frequently fail to reach them.However, “they have a great deal of potential”,as is shown by case studies shown in thisdocument. These provide the basis for therecommendations presented here: that marginalfarmers need to be central to all agricultural policies. Backing theirargument, the authors list a number of reasons for supportingsmallholders in general, and marginal farmers in particular. They startwith statistical figures: around 70% of the world’s poor depend onsmall farming to feed their families or earn a living, while marginalfarmers make up the majority of farm holdings in many countries.

The slow race: Making technology work for the poor by MelissaLeach and Ian Scoones, 2006. ISBN 1-84180-162-3. DEMOS,Magdalen House, 136 Tooley Street, London SE1 2TU, U.K.

This booklet looks in detail at the factors which make science andtechnology work for the poor. In contrast to the races towards globaleconomic success and finding a universal fix for the problems of thedeveloping world, the authors argue for a third race – one which worksso that the poor benefit from science and technology development.The neglect of poor people’s priorities, or the lack of participatoryapproaches, are presented as hindering factors, much like issues relatedto governance, access and ownership. “The core challenge is how toinvolve people, especially marginalised people, in decisions aboutinnovation and technology”, for which a “new vision of citizenship”is required. The last two chapters look at ways in which citizens havebeen actively engaged, and at a series of recommendations for furtherinvolving them.

Rights-based approaches: Learning project by Jude Rand andGabrielle Watson, 2007. ISBN 978-0-85598-6070. Oxfam America /CARE USA. Oxfam Publishing, Oxfam House, John Smith Drive,Cowley, Oxford, OX4 2JY, U.K. Available in English, Arabic andFrench at the Oxfam Publishing website, http://publications.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam/default.asp



Rights-based approaches cover a variety ofmethods (such as policy analysis, advocacy,capacity-building), all of them oriented atfacilitating a process of empowerment for poorand marginalised peoples and communities. Asthe organisation behind this document put it,these approaches are “aimed at creating theconditions under which people can live indignity and peace and develop their fullpotential”. This report presents the RightsBased Approaches Learning Project, which developed and analysed aseries of case studies, leading to lessons for the organisations involved.Specifically, this project sought to identify the main differences between“traditional” development projects and those using rights-basedapproaches, and identify how these approaches can change the impactof development projects and interventions. The cases analysed includeprojects run by Oxfam and CARE in Bangladesh, Ethiopia andGuatemala. These help identify the “essential” elements, as well asthe type of impact these approaches are likely to have.

Disability and Social Exclusion in Rural India by Klasing,Insa Publications,2007. Pages: 200. ISBN: 978 81 316 0051 1.

"India is home to a population of 50 milliondisabled people, the worlds largest outsideChina. Although 80 per cent of disabled peoplein India live in rural areas, the government andNGOs direct their activity almost exclusivelytowards urban centres, and little research hasbeen conducted in rural communities where theincidence of disability is greatest. This booksheds new light on the marginalisation ofdisabled people in rural India. It exposes thebarriers that exclude disabled people fromparticipation in education, livelihoods, social life and medical care.Comprehensive chapters describe each aspect of exclusion in turn,explaining the barriers to participation and evaluating the governmentspolicy and programmatic response. Each chapter ends withrecommendations for government policy and an agenda for NGOintervention. This study finds that social exclusion defines theexperience of being disabled in rural India at least as much as disabilityitself.

Inclusive Growth in India : Agriculture, Poverty, and HumanDevelopment by Mahendra Dev. Year: 2007 ISBN: 9780195691900.[Price: RS. 695.00, US$ 15.11] Oxford University Press, YMCALibrary Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001.

The Indian experience with reforms in the last two decades revealsthat while there have been achievements on the economic growth front,inequalities have increased and exclusion continues.

This volume emphasizes the need for economic reforms with equitabledevelopment. It focuses on key inter-related elements of inclusivegrowth: agriculture, poverty, food security and employment, socialsector, and regional disparities; examining the performance, issues,and challenges.

The author argues for pro-poor and people- centric policies. He suggeststhat growth and equity objectives should be pursued simultaneously.

B.R. Ambedkar Perspectives on Social Exclusion and InclusivePolicies Editor(s) : Sukhadeo Thorat, Narender Kumar.9780195693065, Hardback January 2008 Rs. 725 Oxford UniversityPress, New Delhi 110001 Ph: +91 (11) 43600300 Fax: +91 (11)23360897 E-mail: [email protected]

Issues related to inclusive policies – to remedy the consequences ofexclusion suffered by social groups – however have long been a subjectof much discussion. The recent focus on ‘social inclusion’ in discussion

among policymakers, development experts, and the media hasrekindled the centrality of the debate. Using Ambedkar’s originalwritings, statements, and memorandums employed to develop thereservation policy during 1920s and 1950s; this volume reviews thecurrent debate on equal opportunity policies of social inclusion. Itdiscusses Ambedkar’s contribution to the development of inclusivepolicies during the British rule and its culmination into the policy ofreservation in the Constituent Assembly.

