Sewing the Seeds of Change

SCIAF’s local partner, Outreach, is working with villagers in the drought prone districts of Belgaum, Bellary and Kolar to help people work their way out of poverty and hardship. By teaching small-scale farmers sustainable, drought resistant farming techniques which improve the quality of the soil, SCIAF and Outreach are helping families to produce bigger and better harvests so they no longer have to go hungry.

SCIAF’s Asia Project Officer, Percy Patrick, met villagers from Pothakatte in the Bellary district of Karnataka, and he explains how the project has changed their lives.

I was sitting with a group of around 100 men and women as they told their story of change. They explained how, with the help of SCIAF and Outreach, they have created food security in their community.

Before the project, families had food for only three months after the harvest. Outreach provided training in better farming practices and water conservation methods which allow the soil to retain more moisture. Now farmers can produce a lot more from their land and the yield of sorghum (the main crop) has more than doubled. Families have enough food for the whole year and are able to sell the surplus on the open market. Famers are also growing a greater variety of crops, including flowers and vegetables, which helps them earn more money and enjoy a better diet. People who do not own milk producing animals are now able to buy milk for their children and families can afford to eat a non-vegetarian meal once a week.

Food scarcity and lack of money once meant that 80% of families were forced to migrate to the coffee plantations in Chickmagalur and the cotton fields in Bellary for eight or nine months a year. Now, only a small minority of families travel to the nearby mines in Sandur for two months a year to earn extra income.

The community has also established a Self Help Group (SHG) – a savings and credit union – which awards loans to its members, enabling them to set up small businesses. Higher agricultural production and the money earned from these micro-enterprises have lead to an increased household income and a better quality of life. Most huts have been replaced by houses built from bricks and stone. Villagers own 25 motorbikes and six tractors. Once, only a handful of rich families had phones, now around 100 families own a mobile, and 10 households have coin operated telephones.

When times were hard, education was low on the list of priorities. Only 10 % of children went to school – all of them boys – while the rest had to work to help support their families. Today 80% of both girls and boys are getting an education and the number of children working has dropped from 80% to 20%.

The villagers take good care of their surrounding area too. They have planted trees and shrubs, causing small islands of greenery to spring up around them. These lush pockets of green, which stay healthy even during summer thanks to the new water conservation methods, have become home to many birds, reptiles and wild animals.

Local farmers have been at the forefront of planning and implementing the changes. They are using what they have learned from the training provided by Outreach to take a proactive role in shaping their futures. A joint fund has been set up to pay for repairs, maintenance and further water conservation work, and by coming together to bulk buy seeds and fertilizers they are able to save money.

This project has given villagers the strength to negotiate with traders, banks, government officials and politicians with confidence. Every farmer now has a bank account and even the poorest families are able to save for the future in their SHG account.

The people tell me with pride that Pothulakatte is now one of the most progressive villages in the district.