Ms. Runu Murmu, a woman farmer from the Jorhat district of Assam took to organic agriculture after receiving training from the facilitating partner organisation. She inspired other women in the village to practice organic agriculture, and formed a group of women farmers. This group is practicing collective as well as individual cultivation.

Ms. Runu Murmu, (35) has emerged as one of the women farmer leaders in Panjan village of Titabor Block under Jorhat district of Assam. Her husband, a private school teacher is the sole bread earner of the family. With four children, two sons and two daughters, Runu’s early married life was confined to household chores with small kitchen gardening. In the initial stage of her kitchen gardening in a small piece of land of about a bigha, she used chemical fertilizer and pesticide expansively to yield high and rapid produce for the family’s consumption.

However, after attending farmers’ club meetings and a number of training programmes organized by Seva Kendra Dibrugarh (SKD) her interest in organic farming, integrated pest management and traditional knowledge increased. This knowledge enabled her to start farming on wider scale to earn additional income with which she could enrol her children in formal schooling. Runu discontinued using chemicals and pesticides in her garden since 2014, and instead switched to using compost and manure. She planted seasonal vegetables like jika, cucumber, ladies finger, ginger, rice gourd, bitter gourd, beans, pumpkin etc., while also practicing multiple and seasonal cropping. Through information provided in the trainings, Runu has networked with the local shopkeepers to sells off her surplus produce at a wholesale price and earns about INR. 10,000 per month. Promising agricultural production has motivated her to add another plot of land to her existing cultivable land. Today, she stands an inspiration to many women and men farmers in her village.

“Organic products saistho karone bhaal aru income barhe, aamak aji aidor e keti kora ussith-saistho aru poribhekh karone,”(meaning that the organic products are good for health, environment and income, and should be the way in which agriculture should be practiced) says Runu.

“Magha na barse, bhare na khet. Mata na pasre, bhare na pet” (It is said that without good rain, land can not be irrigated properly. Similarly If a mother doesn’t serve then it cannot satisfy the hunger). Said Shyam Bai.

Keeping this in mind, Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network (SAFBIN) program was launched in the year 2018 to ensure local food and nutritional security for small farm families. Giving a major focus on a gender-inclusive approach, SAFBIN encourages male farmers to create an opportunity for women to be part of the learning process. As a result, 446 women have enrolled as trial farmers to take the small-scale resilient farming practices forward in an expressive way while 826 are getting benefited indirectly. While discussing the integrated small-scale farming system in smallholder farmers collectives (SHFC) planning meeting, smallholders especially women members gave more emphasis on the local food and nutrition security.

“Action is the foundational key to success” finds resonance with Shyam Bai Yadav (45yrs), a resident of Bagrohi village of Shahgarh Block of Sagar district Madhya Pradesh India. The majority of the people residing in this village belongs to the small and marginal farming community. Their main source of livelihood is agriculture.

Shyam Bai lives in a small house with her family who barely met their food requirement 3-4yrs back. Having 2.5 acres of land with the predominant conventional farming system in rainfed conditions it was not so easy to have sufficient food for all year round. Like other rural women, Shyam bai was among to suffer not only from economic poverty but also deprived of many essential entitlements due to lack of proper information and knowledge. Along with her husband Halke Yadav (50yrs) she had to work extra time as agriculture labour to feed her children. Soon after she became a member of smallholder farmers collectives, she oriented with various agroecological practices and botanicals preparation from their farm waste and resources.

“She often comes with me to work in and quietly learning the process of botanical preparation, application, and a few other agro-ecological practices. This has helped me in a great way to keep these practices applied on time even if I am not at home,” shared Halke Yadav, Husband of Shyam Bai.

With this enthusiasm, she could increase not only the farm components from four (4) to six (6) but also increased in type of crops and varieties which make her farm more resilient to cope up with climate shocks. i.e. field crops (wheat, black gram, green gram, lentil, peas, jwar, flax seeds, mustard), cattle (cow and buffaloes), small ruminants (goat), fruit trees (mango, guava, lemon, papaya, drumstick) mushroom, and almost 10-12 types of vegetables. Apart from this, she also gained hands-on experience in making vermicompost, Matka khad, Cytozin practices, Dasparni ark, Lamit ark etc.

Following the low-cost agroecological practices and other measures, she could manage to have sufficient food for round the year her family. She is now a lead trainer among women who keeps orienting in SHFC meetings by sharing her journey and motivating women to make their farm more diversified.

“Yes, there is an improvement in the nutrition status of my family, though it is not possible for me to measure it. However, the diversification of the food basket and the regular intake of green & fresh (nutrition-rich) vegetables have improved our health. Delightedly she said. 

Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network (SAFBIN) program is co-funded by Caritas Switzerland and Caritas Austria and implemented by Caritas India through its implementing partner organisations Jabalpur Diocesan Social Service Societies (JDSSS) and Manav Vikas Seva Sangh (MVSS) Sagar in Mandla, Sagar and Vidisha districts of Madhya Pradesh in India.

Ganga Barela, of village Sankota, practices farming on her family land. Earlier, due to high agricultural input cost of chemical fertilisers, her family was finding farming an inefficient vocation, thereby retracting from it. She brought the issues to the Jeevika programme team in her village, who with timely handholding, counselling and capacity building enabled her to take up vegetable-cultivation with cost effective agriculture practices. With a series of motivational discussions and required facilitation, Ganga decided to start mixed cropping cultivation and also adopt bio-fertiliser process. She sowed seed of ladies-finger and tomato in her land with support of her spouse and took good care of the field. Her hard work resulted in a handsome produce, which brings an additional income of rupees five hundred to her family. The amount varies from time to time and this has inspired other women members of the Self Help Group to resort to mixed cropping through Bio- fertilisation.

As an expansion of the initiative, Jeevika Haat, weekly market is organised on Fridays whereby the people from twenty five villages gather to sell and purchase goods. Jeevika Haat is a response to the difficulties faced by people in transportation to reach the nearest market place in Tiwni village in Umariya district. The process took almost a year, and now people have come up with around twenty shops connected with twenty five villages at a common nearby location, earning an average income of rupees two thousand a month.