Organized in a historical sequence, this book is divided into five sectionsdocumenting Ambedkar’s writings on a range of important issues –problems of exclusionary nature of Indian society and its consequences,constitutional reforms, political and electoral representation; fair sharein employment and education; safeguards against social discriminationand economic exploitation and post-constitution reforms and polices.Each section is preceded by a sectional introduction underlining theefforts made by Ambedkar to develop comprehensive inclusive policies.

In a comprehensive general introduction, the Sukhadeo Thorat andNarender Kumar provide historical background to policies of socialinclusion putting the present controversy in proper perspective. Theyalso discuss problems of caste, discrimination, and Untouchability asunderstood by Ambedkar and his suggested remedies and actions. Inan insightful foreword, William Darity Jr. compares India’s experienceof affirmative action with the USA and underscores the internationalrelevance of inclusive policies like reservations.

Peculiar People, Amazing Lives : Leprosy, Social Exclusion andCommunity Making in South India Author: Staples, James. Year:2007 ISBN : 8125029861 [ pp. xvi+290 ] [ Price: RS. 995.00, US$21.63 ] Eastern Book Corporation 1687, Multani Mohalla, Rani Bagh,Delhi - 110034, India ; E-mail : [email protected]

Peculiar People, Amazing Lives sets out to challenge the widely heldand deeply ingrained perception that people affected by leprosy arevictims of the most terrible scourge imaginable. The experiences ofthose living in Bethany-- a self-established leprosy community in SouthIndia-- tell rather different, more nuanced stories about what it is liketo have leprosy at the onset of the twenty-first century. In this richlyethnographic portrait of Bethany people's lives-- whether at home inthe leprosy colony, away begging in Mumbai or representing theirhistories through drama performance--James Staples explores how thisapparently powerless group appropriates, embodies and redefinesdominant ideas about caste, religion, the human body and Indian waysof knowing and being-in-the-world. They do so, as the book reveals,against the backdrops of colonialism, missionary endeavour, vernacularChristianity, Hinduism, medical practices, development and the state.

Marginalised Women and Economic Development: Empowermentof Agricultural Labour by Kolla Siva Rama Krishna, Kotta Rameshand Gandham Siva Rama Krishna. Source: https://www.bagchee.com/books.php?id=21165

Though a large number of women workers are found among the ranksof agriculture workers and their contribution to the rural economy issignificant, they have not received adequate attention. Womenagriculture workers encounter many difficulties because of theirdistressing and pitiable working conditions such as long working hours,low wages, inhuman treatment and gender discrimination. The presentpublication concentrates on the plight of the women workers inagriculture and rural development programmes, investigates the roleof women, their migration problem, their status in the home and societyand also looks into different welfare programmes introduced by theGovernment and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to ameliorateand change the lifestyles of women workers.



NETWORKING

National Care Farming Initiative (UK)http://www.ncfi.org.uk

c/o Harper Adams University College, Newport, Shropshire, TF108NB, U.K. E-mail: [email protected]

The idea behind “care farming” is that farming can be used to providesignificant benefits for people with mental health problems or learningdifficulties, or those who are or have been addicted to drugs or alcohol.On the website there are case studies, a newsletter and links to researchand related websites, where you can learn more. This approach isgaining popularity in Europe. In Britain, the NCFI (UK) works indifferent ways: promoting the approach, bringing organisations andindividuals together, and advocating for further policy development.It also provides specialised training.

The International HIV/AIDS Alliancehttp://www.aidsalliance.org

Queensberry House, 104-106 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3XF, U.K.

The International HIV/AIDS Alliance is a global partnership ofnationally-based organisations working to support community actionon AIDS in developing countries. It emphasises the importance ofworking with people who are most likely to affect or be affected bythe spread of HIV – often the hardest to reach. The Alliance focuseson integrated responses to HIV that combine preventing HIV infection,facilitating access to treatment, care and support, and lessening theimpact of AIDS. The website has online toolkits, a CD-ROM isavailable on request, and you can also sign up to receive their e-bulletin.

CBM – Christian Blind Missionhttp://www.cbm.org

Nibelungenstraße 124, 64625 Bensheim, Germany

The aim of the Christian Blind Mission is to serve persons with visualimpairment, as well as people with other disabilities in developingcountries – regardless of their nationality, sex, or religion. A 100-yearold organisation, CBM currently works in 113 countries, supportingmore than one thousand projects. CBM implements its programmesthrough local partners, and co-operates with global institutions. Thewebsite describes many of these projects, and also relates them tocurrent debates such as the food crisis. News items are presented, alongwith background and policy papers, covering disability anddevelopment.

Right to Food unit, FAOhttp://www.fao.org/righttofood

Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, ItalyE-mail: [email protected]

The Right to Food unit develops methods and approaches to assiststakeholders in the implementation of the human right to adequatefood using FAO’s Right to Food Guidelines. It provides informationand training materials to raise awareness and understanding by civilsociety and the general public, much of which can be downloaded.Among its activities, this unit has set up the “Right to Food Informationand Knowledge System”, to support the realisation of the Right toAdequate Food in the context of national food security. The internetportal is meant to increase awareness, provide guidance, methods andinstruments, and to develop capacity at national and international levels.It is made up of an Information and Communication Module, anImplementation Module and a Community Module. The unit alsoprepares and disseminates a six-monthly newsletter, available for freeon their website.

