Save Indian Farmers – November 2020 Newsletter

Dear Subscribers,

While we work tirelessly to make sure all the donations you made are utilized to maximize benefits for the farmers in India, we would like to share some of our success stories with you.

Hear from our beneficiaries

An unwell husband and jobless sons returning home amidst lockdown, Satna Devi from Uttar Pradesh says, “I was provided with dry ration from the Farmer Producer Organization, that helped with food for the family for at least 15 days and I gained lot of knowledge about keeping physical distance, using masks, washing hands with soap, etc. Read her full story here.

Watch one of our beneficiaries, Rachana Kasture, talk to our team about how happy she is with the help that we provided as she is now able to save ₹ 100-120 daily, after all her expenses and is able to sustain better. Click image to watch full interview.

Rimpi Devi, from Poonch Jammu and Kashmir shares her experience, working in a bakery supported by Save Indian Farmers. She talks about how this helped her become independent and empowered, while continuing her studies remotely. Click image to watch full interview.

Following are more updates on our efforts for COVID-19 relief and our regular project activities.

Continued Support during COVID-19

Save Indian Farmers has been continuously supporting the farmers during the Covid-19 situation. Although a lot of our regular activities were impacted, we spent $18,000 in total on COVID-19 relief efforts benefiting over 1600 families.

Grocery Kits distributed to Farmers

Chaubattakhal, Uttarakhand

Save Indian Farmers and UANA’s work in Uttarakhand propelled the government in action, and they provided 3 lakh rupees for the construction of fences around the integrated farm. The project is also motivating other farmers around the area. Water conservation effort in the Chaubattakhal region is in progress with huge contributions from local farmers.

We currently have 2 water ponds and 3 water tank sites in progress. We also completed seed/sprout distribution for turmeric, potato, lemon, masala elaichi and kiwi.

Tumkur, Karnataka

We added 15 more farmers as beneficiaries for our organic farming project in this region. The farmers that we helped in the last 2 years are now completely into organic farming and have also completed their training in horticulture. These farmers are now selling their produce in the Tumkur Region and encouraging more farmers to join the group.

We have also formally registered an FPO in this region. 12 farmers have contributed their share so far and our target is to identify 250 farmers to begin with and then expand in the surrounding districts.

Nellore, Andhra Pradesh

We distributed seeds to 45 women from seed banks across 3 villages in Nellore region. We also completed community Kitchen Garden and Natural Farming training sessions in this region. 10 community wells were renovated that benefited 37 farmers covering around 56 acres of land.

Percolation tanks were renovated in two villages, Gajulavaniguntha & Pasvulaguntha, Nellore district that benefitted 49 farmers and covered a land area of about 103 acres.

Bundhelkhand Initiatives

We started our efforts in Panari Village in Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with Haritika, after we learnt that farmers in the area did not have appropriate irrigation facilities. Save Indian Farmers helped construct 7 farm ponds and more than 100 acre of field bunding.

We drilled 8 borewells and found enough water yield in 6 of them. With these efforts, over 80 acres of land can be irrigated. We also planted 5000 fruit trees and provided vegetable seeds to the farmers.

Trichy, Tamil Nadu

We have begun phase 2 for this project with partner People’s Educational Awareness Service Trust. In this phase, we have 30 farmer beneficiaries who will be trained and helped to move towards organic farming methods for better yield.

We conducted 3 day organic farming and nursery training for all 30 farmers and arranged their visit to an agricultural institute recently. We also distributed seeds for chillies, ladyfingers, brinjal and tomatoes in 3 villages.

Shohratgarh, Uttar Pradesh

Save Indian Farmers has collaborated with Shohratgarh Environmental Society to form a Farmer Producer Organization (FPO). We conducted a baseline study to understand the primary occupation, poverty status and basic infrastructure of the area. The study indicated over 70% dependency on agriculture, 20% people below the poverty line and most areas not being irrigated.

Based on the study, we have identified 10 villages in the area to form the FPO. 100 farmers have shown their interest to join the FPO. We have identified the board of directors and conducted a training session for them.

The primary objective of the FPO will be to produce and promote an indigenous variety of rice called Kala Namak.

Johrat, Assam

SIF is working on this Rural Livelihood Program with Sankalpa Taru. The program is aimed to not just plant but create a wide socio-environmental impact for women empowerment, poverty alleviation, biodiversity promotion and rejuvenating the degraded land.

A total of 2100 trees of seedless lemon species were planted in different villages of Karanga district in Jorhat, Assam. We have been able to maintain a greater than 95% survival rate which has benefitted 10 farmers and their families. With this we aim to produce 9,55,212.02 Kg of oxygen in the next 20 years.

Poonch, Jammu and Kashmir

With the help of our partner ASEEM Foundation, and the Indian Army, we have sanitized and restarted our bakery in this region. The beneficiaries were introduced to solar dryers for drying the fruits to make the cookies. The bakery delivered 29kg of cookies in October and 30kg in November.

We have also identified 4 women in Faisalabad to start a new bakery to make chocolate and walnut cookies, where walnuts will be sourced from local farmers. The beneficiaries have already been trained for cookie production.

Micro-Financing

Our partner Rang de helped us start the Swabhiman center near Sittilingi, Tamilnadu, in June this year. A total of 24 training sessions have been conducted across 4 villages so far. We plan to conduct some assessments and surveys once we train about 30-40 participants and customize the content based on their needs. The attendees are all farmers and their families from the Sittilingi Organic Farming Association(SOFA).

We provided micro-loans to 10 beneficiaries in Ambejogai Maharashtra and 9 among them have already started their businesses. One of our beneficiaries, Rachana Kasture, told our team that she is very happy with the help that we provided as she is now able to save ₹ 100-120 daily, after all her expenses and is able to sustain better. Manaswani is our on the ground partner for this effort. Some of the beneficiaries have already started to repay their loans.

Kisan Mitra

We restarted our Kisan Mitra Helpline again in July this year and received overwhelming response from the beneficiaries. We received around 60 calls since then from different states, most calls however remain from Maharashtra. Livelihood support and general consultation are two major areas that our farmers talk to us about. We are working to provide resolutions to all the queries and will keep you posted on the status.

SIF in Conversations about Farming

We were invited by Radio Siddharatha for a program on farming where Mr. Anandkumar shared details of SIF-Avishkar organic farming project in Tumkur region in reference to water conservation in dry land agriculture.

One of our board members, Mahesh Wani was on Sarvodaya, a podcast series by Indian Development Society, talking about Save Indian Farmers’ journey towards better livelihood by means of various initiatives. He also spoke about the new challenges that came in with the pandemic and how we have been supporting our farmers to cope up with them.