Last month
I went back to Champa. Champa is a town
on the main railroad line between Mumbai and Kolkatta. It is in the state of Chhattisgarh, and is
the place where I first met Sheba when she was freshly posted at Champa
Christian Hospital, a mission hospital which had been founded by American
Mennonite missionaries almost a century ago.
I can still
remember my giddy happiness when I found out that our hospital was holding its
annual regional meeting at Champa just over a month after I paid my first visit
to Champa. By the time we met for the
third time it was time to define the relationship – and after a night of prayer
and reading Psalms, I had my answer.
After church that Sunday I proposed… and she accepted!
So Champa
always will remain special to me. But my
recent visit was not to do a nostaligic walk back through our courtship – I was
there with 15 farmers from our villages that we are working with in the Bar
block of Lalitpur.
We had
taken a 14 hour train ride in the cold of the last days of 2016 in order to
learn about farming.
Namely about how to farm organically and that too from farmer-practitioners themselves.
The Champa
Christian Hospital is one of our sister-hospitals in the Emmanuel Hospital
Association and like HBM Hospital, it runs a community health and development
programme. The Champa CHDP was the
programme that Sheba was leading when I first met her. At that time it was best known for working
with village women who raised and wove silk cocoons into beautiful saris. Today, under the leadership of the
undefatiguable Baswaraj, the focus is on helping local communities best use
their God-given natural resources – and one of these is looking to see how
farming practices can become less dependent on chemical fertilizers and
pesticides – and use more of what is naturally available to the farmer.
Here are
some learnings from our visit.
Learning
No. 1: Matter matters
The base of
organic farming is using what the farmer has in his or her hands. Soil. Biomass. Cattle. Using these God-given resources so much can
be done. Cattle are key. There are some outlandish ideas about the
value of cattle these days, but by using their dung and urine a lot can be given
back to the soil. The foundations of
organic farming is making compost and biofertilisers. The farmers we met, like Bhagwat Prasad, have
set up vermiculture compost pits – where worms help speed up process the making
of rich compost.
Bhagwat
shared about how the Champa Christian Hospital team had taken him to Dehra Dun
three years earlier and how he had learned basic organic farming practices
there – and then put them into practice on his land. Today he is a farmer scientist, with the
small area behind his house is a dense thicket of plants as every bit of land
is used for growing something, or trying out something new.
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| Bhagwat Prasad showing us his backyard - full of organic farming innovations... |
The most
basic task is to make compost. Using
cow-dung and biowaste to make a rich fertile soil. Bhagwat and other farmers use humble worms to
get their compost faster.
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| Rich compost made with the help of worms |
The compost
made is then put back into the fields, adding organic material and nutrition
for the crops and increasing the moisture retaining capacity.
Along with
the compost, the farmers also treat the soil with a bio-fertiliser made from
cow dung, urine, molasses, chick pea flour.
There are pests to be dealt with as well. But instead of dousing the plants with
pesticides (the normal practice – we eat an appalling amount of pesticide with
our food), the farmers here make their own bio-pesticide. The key is using plant leaves which have
compounds that are unappealing or toxic to insects. The leaves of the neem tree are standard, but
the farmers found out that virtually any plant whose leaves goats don’t eat can
be used. The leaves are gathered and
fermented and the solution is then sprayed onto the fields.
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| A bottle of liquid bio fertiliser (left) and neem-sar - a bio pesticide (right) which the farmers use - along with planting marigolds on the margins of their fields... plus some organically grown ginger! |
Further
farmer innovation includes planting marigolds on the borders of fields to act
as a deterrent for pests, and the used of ingenious moth capturing
devices. One farmer-scientist that we
met showed us light-traps that he had developed. The idea is to have a small light held
between two funnels, and as the moths are drawn to the light, the hit it and
die, and their bodies then fall into the funnel and into a plastic bag attached
to the bottom of it. Other lures that he
showed included complex ones that used pheromones (!) to attract female moths
and then trap them – and simple ones which were small bright yellow plastic
banners smeared with a sticky substance (old engine oil can be used). Insects seem to be attracted to the colour
yellow – they get stuck and die.
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| A farmer scientist shows us the moth traps he has developed - and couldn't resist talking about using the stalks of a plant to spin fibres... ideas can keep flowing! |
The take-home
message in all of this is straight-forward.
Lots can be done with the things that farmers have in their hands – but
it takes work. Lots of work. Nothing comes for free.
Going
organic takes a lot of hard work, especially if the farmer has been using lots
of chemical inputs. Some of the groups
were 100% organic in their farming, while others were transitioning towards
this.
While there
is ‘more work’ – at least initially – in switching over to organic farming, the
benefits are commensurate. The basic
thought that the Champa CHDP has helped their farmers grasp is that they want
their own children to eat healthy. The
first goal for the organic farmer is for his own family to have good food to
eat. Food that he or she knows is not
contaminated with pesticides. Any extra
can then be sold – but feeding the family well comes first.
