E-Sandesham

E-SandeshamMay, 2011

The Official E-Newsletter of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty

E-SandeshamMay, 2011

The Official E-Newsletter of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty

The war against poverty is complex and needs a multi-pronged approach. There is need of synergy between various activities and continuous innovation. SERP has been striving to maintain the balance and continue to grow. The path is laden with challenges but we believe that we have the ability to overcome any barrier in our mission to eradicate poverty.

Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture has progressed over the years and proved that with indigenous techniques and collective action, agriculture can be made viable for small and poor farmers. Over the years, CMSA unit has validated that the concepts is works on gives good result. Recognizing the performance, CMSA activities are being integrated with MGNREGS and there is convergence happening with Department of Agriculture.

Merely support in production and availability of cheap inputs is not sufficient to help poor producers. More often than not inability to market and exploitative market terms hampers in their realizing the correct value of their produce. With a view to make the VOs financially viable and inculcate the spirit of entrepreneurship in them, Marketing activities have been undertaken and the initiative has grown many-fold in last five years which we gladly report.

Children are our future and in order to assure a healthy life, we have initiated Growth Monitoring and Promotion (GMP) and Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres to reach out to children across the state providing access to nutrition and preventive healthcare. At the same time, the spirit of the mothers needs to be saluted, we share two poignant stories of two women who have conquered all odds to overcome distress with the help of the SHGs and lead a respectable and secure life.

Hoping that SERP’s work continues to inspire

Jai Hind

Rajsekhar.B (IAS)

From the CEO’s desk...

“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” - Anonymous

RD Department has been working on improving productivity of small, degraded farms of the rural poor that has become the prime strategy for expeditious poverty reduction. Under the Work Bank aided APRPRP, they have been working for the past 6 years with the SHG federation in changing the system of agriculture to make it low cost and high return enterprise. The model works on reducing dependence on external inputs like chemical pesticides and fertilizers; and use natural forms to regenerate the land, which are naturally empowering, heralding a gradual switch over to an organic system. Together with the poly-crop model and soil/moisture conservation, this package named, community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) could end poverty in least time. The focus of CMSA is on community managed extension system and is essentially a farmer-centered movement, with special focus on small and marginal farmers, tenants, and agricultural labour and women farmers.

CMSA is a paradigm shifting ap¬proach towards the way agriculture is being undertaken and is aimed at making small farming viable. This initiative aims to address the major causes of agriculture distress – ex¬tensive use of chemical inputs, high costs of agriculture, displacement of local knowledge, unsustainable agricultural practices like mono¬cropping, imperfect markets etc. CMSA with the help of NGOs pooled up and standardized the crop management practices us¬ing Non-Pesticide-Management (NPM) technology.

More importantly the key focus of CMSA has been to make the farmer knowledge independent, to enable the farmer unlearn certain things and learn to understand the natu¬ral process and sail with them. Transfer of technology is through community based local best practicing farmers The core investment is on supporting community managed extension system than on material inputs. CMSA is essentially a farmer-cen¬tered movement. It was found that through this method, the incomes of the rural poor farmers have substantially increased, and in many cases, they have reaped higher prices for pesticide-free products.

Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) has been spearheading the CMSA in the state with continuous innovations and streamlining processes. CMSA has been implemented in 25 lakh acres and its proven success of CMSA has prompted widespread adoption of the model and its convergence with other Government departments and Schemes. This would increase the coverage of CMSA ensuring that complementary measures are taken up for better adoption and there is no duplication of efforts for similar schemes.

Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture -- D.V Raidu

The objective of CMSA has been defined as to sustain the agriculture based livelihoods, especially of the small and marginal farmers, and move towards the food and nutri-tional security at household level.

The SHGs in Andhra Pradesh have been pioneering the initiative for enhancing productivity of the lands by a combining organic agriculture practices with rainwater conservation under the Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA).

Productivity enhancement of the rainfed agriculture has been an important component of the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP). Several initiatives are proposed to be implemented through MGNREGS Scheme with land works being the top priority for this year’s proposed works under MGNREGS.

