Taking sustainable development goals of end poverty, hunger and malnutrition, enable sustainable development in agriculture, fisheries and forestry and combat and adapt to climate change, Caritas India envisions to form a civil society network to uplift socio-economic condition of smallholder in Jharkhand.

Caritas India organized a thematic consultation on smallholder issues to harness support to engage like-minded civil societies of Jharkhand State to form a civil society network at District and State level. The network will mobilise smallholders through farmers led forum (inclusive of most marginalised section) and explore possible collaboration & technical support from relevant departments, research institutions, agriculture university and to influence for smallholder friendly policies.

Two rounds of consultations were completed in West Singhbhum and Ranchi district with 18 civil society organization on August 24 & 25, 2017. The consultation created a platform to address major issues of food security and climate change, Collective action of Jharkhand partners to fight hunger and food sovereignty, Farmers collective initiatives enabling farmers to be leaders and decision makers, Partnerships at local levels around smallholder farmers, Promotion of traditional wisdom and innovative local solutions and provide learning exchange by farmers for knowledge management.

Apppreciating the intiative of Caritas India, Mr. Janaki Dubey, Secretary, Nurture Jamshedpur said, “Though, we as an organisation have done many things for smallholders by forming farmer’s clubs, women groups, linking them with various institutions like NABARD and Bank, but I thank Caritas India for their initiatives and making us realise about our social responsibility for the most vulnerable section of the community (i.e. widow, women headed households, people living with disabilities, landless) to organize and mainstream with various entitlements through this forum”.

Mr. Subir Kumar from Inter Agency Group, Ranchi shared that Jharkhand has most smallholder farmer having predominant mono-cropping system in rain-fed condition. And I believe, the concept presented by Caritas India would help us to think and plan strategically towards the larger goal and provide a common platform for smallholders and civil society as well.

As agreed, all the organisations will collect their data set based on the most marginalized section like widows, women headed families, landless, PWD’s which will be shared to create a common district and State profile.

The network will prioritise the real issue of the smallholders including the most marginalised and submit appropriate solution as recommendation to the state government.

The plan is to complete all the consultation by September 20, 2017 and thereafter work on the data compilation of the farmers group to create a strong network which will address the issues of smallholder farmers in the state.