Women Empowerment Through Smart Horticulture Farming
A few years back, nobody could imagine cultivating anything on the barren land of Darbha, a Naxal affected area in the Bastar District of Chhattisgarh. For the tribal population of Darbha, paddy cultivation was the sole source of income. The average annual income per family of the region was around 30k-40k only when the area received sufficient rainfall. The tribal women of Darbha came forward and took initiative to improve their life. As a result of their initiatives and hard work, “Maa Danteshwari Papaya Utpadak Samiti” was established with the help of the Bastar District Administration and Bastar Kisan Kalyan Sangh (BKKS). It was developed using the Bastar model or “Horticulture for Rural Development”, an inclusive development model that utilizes barren land and aims towards doubling farmers' income as well as empowering women.
The tribal women of Darbha today are successfully growing papaya with the help of modern agriculture technology like drip irrigation, fertigation system, mulching, etc. on 10 acres of barren land. They also use the Fasal system to get real-time crop intelligence including microclimate forecast, irrigation advisories, etc.
How they did it….
First, these women formed a self-help group to which the Bastar District Administration allocated 10 acres of land along with funds to develop any required infrastructure. The land allocated was completely rocky and these women had to manually remove 200 trolleys of rocks. They then got the soil from other places to make this land suitable for cultivation. However, none of the women from the self-help group had any prior knowledge of horticulture farming or papaya cultivation. Therefore, they took the help of BKKS for their training in horticulture farming. The training was an arduous task as 90% of these women were illiterate and had to manage household work as well. They took training sessions twice a week and made a slogan “one who gets trained will teach next three”.
Due to the hard work and determination of these women, all the members of the group managed to double their income and improve the quality of their life. Hembati Kashyap, a tribal girl from Darbha had to leave her studies due to a financial crisis. Today she supervises and manages farm activities at “Ma Dhanteshwari Papita Utpadak Samiti” and has managed to resolve her family’s financial issues and has also rejoined her BSc course. She is doing great in both her studies as well as in her role as the farm supervisor. She is an inspiration and role model for other tribal women.
