#Chhota Udepur – Cotton, Chana and Maize

After the arid and flat lands of Rajasthan and North Gujarat, we visited the greener and hilly tribal areas of Chhota Udepur. We have been working alongside our trusted partner Shroffs Foundation Trust and their amazing field team with smallholder farmers in the region.

Our first stop was a roadside meeting with a group of farmers regarding their upcoming crops. I started our meeting with a question to the farmers: if I had 2 acres of land in their area I wanted to earn a living from, what would your advice be to me?

The discussion started with the crop selection - in the rabi season, the farmers here usually grow chana (bengal gram) and maize. Together we went through a detailed itemised cost analysis for cultivating the two crops, and discussed the price they generally got for each crop during harvest. We ascertained that a farmer makes about Rs 10,000/acre growing chana and around Rs 14,000/acre growing maize (excluding thier own labour costs). The duration of each crop is roughly 3 months so in effect, farmers earn an average of Rs 8,000/month income from their farming activities, which contributes to their household income. This, as they told us, is not enough to sustain themselves. Therefore every year, one or two members of their household migrate to the cities to get jobs that pay them around Rs15,000/month. The reason to migrate is a direct result of the economics of their farming. They categorically stated that if they were able to earn Rs 15,000 per month from their farms, then they would prefer to stay and work in their villages.

After our discussion, they took us around the nearby fields. The first stop was the water well – so deep that we could hardly see the bottom of it. Many farmers who don’t have good water sources, end up growing only cotton or millet crops which are rainfed. The biodiversity was so rich with numerous tress lining the fields.

We noticed that they had also intercropped Turmeric with their cotton crop.

I tested the farmers’ empty fields by digging a small hole to find earthworms, which are the best indicators of soil health. We discussed the importance of improving the Soil Organic Carbon content in their soils.

Finally, as we were leaving one of the farmers mentioned another major obstacle to their farming: wild boars! These farmers hardly have any protection or fencing for their farm plots as they can’t afford it. As a result, at least one family member has to sleep in the harsh winter conditions in order to guard and protect the crops. We can only begin to imagine the physical and mental toll the cold nights must take on these families. There have to be better options of?innovative low-cost fencing and/or wildlife repellant systems.

For our next stop, we then head to SFT’s headquarters in town. They have been tirelessly working there to develop the livelihoods of the marginal and poor tribal populations of the region. They conduct their work with extreme professionalism - definitely a cut above many other NGOs working in this space. They are supporting an all-women food processing company ("SGS") to produce, package and sell items such as pickles, powdered spices, frozen mango and custard apple pulp.

They have also helped SGS install a freezer, cold room, electric dryer and micro-processing unit.

We also bumped into Mr. Vikas Vaze the CEO of SFT, who was also on a field visit , and were able to learn more about their future strategy and how we could play a part to help them achieve their objectives. We discussed opportunities to develop innovative #blendedfinance models, to unlock access to #climatefinance for these small and medium tribal farmers.

I’m looking forward to working in this incredible area, which is bursting with biodiversity and has great potential for farmers to transition to #regenerative #agriculture.