IIED Drylands Programmehttp://www.iied.org/NR/drylands/haramata.html3 Endsleigh Street, London WC1H 0DD, U.K.E-mail: [email protected]

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)is an international policy research institute and non governmental bodyworking for more sustainable and equitable global development. TheDrylands Programme, part of IIED’s Natural Resources Group, car-ries out research aiming to build the capacities of poor people andother groups to act on the results of this knowledge. Since 1998, thisprogramme has been publishing Haramata every six months, both inEnglish and French. Haramata “has established itself as a valuableinformation and networking channel for people working for the sus-tainable development or dryland areas, mainly but not exclusively inAfrica”. Subscriptions are free of charge.



It was an unusual meeting of about 25 people. The gathering,though small by any standards, reflected informality. No dias,no podium - at the same time, traditional lamp, colorful posters,

banners, depicting the triumph of ‘alternatives’. The inviteesincluded, innovative women and men farmers, visionaries, socialactivists, renowned and committed scientists, media friends as wellas development conscious donor friends. What was glaringly evidentwas a quiet confidence of wisdom gained through hardwork, creativeand innovative spirit. What was common – they were all promotingLow External Input Sustainable Agriculture in their differentdomains.

The opportunity was to hear each and everyone of them. Thechallenge was creating a listening and interacting environment ratherthan a typical lecturing environment. Volunteers from the audienceserved as time keepers. Everybody shared briefly their experiencethrough anecdotes. The agenda for the day included, listening to avisionary for inspiration, honoring ‘prime movers’ of alternativemovement in the audience, sharing and learning.

The meeting was organized by GEAG in collaboration with LEISAIndia team of AME Foundation on 11 November 2008, at NewDelhi. The invitees included, readers and contributors of magazines- LEISA India (English) and Vasundhara (Hindi) (See Box)

Purpose and expected outcome

The objective of the meet was towards strengthening the LEISAmovement through unstructured alliances. A meeting enabling ‘faceto face’ sharing of experiences - be it field application, teaching,training or advocacy, was one attempt to begin with. Also, to explorehow initiatives like LEISA India and Vasundhara could bestrengthened further in terms of utility and enhanced outreach.However, the expected outcomes were not ‘predrawn’. The effortwas to hear each other, get inspired as well as explore how wecould move forward.

In North India, it was being organized for the first time incollaboration with GEAG. To make the group manageable, criteriafor selecting invitees included, few geographic areas, readers whogenerally provide feedback, a mix of backgrounds.

Dr. Devinder Sharma gave an inspiring start to the whole interaction.“You have shown the path of LEISA, demonstrated it….Your effortappears small but can still change the World. We as a nation areashamed of everything that we are endowed with, whether it is ourplants, our animals, our biodiversity. The GDP is ‘growing’ at thecost of enivironment. By sharing your knowledge and wisdom, andsynergies through closer alliances you will swell this world withprofound happiness.”

Farmers, NGOs, consultants, senior scientists, donor representativesshared their experiences of using LEISA India and Vasundhara’scontent in practicing LEISA, Integrated farming systems,developing training materials, getting theme based updates. Donorrepresentatives highly appreciated the wisdom and the enthusiasm,

LEISA Enthusiasts Meet in North India

Meeting of Minds - Exchange of Experiences

shared their perspectives of equitable and sustainable development.

A similar meeting was organized in the South during January 2008,earlier. (See LEISA India, vol 9.4)

Honoring torch bearers

The occasion was also utilized for celebrating the human spirit andtriumph. Smt. Prabhavathi Devi, an innovative woman farmer,practicing organic farming since 1991 on a meager 1.5 acres andsupporting a family of 12; Shri Vijay Zardhari, crusader of BeejBachao Andolan, maintaining three hundred varieties andmotivating thousands of farmers, and Dr. Devinder Sharma, thevisionary and policy analyst and a friend of the poor relentlesslyeducating people, were honored on the occasion, for theircontribution and inspiration.

�

LEISA India

LEISA India is a quarterly magazine aimed towards promotingawareness on ecological agriculture through sharinginformation and experiences on LEISA Practice. Presentlypublished collaboratively by AME Foundation, Bangalore,India and ILEIA, The Netherlands. The magazine is beingreceived by more than 11000 subscribers all over India andaround 250 in neighbouring South Asian countries.

Vasundhara

Vasundhara is a tri-monthly newsletter promoting sustainableagriculture in the Hindi-speaking areas by taking the presentsituation into consideration. The magazine, published byGorakhpur Environmental Action Group is presently reaching2500 subscribers in India. GEAG, as a voluntary organizationof high repute in Northern India, has been primarily focusingon promoting LEISA in Northern India, particularly focusingon Uttar Pradesh for the last 25 years.

http://india.leisa.info

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