Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration

By Sieti Banu Immanuel of World Vision India 

FMNR is gaining traction in India, alongside other regreening and regenerative practices. We are so impressed by the stories of these three women who are leading the way.

Rupali Talke

Rupali Talke is a young woman from Godkhindi village one of the target community of the project, she has two brothers, father and mother, she has been good in her education, though her parents are very traditional family, but seeing her excellence in studies, they allowed and supported her for the higher education, she has completed double degree (MA-Geography, B Ed & M A-Marathi), but this village is very traditional, so only men can lead the community, though there are some women who are gram panchayat elected members, but their husband’s only take lead in the decision making and they only work, Rupali had the talent to lead, train and mobilize the group for the development activities, but being a woman she couldn’t get the opportunities.

During that time project has implemented the Men Care module in the village, about 26 men (village leaders) attended the 6 topics and their mind set changed towards women and their strength. The project has provided the training on EWV model to young women and men as TOT’s as they have been identified to be a change agent in the community.

Although Rupali has been well educated she could not get the identity in the community because she is the woman.

After attending the training Raupali has learnt that every person is creative and has a gift to contribute for the development of the community. Although Rupali family does not hold any agriculture land yet she has initiated terrace farming at the house to cultivate the vegetables which is very creative in the village. Many girls in the community got motivated to do differently in their life. Now Rupali to opportunity to train the women, men, children and youth on Vision exercise, mind-set change, on farming techniques ect. also project gave them more training and exposure on farming techniques (Farming without ploughing, Mulching, , Natural pest control, Drip Irrigation, Watershed activities & ect.) after attending all training TOT’s youth started training farmers in their village, Rupali took active role in training these farmers, SHG & youth, meanwhile after observing her talents & Strength and she has been  selected as an SHG coordinator for the 20 village in one cluster for the project run by the govt, now she is visiting 20 villages providing training and guidance to SHG’s also facilitate the EWV programs, Farmers & SHG trainings for the project.

Rupali expresses that if given a choice for bride grooms such as engineer, doctors, she quickly replied without thinking that I would prefer a farmer or request them to do farming.

Rupali is thankful to World Vision India for changing her life from once neglected by people now she is one among the leaders in the community.

Chaitali Sunil Bhendarkar

Chaithali is a young and energetic gild in her village Sawargad. She has completed her Bachelor of Arts degree. Her father is a wage labour in the nearest town. Mother though is a home maker, she takes care of the farming activity of their four acres farm. Chaithali has three sisters and one brother. The income from the farm alone was not suffice to meet the family needs and hence, her father has to travel daily to work.

She got interested in community development works from her college days. She in her capacity has been helping the women savings group in her village. When World Vision introduced the Empowered World View module in her community, she was very fascinated and joined the team of facilitators. She with a renewed mindset like to be a catalyst in changing the mindset of communities.

She has learned about conservation agriculture and keen to introduce it to her farm. But her mother was not convinced and was not willing to take the risk as the entire family were depending on it. However after having seen the demonstrated farmer’s successes in her village, her mother opened to the idea and are planning to do it from the coming rainy season onwards. Already, they have started growing wheat through CA practices this season.

She is member of the Joint Forest Management Committee which was formed in the village recently. She has very little idea about conservation of forests. After attending the FMNR training, she is confident of doing FMNR to conserve forests. Requests support from ADP to promote in her village forests as well as farm.

From the author’s perspective, when she was interviewed for a role as volunteer for WV India, she expressed that “even our livestocks are malnourished as they are not getting enough healthy fodder within short range.” She wanted to reverse the trend through developing pasture land.

Chaithali is a young and energetic gild in her village Sawargad. She has completed her Bachelor of Arts degree. Her father is a wage labour in the nearest town. Mother though is a home maker, she takes care of the farming activity of their four acres farm. Chaithali has three sisters and one brother. The income from the farm alone was not suffice to meet the family needs and hence, her father has to travel daily to work.

She got interested in community development works from her college days. She in her capacity has been helping the women savings group in her village. When World Vision introduced the Empowered World View module in her community, she was very fascinated and joined the team of facilitators. She with a renewed mindset like to be a catalyst in changing the mindset of communities.

