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Devsingha village is five kms from Tuljapur town in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra. Traditional agriculture is their main livelihood. Their life depends on land, climate, limited resources and market. For the last 10 years, the community has had less rain and has suffered water scarcity. The use of costly chemical fertilizers and pesticides along with market variation in product price has contributed to degradation of land and low productivity. Thus farming has become a business of high investment and low returns. Some of the problems faced by the community were unexpected weather conditions, lack of information and training on new methods to cope with climate risk.
The Women’s Federation in Tuljapur organised a meeting of SHGs of this village to understand the vulnerabilities and resources of the village which led the women to undertake a hazard mapping in May 2011. Community leaders, SHG members, youth and Panchayat members participated in the mapping process. It was decided that local problems should be taken up with elected Panchayat and local government officials to solve them and also initiative their own remedies. Agricultural problems are prominent, although demolishing the old bridge to build a new one, constructing a proper road to the farms, open defecation, felling of trees, and water pollution figure in the list of priorities identified. Hence, the Federation encouraged the SHGs to form Krishi Mahila Mandal (Women’s Agriculture Group) to think and act collectively on agrarian concerns.
In June 2011, Krishi Mahla Mandal was formed with 17 women members to address various issues in cultivation, labour and marketing on a collective basis. Each member contributed Rs 50 per month towards KMM savings. They used this money to give small loans to members for purchasing seeds, preparation of land, buying motor and irrigation pipes, etc.
The KMM held monthly meeting to deliberate on ensuring family food security. Since they were participating the traditional and harmless way of farming 20 years back, they are aware of the benefits of organic farming. However, technical knowledge is required from experts for improving the productivity of the land (soil testing, application of appropriate nutrients to overcome deficiencies and to identity the appropriate crop for the type of soil), for crop diversification, etc. For the purpose,, the Federation connected KMM to Krishi Vigyan Kednra (KVK) at Tuljapur, Agricultural University o Parbhani and to the Department of Agriculture.
The women members of KMM now cultivate vegetables in three seasons, they have introduced inter-cropping methods that give extra income, prepare vermi-compost to reduce the cost instead of buying harmful fertilizers from the market to encourage on bio pesticides etc.
After their success, KMM women want to bring more women to adopt these innovations. They have started awareness programe for the new members. The membership of KMM has grown from 17 to 50 now. Ten of the new members are landless women. They want to take land on lease to start farming. Anita Jadav,one of the member got a profit of Rs. 12000 to 20000 from each of the harvest of three crops from one acre of her land on which she adopted these innovations. She uses her own labour and takes assistance from the group.
Collective labour: To reduce cost of labour, members help each other in their fields. They work closely and share their labour days among the members. This way, they address scarcity of workers in the village and save money by doing the work by themselves. Earlier they were doing sugar cane or pulses as single crop. TO address the risk of changing weather conditions, they have started inter crop such as sugar cane field with pulses, turmeric and vegetables etc.
Collective Marketing: Women do the marketing collectively. They hire a vehicle to go to market in Tuljapur and other villages to sell their produce every day. The vehicle brings them and their good take from the village, drops them in various neighboring village. After the sale, they would all come to the same spot where they were dropped and the vehicle will bring them back to the village. in a day, they travel about 30 to 40 km to sell their products. In this manner, they have sold coriander leaves, chilly. Tomato, bringal, bitter gourd, ladies finger etc/ today the organic vegetable product has a good demand in Tuljapur weekly market.
Women Agriculture Groups are
- Reducing climate risk in agriculture by using indigenous seeds, bio-fertilizers and pesticides, low inputs after analysis of soil content and moisture, efficient water through drip irrigation, planting bio-shields and revising farm ponds
- Appointing women as climate monitors gives onsite on time crop, inputs advisory to transfer from lab to farm
- Creating collective marketing groups linking rural collection to urban vendor women
- Showing collective work with Gram Panchayats and local administration is essential to pool local resources and capacities to identify and solve local problems and to bring about some enduring impact
Scaling-up: The Women’s Federation facilitated the partnership with Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Government Agricultural University and Animal Husbandry Department. These institutions provided both training and support to motivate women farmers to start organic farming. Women farmers and Federation leaders have created training calendar for the year 2012. KVK itself has developed a plan to reach out the o the entire district of Osmanabad in the coming years.
