Orissa villagers opt for 'green fixed deposits'
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COMMENTS 
In a novel participatory partnership scheme the Tata Steel Rural Development Society offers farmers incentives to plant and nurture teak and cashew plantations. Already 35,000 cashew trees and thousands of teak trees are thriving in every square foot of available space
Today, Premsingh Mahato’s world is shining. In 2000, he and three friends -- all in their late-20s and out of work -- begged and borrowed money to secure a government lease bid (till then bagged only by outsiders) for an acre of cashew plantation. That year they made a neat profit of Rs 36,000, after paying off their loans. With the money, Premsingh started a poultry unit and in the last few years has earned Rs 70,000.
The villagers, particularly the youth, in Premsingh’s village of Jamdalok in Champua block, Orissa, are fired by his success.
Rich in iron and manganese ore, the Joda and Champua blocks of Keonjhar district in Orissa are home to the marginalised Ho and Bhuiyan tribes. The people who live in this rocky terrain have two options: work in the region’s 50-odd mines, or depend on agriculture that almost never sustains a family throughout the year.
When the Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), which works in 26 villages in the area, suggested at a meeting with the people of Jamdalok that it would help them grow cashew and teak in a novel participatory partnership scheme, the villagers were receptive but lukewarm. They had heard that an earlier afforestation programme in nearby villages had not been very successful.
In 1999, the TSRDS, in keeping with the state government’s social forestry pattern, planted long stretches of eucalyptus and acacia (a fast-growing variety) in six villages in Champua block -- Basudevpur, Jodapokhari, Indraprastha, Giridharipur, Sonapalei and Jaimangalpur. But barely had the plants taken root when goats began nibbling at the leaves. The women of the village carried what remained away for firewood.
Although the villagers attended awareness-generation meetings and sat through lectures on how the destruction of green cover harmed the ecology, they did not really identify with the cause. The reality was that they needed fuel to fire their chullahs every day; for this they had to collect all the bramble and wood they could.
TSRDS learnt a valuable lesson: the community had to be involved as stakeholders (equal stake partners) otherwise no forestry campaign would ever succeed. And it had to be a greening-and-income-generation programme. The villagers had to be able to look forward to substantial returns, otherwise they had no incentive to become involved. So the TSRDS made their offer: “We will give you free high-quality cashew and teak saplings, but you dig the holes in your land to plant them.” Two free doses of fertiliser were given -- during planting and weeding -- and a single dose of pesticide. A family could plant 300 or even 600 saplings if they had the land on which to do so.
The saplings’ survival however was the villagers’ responsibility. But there were rewards too. The TSRDS offered Re 1 for each plant for the first year of survival. If the plant survived the second year too, 50 paise would be given; and for the third year, 25 paise. Although seemingly a very small sum, the villagers were happy. “We are being paid to look after our own trees, what more can we expect,” asks Premsingh.
The Joda Champua area has very few natural water sources and irrigation facilities. Consequently, only one annual crop is possible. Arid acres lie fallow, left as grazing land.
People in the five villages were taught that teak required only a single monsoon (plus two to three months of watering) and very little care. That it had a 70-80% survival rate. And that in 20 years this ‘green fixed deposit’ would bring in a few thousand rupees each. Soon, fallow lands were filled with rows and rows of holes all ready to welcome teak saplings. Backyards, barely able to accommodate 10 trees, were dug up along the edges; so were bunds around paddy fields. One of the reasons teak was chosen is that cattle find its leaves distasteful and so leave it alone.
Cashew needed no advocate: Premsingh Mahato’s fortune from a single year’s harvest was common knowledge in the villages. An average yield from a grown cashew plant is 40-50 kg of nuts. The plant is hardy and burns with a lot of smoke, making it inappropriate for firewood. Today the six villages own more than 35,000 cashew trees, many of them thriving on what were vast acres of wasteland.
The success of this scheme can be attributed to the right approach to community participation, and small thoughtful changes in the choice of community plantation.
Having tasted success the villagers did not stop at teak and cashew plantation. These were long-term investments; they wanted short-term returns as well to supplement their incomes.
Junior national marathon gold medallist Madhusudan Mohanto was reluctant to work in the iron ore mines. He and 29-year-old Pradeep Mahakud opted for TSRDS training in basic poultry management. Pradeep started out with 150 one-day-old chicks, free feed and vaccines. As soon as the chicks weighed two kilos each they were sold to the many dhabas (roadside eateries) that dot the Keonjhar state highway catering to hundreds of truckers carrying iron ore to the port of Paradip. Soon there were dhaba owners queuing up every morning in front of Pradeep’s poultry shed to take delivery. Today, he has two more sheds. He rears 1,000 chicks in each cycle and earns a net profit of between Rs 10,000 and Rs 12,000.
Following his example, Madhusudan Mohanto started with broiler chicks and now has a hundred kroiler hens (kroilers are egg-laying hybrid poultry birds, as large as their broiler brethren but a rich brown in colour. Their eggs too are brownish in colour and sell for Rs 2 apiece, a quarter more than the white variety). Besides Madhusudan, 55 other beneficiaries, 20 of them women, have set up kroiler poultry units. All use their income as rolling funds to operate their business. The TSRDS only offers them guidance inputs.
Of the 10 women’s self-help groups (SHG) in the area a few opted to start up goateries or piggeries. The Kotgarh village SHG, with only 20 members, grows tomatoes, spinach and brinjal on family lands, irrigating them with temporary earthen check-dams and marketing their products at the local haat. In the last six months alone, it has repaid Rs 6,000 of a Rs 50,000 bank loan. Now, it is in the process of buying a mini truck to save costs and increase profits.
Not many women venture to get so enterprising. “In the beginning we too were afraid that elephants that visit the ripening crop would destroy everything. But when we took the initiative, our husbands were motivated to keep watch,” says Maguni with pride.
Elephants are not the only risk they run. Last summer, a whole crop of ripening tomatoes was destroyed when the entire area was lashed by a hailstorm for two hours. With no cold storage facilities, this is a real problem. “Hard calculations have to go into deciding how much land must be cultivated for such cash crops,” say the women farmers.
Motivated by the TSRDS team, many of whom belong to tribal communities, the villagers are getting more inventive with each passing month. In October 2002, Sahadev Mahakud and his wife planted 260 banana saplings on an experimental basis. When all the fruit ripened together, Sahadev wondered where he would sell all of it. They need not have worried. The first batch he and his wife took to the residential colonies was sold in two hours. They took more in the late afternoon. Those too vanished in no time. That season they made a neat profit of Rs 22,000. This year they have planted 500 banana saplings.
Like Premsingh Mahato, Sahadev Mahakud’s success has farmers in neighbouring Marsuan and Jamnalia villages clearing their fields, even backyards, for a banana bonanza.
(Manipadma Jena is an independent journalist based in Bhubaneswar, Orissa.)
InfoChange News & Features, May 2004