Interestingly
the value addition of organic farming is already being recognized locally. You can actually taste the difference. We asked about the price of tomatoes in the
local market. In Lalitpur tomatoes were
being sold for Rs. 5 per kilo when we left (partly because of the much vaunted
‘demonetisation’ that the central govt. had rolled out which has gutted much of
the local economies). We asked what the
going rate in Champa was. The farmers
told us that most tomatoes were selling at Rs. 10 for 2.5 kgs – but their
organically grown tomatoes were selling at Rs. 10 per kg.
I plucked a
tomato and ate it off the vine. It was
delicious!
Learning
No. 2: Working Together
The second
lesson that came up again and again was the value of working together. The farmers we learned from were individuals,
but almost all of them were linked up with others. The Champa Christian Hospital Community
Health and Development programme has helped them form farmers clubs and
self-help groups. Each one of these
groups had an admirable level of organization.
We were able to look and learn from their documentation: each one had a basic membership register
which showed who were the members of the group (along with their pictures) and
had their basic articles of association.
Then there were registers for the decisions the group had taken, for
money that was collected for savings, for inputs and expenditures for the
common actions taken by the group. We
also found that each group had a guest book where visitors (like us) were asked
to write our names and addresses – and make comments on what we saw.
We met
women’s groups that had started kitchen gardens together. Though they did not have an easy access to
water for irrigation, they worked together and built up their gardens. Another group of women decided to farm
cooperatively. We talked to them and
they said that not only are they earning more, but the sheer joy of working
together kept them going.
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| A lady farmer showing us kitchen gardens farmed organically with the help of Self-Help Group members |
In another
village we met a man with 2.5 acres of land, who has brought others from the
village to form a cooperative to farm it.
The whole land is organically farmed, and the group has meticulous
records of the inputs and outputs.
Everyone
knows that working together has so many benefits, but we also know how hard it
is to put into practice. We asked the
main man about what the group did when there were shirkers. He was pragmatic. “If we find that one person is not working
his share, we ask him 2 or 3 times to do what he needs to do. If he doesn’t, then we remove him from our
group.” Did the group have to do
this? “Yes, but all the 10 members we
have now are working together.”
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| Though all the members have to work, the group also realised that different ones have different abilities - among them was a man who is not able to walk without crutches - but is included into the group and helps out as he can. |
Learning
No. 3: Diversify, diversify
On one
hand, as mentioned before, we learned that organic farming is not just the
matter of making compost. It is a way of
life, a constant learning how to better practice integrated farming which uses
local resources to make the soil more fertile and moisture retaining, and at
the same time protecting the crops from pests.
A common
thread that we saw from all the field visits we made was that the farmers all
seemed to have their fingers in a number of pies. Besides the basic crops or vegetables that
they were growing with various levels of organic input, they were also not only
growing one set of crops. Most of the
farmers were also looking after livestock along with their cropping, which also
helps with organic matter through the recycling of their manure.
At almost
every farm we saw enthusiastic use of mushroom cultivation. The preferred method is to take straw and
layer it in plastic bags, seeding three layers with the mushroom spores. The bags are hung up in damp rooms / sheds
and the fungus harvested regularly – with each bag giving three harvests. They sell the mushrooms to the project at Rs.
100 per kg and get a profit of about 20% on their inputs. The project in turn sells it onward for Rs.
120.
At one of
the places we met we had mushroom pakoras!
Delicious. The mushrooms can also be dried and stored – or ground into a
powder for later sale.
Another income
generating activity that some of the women’s groups are doing is the production
and selling of sanitary napkins. We are
proud to see how the programme is able to help promote menstrual hygiene and
build up the capacity of its members as entrepreneurs.
The other
area of diversity is looking to see what other crops can be grown.
Not only
rice. The common crop in Champa. But seeing whether other seeds can also be
sown. And seeing if some of the
traditional grains can be saved. One of
the farmers we met had started a seed bank of different local varieties. Further insurance against failure.
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| Different kinds of local seeds being collected by a farmer scientist |
One of
EHA’s ideas for seeing community change is to build resilience. We know that challenges happen. Things fall apart. But having back-ups helps tremendously. If one area doesn’t work, there is something
else to fall back on. Each activity may
not support the family fully, but every bit helps. Diversifying
income sources hedges against hard times.
In
Lalitpur, we see how many of our farmers are only in the village for a few
months of the year. When their single crop
is over, they migrate to the cities looking for work. So many end up making bricks or working in
small sweat shops. Sometimes whole
families migrate. They are at considerable risk from labour contractors. And worse.
Across our nation, so many women and children are abused and
trafficked. But stepping away from the
extremes, the absence of people due to stress migration hurts families. Having parents – or children – away from the
village means that families are separated and children’s educations are disrupted.