Out of the 1,900 villages in the IWMP watersheds of 2009-10 & 2010-11, the convergence will be implemented in 1,100 villages in 2011- 12 where CMSA implementation structure is already in place. The balance 800 villages and the 1,400 villages of 2011-12 IWMP projects, CMSA programme will be implemented and would be taken up for treatment in its action plan for 2012-13.

There is further need for CMSA to be mainstreamed and strengthened by appropriate backward and forward linkages for which a separate multi-disciplinary society is proposed to be constituted.

Government has decided that in order to promote sustainable agriculture there has to be synergy between SERP and Agriculture Department.

Department of Agriculture has set up the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) in each district with the objective of identifying location specific needs of the farming community. By working with the communities and promoting sustainable agriculture, ATMA is expected to empower the farmers and make agriculture remunerative. For convergence it has been decided that:

1. Rural Development and Agriculture Departments would work together to reduce the cost of cultivation and move towards a pesticide-free cultivation across the State by converging at the District Level.

2. Rural Development Department will give training to the ATMA staff on the CMSA model and would sensitize the ATMA members about working with the SHG groups and rural poor.

3. Where SERP is already implementing the programme working with the SHGs, they will continue the work until the logical end of ushering in organic cultivation.

4. In all other villages, the ATMA staff, after due training of the CMSA system, would work with the SHG federations and other farmers to popularize the low cost, high return agriculture.

5. Under STMA, projects will be undertaken to provide infrastructure for backward and forward linkages to the farmers practicing the organic/natural farming.

Convergence with Agriculture Department and IWMP and implementation through MGNRGS will extend the benefits of CMSA to every village in Andhra Pradesh vastly improving productivity, lowering input costs and better returns for the farmer. In addition, being organic in nature, it would improve environment as well.

Monitoring the growth of children and provision of basic nutrition has the potential to reduce child mortality and improve the overall health status. The growth monitoring promotion (GMP) has been used worldwide as a tool to show that the children whose growth is monitored and their mothers receive nutrition and health education information and have access to basic child health care have a better nutritional status or survival than children who do not have. Some studies have also shown that growth monitoring has proved to be an integral part of curative and preventive health programmes which have been associated with significant reduction in the malnourishment and mortality.

GMP at SERP aims at achieving similar goal, which is to improve the nutritional status of children between 0-5 years. The GMP programme at SERP has two aspects in the programme:

1. Setting up of nutritional rehabilitation centre (NRC).

2. Regular growth monitoring, data collection and impact analysis.

NDCC’s role in GMP:

The NRC is an extension of services at the NDCCs. Currently the NDCCs provides a unique platform to provide cost-effective treatment for undernourished children and mothers at community level with community participation. The nutritional day care centers (NDCC) run by Village organization address the issues of prevention, early detection and treatment of malnutrition among the children, pregnant and lactating mothers along with providing comprehensive community level MCH services.

NRCS:

To cater to the need of the Severely Malnourished and Moderately Malnourished children of the selected pilot districts. The Nutrition rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) are being set up taking Nillofer Hospital Nutritional rehabilitation Ward as a model and modifying them and making these programme a community managed programme.

Since these centres will be community managed the approach of setting up these centres is to utilise the locally available resources so that they can be easily run and sustained by the centres.

It is proposed that that initially the project will set up 10 NRCs in 3 districts: Karnool, Vishakapatnam and Warangal. The Mandals and VOs will be finalised after a meeting with the DAPs keeping the following criteria is mind: strength of the VOs, distance from neighbouring villages and number of CRPs in the Mandals.

Growth Monitoring and Promotion (GMP) and Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres -- Lakshmi Durga

Objective for setting up the NRCs:

1. Establish community based NRCs, engage and strengthen community level institutions to facilitate convergence of health and development initiatives with other departments.

2. To strengthen functioning of existing NDCCs and to identify and refer moderate-severe malnutrition for early diagnosis and treatment.

3. Empower mothers by promoting income generating options and in house training to improve the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women and under five children.

4. Evaluate and document a community level convergence model for integrating line department health and development functions for improved nutritional and health status of the community.