She has learned about conservation agriculture and keen to introduce it to her farm. But her mother was not convinced and was not willing to take the risk as the entire family were depending on it. However after having seen the demonstrated farmer’s successes in her village, her mother opened to the idea and are planning to do it from the coming rainy season onwards. Already, they have started growing wheat through CA practices this season.

She is member of the Joint Forest Management Committee which was formed in the village recently. She has very little idea about conservation of forests. After attending the FMNR training, she is confident of doing FMNR to conserve forests. Requests support from ADP to promote in her village forests as well as farm.

From the author’s perspective, when she was interviewed for a role as volunteer for WV India, she expressed that “even our livestocks are malnourished as they are not getting enough healthy fodder within short range.” She wanted to reverse the trend through developing pasture land.

Anjali Hiraman Surjuse

Anjali Surjuse, a very young, energetic and visionary girl from a small hamlet called Jawahar Murzadi. She has done Masters in Arts in Political Science two years back. She was the only one from her village who studied beyond 10^th class. Staying at her maternal uncle’s place for sake of studies made it possible for her to complete her studies. Her own brothers are good in their studies but like other youth of their village, they lost the interest in studies and could study only till 10^th. Her father studied till 12^th in his time. He was the one motivated and encouraged Anjali to pursue further studies and be a role model to all in the community and family.

She wanted to do Bachelor of Education after her Masters degree but couldn’t do due to lack of money. After she completed her studies, she suffered with health problems due to which she was at home and couldn’t do all that she wanted to do. This took her into depression. People around her kept on talking about her saying that she couldn’t get married due to her higher education. Also when she went to Yavatmal for her college they talked ill about her character and her talkative nature, which created different atmosphere in the family.

Earlier everyday she and her father had conflict in opinion over each and everything they discussed or came across. Because of the society speaks ill, her father too succumbed to the society’s thoughts and her father too keeps blaming her for all the things in life. This led to frequent quarrelling with father and family.

She was under the impression that World Vision India is an organisation that only gives assistance to the community in need. In the month of February she got an opportunity to attend EWV training at Nagpur which according to her is the turning point of her life. But through the Empowered World View workshop she came to know that WV India works really for the community and with the community for their upliftment for which the community has to use all their resources at their hand and have to have a vision. Since the day she came back from training program at Nagpur, she realised that she had developed a habit of thinking negative which created disturbances in the family. She started changing herself and from that day till now she didn’t had quarrel with her father.

She started cleanliness in village. Every Sunday she along with her brothers and friends starts cleaning the village. First there were no other villagers involved but later few people joined her. Some of the shop keepers had kept dustbins outside their shops. Also the people who used to drop waste on roads now collects and disposes at designated place.

She also have discussions with youths of her village. She wants every child of her village to study and walk on good path. Youths of the village don’t want to do any hard work. Alcoholism and tobacco chewing have spoiled them. Although the village is alcohol free, the nearby village named Bhari where there is huge production of alcohol. So the people and youth go and get it from there. She said there are few families in the village who have their own farming land but they are not interested in doing farming. Rather they prefer doing labour work and earn for the day. She says they are not interested in long term investment as they faced lots of losses earlier due to lack of rains or sometimes due to natural calamities.

She started conducting meeting for women as well as youth on Sundays. She creates awareness on self-help groups, Health and hygiene topics, motivates people to drink bore well water instead of open well water, she trains them on preparation of compost from kitchen waste, and how that could be used to grow kitchen garden.

She thinks that every boy should start earnings before thinking of getting married so that he could give good life to his family instead adding one more member to the family with limited source of income.

Now the people of her village are talking positive about her and thinks that she is doing something good for village and thinking for betterment of village. The change in her mind-set has helped her to bring change in her family as well as in community.

They have five acres of land. Her father is a heavy vehicle truck driver. Hence her mother works in the farm. Anjali is part of the youth group involved in agriculture. Got inspired to do new way of agriculture. After the FMNR workshop she says that there are no trees in her farm. Only one mango tree. She will try to regenerate trees and grow them by carefully pruning then and nurturing them. She expressed that a few months back, she has planted about 100 trees in her village. But found it very hard to keep them alive as only 60% of them are surviving. She said she will consider FMNR for growing trees.