Families that are not together are not going to prosper and flourish.
The basic
idea that we took away from our visit to Champa was a reaffirmation that God
has given the land to be used. And used
well. Having farmers live on the land,
and live off its God-given and human-husbanded bounty is something very
positive. While we don’t want to
prohibit people from moving to cities, we want farmers to be able to experience
the basic prosperity of being able to live on the land year-round and see their
families grow into the God-given potential they have.
Learning
No. 4: Getting the word out
Our farmer
friends are no wilting petunias. They
share what they know and let others know as well. One way is to tell newspapers about what they
are doing. It helped that one of them
was a journalist himself. We found
multiple newspaper clippings featuring the organic farming endeavours that the
farmers were involved with. Our own
visit to one of the villages was already announced on the day we arrived. There was a small inaccuracy in the headline
- stating that a group of farmers from Uttar Pradesh and Kerala had come to
learn about organic farming. We were
definitely from UP but not a soul of us was from God’s own country – at least
in this group. But be that as it may,
the word was getting out.
We also saw
that a number of the farmers had received awards. Some were district level awards. Some were state-level gongs from the
agricultural department. A few had even
received national level recognition.
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| some of the prizes won by local farmers in Champa... and proudly displayed! |
These
awards are not just self-promotion. They
feed into a positive feedback loop. The
farmers that the Champa CHDP is working with are building an identity. The government folks have been taking
notice. Which leads us to the final
learning for this blog…
Learning
No. 5: Working with the Government
The
national and state governments have a number of farmer-focussed
programmes. Each state has an
agricultural department, and each district has a number of officials whose
whole work is to help farmers be better farmers. The Champa CHDP work has dove-tailed well
into the desire of the government to promote organic farming as well. The local officials have targets to
meet. It is no accident that they are
thrilled with the work that the Champa CHDP is doing and the farmers groups
being formed. Likewise, the Krishi
Vigyan Kendra – that agricultural extension programme – is tasked with bringing
about new and improved agricultural techniques.
They too are pleased to see progressive farmers.
We had the
privilege of going to both the district KVK and the district agricultural
officer. In both places our group of 15
farmers was ushered into the conference room.
We all sat behind our designated microphone and were addressed by the
head of the KVK in one place and the District Agricultural Officer in the
other.
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| The district agricultural department officer meeting with our group |
Now, we
know that the agronomy of the Champa district is radically different from that
of Lalitpur. The district Agricultural
Officer told us that over 95% of the farms in Champa are irrigated. Many of them farm not only 2 crops per year,
but 3! What a contrast to the single
cropping that most of our farmers face.
But the
learning was in the dialogue. Here we
were. Fifteen farmer leaders from a
far-off place – being given a meeting with the head of district agricultural
department. Having our farmers ask
questions to an officer who otherwise would hardly be met. Our task is not to replicate the kind of
agriculture that is practiced in Champa – but to see a similar trust
relationship build up. One where when
the agriculture department wants to start something new, they will ring us up
first and ask if the farmers groups we are working with can take up something
new…
Like when
this year the Champa District Authorities sanctioned 10 sheds for mushroom
cultivation. It was the groups linked
with the Champa CHDP which got the lion’s share of these. The women’s Self-Help Groups had started
mushroom cultivation on a small scale, and proved their capacity. Now the district authorities are giving them grants
of Rs. 5 lakhs each to build sheds.
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| Mushroom cultivation |
Dedicated
sheds are coming up to for mushroom cultivation like the one practiced by this
farmers group.
The other
novel experience was having multiple government officials meet us in the
field. We were visiting a progressive
farmer – one who had one multiple awards.
And along with other scientist farmers we were also addressed by the
animal husbandry extension officer, the agricultural extension officer, and the
local agricultural department officer.
Young men, moving up in their careers.
They made sure to have someone take a photo of themselves addressing the
farmer team that had come from Uttar Pradesh (that’s us). At the end of the day, our government
officers also want to progress in life.
Can we make it easier for them by helping their schemes to be more
successful?
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| Receiving a kilo of organically grown rice. |
So we are now
back in Lalitpur, having learned a lot from our visit to Champa. We are very grateful for the welcome all of
us received from Mr. Baswaraj and the Champa CHDP team, as well as the Champa
Christian Hospital leadership of Mrs. Manjula Deenam and her team. Special thanks to our main partner TEARFund
UK who have continued to encourage us to learn.
Now to put
what we know into practice.
This
weekend we are getting an opportunity to do just that. We have a reverse visit. Two staff from Champa and two farmers have
arrived in Lalitpur to help our farmers put what they learned about organic
farming into practice and start out with some organic demonstration plots of
our own.
Watch this
space. We trust that something will grow
soon!
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| Organically grown Egg plants (Aubergenes or Brinjal as we call it locally) ripening in a field in Champa district |