Proposed model for the NDCCs:

To achieve these goals and deploy this project SERP has tied up with the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) and has constituted a body called the Advisory group in order to provide technical assistance to the project functionaries. This group has representatives from NIN and IIPH. The group has proposed that we should set up 3 NRCs in each selected districts. Each NRC will have a team of 3 members (2CRPs + 1 MT). This team will be responsible for managing the NRCs.

Steps for setting up the NRC:

1. A total of 30 members for setting up the three NRCs will be selected. 1 MT and 2 CRPs for 1 NRC will be selected and trained at Nillofer Hospital for a period of 3 days on NRC management.

2. These 30 members will then go back to their respective mandals and will train their HAs on NRC management and GMP data collection methodology.

3. Parallel they will also set up the centre procure the required materials and equipments, drugs etc as per the protocol and keep the NRC ready.

4. After this stage they will conduct a survey at the village and screen the children who need to be admitted to the NRC.

5. The children who are ill and require the services of the NRCs will be admitted at the NRCs.

6. Every Thursday the GMP data will be collected henceforth and the cycle of referring the children and monitoring the growth of the children will continue.

NRC activities will be monitored extensively to ensure quality implementation. The day to day monitoring will be done through the book keeping and the regular data collection and reporting. In addition to this process there will be social audit conducted by the community so that they are able to see the impact and hence this exercise will create better community ownership towards the project.

Poor producers in the interior and remote areas repeatedly face the problems like, Low Price for their produce, Delayed Payment from the middlemen/traders, Exploitation in Weighment, Traders malpractices, More expenditure on Transportation, lack of knowledge on Markets – Buyers and Physical Infrastructure at Production centres and regular dependency on traders for cash and kind loans.

Most of these problems arise due to low bargaining power with these poor producers. Small quantities and the urgency to sell make them accept unfair terms. Over the few years, they have realized the perils of operating alone. SERP has always strived to provide the benefits of collective action to poor producers under Village Organisations and in order to provide better terms of exchange has initiated several Marketing initiatives.

Collective procurement and marketing of agriculture, horticulture and Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) by establishing Procurement Centers through VOs of IKP is being promoted. This is to eliminate unfair trade practices, to enhance the incomes, to provide remunerative prices and to increase bargaining power of small and marginal farmers, and to generate profits for the community organizations through creating a win-win situation among all the stakeholders.

Marketing activities started with the procurement of Neem Fruit from one mandal and Red gram from five mandals in 2001 in Mahabubnagar now taken up in all

Marketing interventions by Village Organizations -- Marketing Unit

the Districts of Andhra Pradesh. The central idea is that every VO should work as a Mini Market Yard and every farmer and NTFP collector should receive remunerative prices to their produce at their doorsteps & not have to carry their produce beyond five Kms for selling. Along with elimination of middlemen and traders and from exploitation, the intervention especially benefits small & marginal farmers and Tribal producers whose main livelihood is collection of NTFPs.

The main activities of Marketing by IKP VOs are:

1. Conducting potential survey of Agricultural Commodities and NTFPs

2. Preparation of Monthly Procurement Action Plan

3. Constitution of Procurement Committee and Advisory Committee

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1 2001-02 2 5 29 1001 1.67 5750 0.08 145 -- -- 2 2002-03 5 48 72 3388 3.17 76597 0.25 360 -- -- 3 2003-04 7 181 602 4771 5.82 55253 0.36 3010 -- -- 4 2004-05 20 502 1154 23287 15.51 108394 1.75 6924 -- -- 5 2005-06 19 710 2010 236705 137.31 164502 17.75 40200 2.18 1.18 6 2006-07 22 533 783 220582 136.16 165661 16.54 19575 1.86 1.22 7 2007-08 21 1042 2065 477907 323.32 232151 35.84 51625 4.51 3.81 8 2008-09 21 872 1704 592998 492.16 282930 44.47 42600 6.41 12.3 9 2009-10 22 842 1449 658238 613.72 284718 49.36 36225 8.64 15.34 10 2010-11 21 671 1253 407824 418.86 124815 30.24 20380 6.25 10.33 11 2011-12 16 402 966 998199 1027.00 176871 70.74 29946 14.97 25.67

Grand Total 3624900 3174.7 1677642 267.38 250990 44.82 69.85

Year wise marketing interventions of VOs since inception

4. Farmers education & Marketing Tie ups & Social and concurrent audit

Village Organizations have managed the Procurement Centers independently; they prepare and implement the Marketing plans for the Procurement Centers. Procurement Committee Members, Advisory Committee Members are given intensive training and orientation on Marketing.

