In 1993 I had visited the Timbaktu Collective which was initiated in 1990. Their mission is that rural communities take control of their own lives, govern themselves and live in social harmony while maintaining a sustainable lifestyle. Bablu Ganguly and Mary Vattamattam bought 32 acres of barren land , 24 years ago, and by now have managed to regenerate and protect 700 acres of Reserve forest,regenerated over 7,000 acres of common and wasted lands into a protected nature reserve and wilderness,revived two major rain water harvesting structures and over 250 smaller ones,restored over 15,000 acres of agricultural lands and introduced 1,800 small holder families to organic farming on 9,000 acres of agricultural land. Due to recurring drought conditions, most of the borrowers in rural areas of Rayalaseema region cannot repay the loans borrowed earlier. The Dharani Co-operative founded by Timbaktu Collective was initiated in 2005-06 and believes that, for the small-holder farmers to survive, to be food secure and sovereign, there needs to be a change of strategy. They need to start engaging with the market, not as weaker opponents, but from their so far unrealized strength of collective numbers. The small-holder farmers, masters of the theatre of survival, know this. In this globalised era, it is imperative that the small-holder farmers while growing good food and husbanding their soils individually, in the best ecological traditions, need to come together as collectives, as producer owned co-operatives or companies, to negotiate with the market and extract a larger share from it. The entire district of farmers specialising in one crop, had also significantly increased market risk for farmers. Private traders and groundnut processing mill owners, whose pricing and weighing methods are at unfair terms, control much of the local market. These traders and mill owners often also couple as suppliers for farm inputs such as seed, chemicals and credit to farmers. The relationship as a whole is exploitative and often leaves the farmer at the mercy of the trader/mill owner. With the entire local system tuned and built to support only groundnut, in terms of marketing, credit, insurance, inputs, production know-how or social support, the farmer is forced to go back and continue growing groundnut, but only to further sink in the mire. The Organic food market is growing at a healthy rate of 15-25% worldwide. In India too, the awareness for Organic and healthy nutritious food is on a constant rise. Dharani is part of larger movement of encouraging farmers to grow regionally appropriate crops using sustainable, organic agricultural methods. It is entirely owned by 1,150 small-holder farmers, who own equal shares in the organization and who provide the raw materials for the goods that it sells. timbaktu-organic.org/customersbuy.html
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 06:57:16 +0000
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