Project Detail

Food Sovereignty through Women Leadership and Secure Agro Bio Diversity with establishment of self sustainability market based Farmers’ Cooperative Dealing with Indigenous Seeds and Organic Food Grain Certification and Marketing

Goal of the Project:
Achieving Food Sovereignity and securing Agro-biodiversity through intensification of sustainable agriculture processes by using indigenous and improved methods to enhance productivity of the indigenous seed varieties and develop self sustainable Institute of Village Entrepreneurship, owned and managed by the farmers.

Objectives:
i. Established sustainable agricultural practices
ii. Establish Self sustained indigenous seed bank
iii. The process initiated through project will have cascading effect and will reach out to multiple farmers in the process towards achievement of food sovereignty.

Project Outputs:
1. 100 farmers will start sustainable agriculture practices
2. 420 production units of organic manure in 14 villages
3. 3 seed banks will be developed
4. 66 krishakpanchayat with women leaders will be formed
project background:
sangamner block of Ahmed nagar district in Maharashtra receives only 450 mm average annual rainfall.As a matter of fact agriculture in this area is predominantly rainfed.In 2004, lok panchayat conducted a rally through 35 villages in the block to communicate with the marginal farmers . Approximately 1500 farmers were consulted during the rally to understand the ground realites t was revealed that almost all problems shared by the farmers were related to mono cropping taking over the traditional multi cropping , tradtional seeds getting replaced by the commercial seeds and increasing dependence on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.At micro level it was found that excess use of chemicals n the agriculture affected quality of ground water.
The ground water turned alkaline due to load of minerals from the synthetic chemicals. in case of irrigated area of the block it was found that to earn extra money farmers started vegetable cultivation. This needed continuous input of chemicals which in turn resulted in increase in the input cost.Another important revelation was drastic decrease in the organic carbon of the soils.in brief it was realized that lokpanchayat needed to take up a systametic start to end program for agriculture revitalization in the sangamner block.first step towards this effort was, intesively working with select ten villages to develop a precedent for other villages n the block.GEF UNDP SGP , facilitated by CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION (CEE) was approached to strengthen the agriculture revitalization work in these ten villages.
Project Beneficiaries:
Over 1000 families in 35 villages in the Taluka of Sangamner in Ahmednagar District will be the major beneficiaries.

Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Lok Panchayat

Country:

India

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

OP4 - Y1 (Jul 07-Jun08)

Grant Amount:

US$ 6,586.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 14,223.00

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 13,948.00

Project Number:

IND/SGP/OP4/Y1/RAF/2008/19/MS 28

Start Date:

6/2008

End Date:

12/2010

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

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Project Characteristics and Results

Project sustainability

(i) Krishak Panchayats participate in Organic Food Festivals. Such events are common now a days in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nasik and Aurangabad. (ii) Over the last three years Lokpanchayat helped Krishak Panchayats develop rapport with potential customers in the cities. Now there is a dedicated customer base to the Krishak Panchayat organic produce. This is gradually increasing. (iii) Lokpanchayat has started a retail organic product outlet named ?Irgic? in Sangamner town to serve local customers throughout the year. They have marketed over last 3 years goods for Rs. 20 lacs.

Replication of project activities

Community Mobilization and Participation: The Krishak Panchayats (KPs) at the level of villages have been formed (10) through the participation of small farmers. The responsibility of conducting the activities will be with two farmers in the role of Organizer and Secretary. The Organizers will look after the responsibilities of providing leadership, encouragement to keep the forum active and the secretary will look after the responsibilities ofkeeping records of meetings, seeds and other activities. Farmers initially 292 farmers already paid subscription to become members of KPs will provide land and labor for the production of organic manure. They will also take responsibility of collecting biomass necessary for the production of organic manure. The farmers will constantly monitor the production process in association with the animator. The project will only provide the technical monitoring support, documentation and capacity building support etc. The NGO has promoted the strategy of local institutions as SHGs (Self Help Groups). Nearly 56 women with more than 1500 women SHGs have been formed in 20 villages.

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

Company has been formed by Krushakpanchayat farmers.

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

Many NGOs from different districts visit Lokpanchayat to study the experiments in organic farming. They also invite us to visit their organizations for sharing learning with their staff and progressive farmers.

Planning gef grant

NIL

Planning non gef grant

NIL

Policy Influence

Organic plot certification: Almost all Krishak Panchayat members follow organic farming principles. Lokpanchayat approached Government of India?s Regional Centre for Organic Farming to serve as a service provider. This helped Krishak Panchayat members to participate in the organic farming process certification. Lokpanchayat developed an internal control system which periodically carries out internal inspection of the farms of Krishak Panchayat members. National Organic Certification Agency (NOCA), a government recognized certification agency carries out external inspection. After three years of going through the organic farming process, the Krishak Panchayat members sell their produce in the niche market of organic farm produce.This earns them some premium over usual farm produce.

Capacity - Building Component

Pamphlet / folder published on the subject of bio-pest control and organic manure and disseminated in 40 villages of Sangamner block. Shetkari Dainandini (Farmers Diary) circulated among 500 farmers of Sangamner Block. The diary specially prepared on organic farming. Our 10 demonstrations have been created motivation among 67 other farmers. They accepted this practice of farming from this Kharip season.

Significant Participation of Indigenous Peoples

The Significant Participation of Indigenous people in the project they participated in all the programs actively and trained others as well.

Gender Focus

The project aims at promoting womens leadership. Meetings for women was conducted in villages.

Linkages gef projects

The project is linking with many state and central government programs and the large GEF project are not many in the region and area.

Notable Community Participation

There have been indigenous seed banks setup on farm traditional seed production. Planning to grow 7 varieties of 6 crops on 100 acres of area. 60 selected indigenous seed varieties will be conserved and protected. 187 village meetings were held.

Policy Impact

Vermi compost projects of farmers got support from agricultural department. Agricultural department office at block level had provided opportunity of exposure visit to 4 members of Krishakpanchayat. Agricultural department has supported for custard apple plantation through Horticulture Scheme. Krishak Panchayat farmers participated in state level conference on Agriculture Policy of Government. They suggested that every village should have Seed Bank. They discussed the issue of agro bio-diversity. Block office of Agriculture Department inviting Krishak Panchayat farmers for their training. They are also arranging visits to our demonstration plots.

Project Results

? Constituted 10 krishak Panchayats having 300 farmer members.
? Initiated 10 production units of organic manure and nearly 200 farmers started production of organic manure
? Over 100 indigenous varieties of seeds available in local areas have been collected from the farmers and different NGOs.
? Collected and started 10 seed banks on norms of Self Help Group.
? Demonstrated 40 plots for alternative agricultural practices emphasizing agro-biodiversity.
? Encouraged low cost water harvesting practices , use of organic manure as per the availability of bio-mass, Use of
?Systematic documentation of the process and consolidation of learning has been done and disseminated to more than 2000 farmers.
.Krishak panchayat farmers relied heavily on local material and farm yard manure (FYM). They processed the material to prepare home made compost. This resulted in cumulative saving of Rs. 800,000/-
. Use of local , low cost , low external input approach. Use of organic insecticides , in particular extract of Dashaparni ( a mixture of ten plants) substantial number of krishak panchayat members used Dashaparni extracts.

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