The VOs intervention of marketing has resulted in reducing the malpractice in weighment and price reduction by traders. It has minimized the cost of inputs to the rural poor farmers. The VOs have provided assistance & build awareness to CBOs (VO/Ms) in developing microenterprises. By providing information on Markets and training the farmer on quality aspects and training, they have reduced the hassles of the farmers by local trader.

Regular economic activities has strengthened the Village Organizations and enhanced the member’s income. Women are now able to deal with external markets and traders independently. There is increase in the bargaining capacity of poor Agriculturists and they have increased knowledge in Book keeping and Commodity trading resulting in higher confidence among them.

Availability of Physical Infrastructure at the grass root level has ensured several benefits:

• Farmers have received remunerative prices for their produce at the production point.

• Village organizations procured the agricultural commodities and NTFPs at the farmer’s door steps.

• No exploitation in weighment and price

• Farmers have saved substantial cost under various components ranging to ` 50 to ` 100 per quintal which otherwise used to incur while marketing their produce to the traders in the markets.

• Due to procurement at the village there is no wage loss and no. of hassle have been reduced which otherwise used to face in market yards.

In addition, continuous economic activity has been generating incomes to the VOs proving additional employment to Procurement Committee Members, Book Keepers, CRPs and Hamalis at the Village level. Substantial amounts through commission on MSP Operations and profits in direct Marketing has provided financial stability to the VOs making them independent and strong.

Background:

I am the second daughter for my parents. We were four children and I was the third child in the family. I was married immediately after I completed my Class X, as my parents wanted to get me married early. I was very young and knew nothing about the importance of a husband and my role in the new family. My in-laws and their parents were old and I had to take care of them as my husband was the only son in the family.

We had no property and we lived on daily wages. Everyone in the family, except the parents of my in-laws had to work to make a living. We hardly had sufficient to eat and our food was maize gruel most of the time. I gave birth to two sons and two daughters and the number in the family went up to 12 with my in-laws, and their parents living under one roof. It became a tough task to satisfy everyone as I was the only daughter-in-law in the family. I hardly had time to take care of my children or had an opportunity to give sufficient food to them.

The Change:

As I was passing through these hardships, a teacher visited us in 1999 and advised us to start a SHG. I was desperately looking for a way out and I found that the SHG was the better option that would help me to overcome all my problems. I was able to motivate some of the women in the village and formed the group. All members in the group used to save Re. 1 a day and the total amount was put in the group at the end of the month. We used to share that as loan depending on the need.

I received a loan of ` 5,000 for the first time from the group and I invested it for purchasing two buffalos to support the family. Of course, I did not forget to give a good meal to everyone in the family on that day. I remember that day even now, as I could measure the depth of satisfaction in every face. Later on, I borrowed several time and as of now, I have availed `1,05,000 loan from banks or groups on different occasions. I have used these borrowings to bail out my family from poverty.

Stories of Change (Case studies from the Field)... -- P. Jamuna

Name Prathakota Saralamma

Name of the SHG Ravi Teja Group

Age 34 Years

Caste Scheduled Caste

Education Status Class X

Children Two Sons & Two Daughters

Village Nalla Kalva

Mandal Athmakuru

District Kurnool

Loans Availed:

• `50,000 in three times from Bank

• `55,000 in seven times from SHG

Assets Created:

• Permanent house

• One and a half acre land

• Three Buffalos

• Small poultry unit

• Colour T.V

• Mobile Phone

• Carpentry tools

• Two sovereigns of gold and silver

Current Sources of Income:

• Agriculture – `30,000 per year

• Milk – Profit of `2,000 per month

• Carpentry – `8,000 a year

The Success:

The financial support that I have received over a period of time has helped me to purchase one and a half acre of cultivable land for the family. In addition, we were able to buy buffalos and sell milk. I am able to give better education to my children. I have come out of poverty – from having nothing in those days to having possession of equipment like TV, Mobile Phone, DVD player, a comfortable house constructed under Indiramma Housing programme. Life appears so different, it takes a few seconds for me to realise that it was the same me who starved for day and struggled for years in poverty.

Today, I am able to give better education to my children, good and nutritious food and health care. I travel and meet people, talk to them, inspire fellow women; help them fight against poverty, guide them make use of the group and the lending. My life would have been different had there not been the group.

I feel that the SHG in a village is the major asset to any woman than the assets that are created with the help of the loans. I now work as a Community Resource Person and have earned over `45,000 as CRP during that period.

Background:

I was married at the age of 14 years, even before I could appear for my Class X examinations. Immediately after exams, I was sent to my husband. My mothers-in-law made us live separately and we had to live in a rented house. My husband was a wage labourer and he would earn `50 a day. I never went for work before my marriage. But, things changed and now I was forced to go for work. I found it difficult to work throughout the day, to earn just `30. In the meantime my husband became addicted to alcohol and started spending our wages for his liquor. I fought with him several times to stop drinking. Though we both worked hard all through the day, we had to sleep on empty stomach and had nothing to feed the children, as he would take away the wage amount for his liquor.

I wanted to change this situation and help my children get at least one meal a day. After the day’s work, I started to work with the local library of the women’s association. I used to collect books from the library and went around the village distributing books for hire. I used to earn `1 on each book, which I used to feed children. When our wages were spent by my husband for his liquor, my small earnings through the library lending were the only source to feed the children. There were several days when I slept without food, while my husband slept fully drunk. I used to collect the remaining money from his pocket and use it for the family.

The Change:

I joined the group in 2002 and tried to save something from my earnings and the left over from my drunken husband’s pocket. I received `1200 from the group and I paid it towards advance for the house as we didn’t have any. Then, I mortgaged my Class X certificates with and availed `50,000 loan under the Prime Ministers Rojgar Yojana (PMRY) programme. I have purchased bulls and cart besides the house. Using the cart and bulls, we were earning some amount to supplement the family’s income. We are now in our own house, a dream that I felt was impossible. My husband realised the work that I am doing to improve the family and began to work for the family. He worked hard on the cart and used to hand over the earnings to me. I repaid the bank loan with the earnings from the cart. Again, when the group received a loan from the bank, I got ` 5000 as my share and I purchased a sewing machine. While my husband used to go out with the cart, I used to work at home on the sewing machine.

Name Moddu Subbamma

Name of the SHG Sandhya Podupu Sangham

Age 35 Years

Caste Scheduled Caste

Education Status Class X

Children Four

Village Athmakuru

Mandal Athmakuru

District Nellore

Loans availed:

Assets Created:

• Permanent house

• 70 cents of agriculture land

• Bulls and Cart

• Sewing Machine

Current Sources of Income:

• Agriculture

• House Rent

• Cart Hire

• Sewing Machine

The Success:

The problems that I faced with my husband and family taught me a greater lesson. Though, I thought of ending

life, the knowledge that I have gained through the group made me think of alternatives. I am what I am today because of the group. I planned every step with the help of the group and we scaled up and executed it with the help of my group members. I am indebted to my group for supporting me through the tough times in my life.

Bank:

S.No Amount taken

Purpose for which loan was

taken

1 `50,000 Purchase a House and Cart

2 `5,000 Purchase Bulls for the Cart

Group:

S.No Amount taken

Purpose for which loan was

taken 1 `13,500 Family Expenditure

2 `27,000 Purchase Land

3 `5,000 Sewing Machine

Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty5-10-192,3rd 4th Floor,

Hermitage Office Complex,Huda Building,Hill Fort Road,Nampally,Hyderabad-500004.

Fax : 91-40-23211848Telephone : 91-40-23298665