Women in Agriculture: Beacons of Hope from MSSRF-LANSA Projects

The panel discussion hosted by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation's (MSSRF) Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) programme on the occasion of International Women's Day 2017 (#IWD2017) highlighted the year's theme #BeBoldForChange by presenting the success stories from their projects. It was held on March 10, 2017, at the MSSRF Auditorium in their Taramani campus in Chennai.

The event kicked off with the screening of the short animation film from LANSA on South Asia: Women in Agriculture - the Nutrition Connection launched by the programme on occasion of IWD2017 on March 8th.

Special Address: Director of Social Welfare, Govt. of Tamil Nadu, Dr V. Amuthvalli IAS, formerly the head of the Tamil Nadu Women's Development Corporation delivered a special address on the IWD2017 theme #BeBoldForChange. She highlighted the need for balance, especially nutritional balance in intensive farming.
Note: Dr. Vandana Siva the famous seed conservationist and environmental activist, whose mother was a farmer, in a talk also mentioned the fact that with traditional mixed and intensive organic farming the nutrition value increases exponentially. 

Dr.  Amuthvalli also highlighted the TN govt.'s women centric programmes that have been empowering women for decades now. Self Help Groups (SHG) concept originated in TN in the 1970s and has evolved into women farmer groups and called for "catalytic" interventions that improved the lot of the poor, especially the poor women in rural settings. Another success story highlighted was how TN curbed maternal mortality by incentivising institutional delivery. Employing women in MNREGA in child care centres would add value to the programme. All it calls for is to recognize child caring under the "unskilled labour" list.

Interaction takeaways:

Anaemia is a major challenge and there is resistance to take the iron pills due to side effects. In such a situation noon meals and dietary supplements could be greens and grams (roasted and bengal gram). Good hygiene and WASH programmes also can alleviate the nutritional deficiency. It was also mentioned that an NGO in Ooty has countered the anaemia in the community by encouraging consumption of greens and grams grown in community gardens. The noon meal scheme covers over a crore beneficiaries and is first step to counter nutritional deficiencies in children

The presentations and panel discussion was moderated byDr Prakash Shetty, CEO, LANSA Research Programme Consortium. The panel consisted of Dr. Farhat Saiyed, Nutrition Specialist UNICEF, TN state team; Dr. Nitya Rao, Gender Lead - LANSA programme, and Professor of Gender & Development, University of East Anglia;  Dr. R. Rukmani, Director - Food Security, MSSRF; Dr. S. Velvizhi, Coordinator - Fish for All Training Centre, MSSRF.

Stories of Change & Hope: Presentations -  My Takeaways

Dr. Farhat Saiyed highlighted successful UNICEF programmes and challenges in Bihar, TN and Kerala.

Dr. Nitya Rao’s talk highlighted findings from her research in Odisha and Maharashtra while calling for preserving and encouraging the sustainable livelihoods of tribes. The availability of unhealthy and cheap food options that don't take time to make but are unhealthy is a challenge to rural farming communities during the labour intensive harvest times. The high cost of nutritious foods especially fruits and vegetables also causes the nutritional deficiency. Community gardens and kitchen gardens could be the solution to this problem.

  Dr. R. Rukmani: My takeaway from Dr. Rukmani's talk was the fact that a programme to empower the widows and families of farmer suicides evolved into a holistic and sustainable livelihood project.

 

Dr. S. Velvizhi concentrated on Sustainable Fisheries "Fish for all; Fish forever"; Market access for value added product; Sales van inaugurated on IWD2017 in Bengaluru; Integrated fishing, farming and poultry farms have been set up under the aegis of MSSRF. Tunnel solar dryers for fish helped improve quality and prices for processed dry fish. 

Interaction with the audience led to information on the need to preserve uncultivated food sources via sustainable forestry and tribal empowerment; call for at least short term rural immersion fellowship for researches in agriculture and other technologies so that technology develops with a rural connect. There was also a call to recognize and highlight the ecology and nutrition connect - a healthy environment and a pristine ecology produces healthier populations.

 Panel: (L-R): Dr. S. Velvizhi, Dr. R. Rukmini, Dr. Prakash Shetty, Dr. Nithya Rao, Dr. Farhat Saiyed;

In the foreground  Dr. M.S. Swaminathan.

The session concluded with succinct observations by MSSRF founder Dr. Swaminathan.

"Opportunity from calamities" e.g., 2004 tsunami gave the region the state of the art fish processing centre funded by the Tatas.

 Building self-esteem is the first step to empowerment.

Sunshine Millennium Workshop for Children at the British Council

A series of  activity-based Science and the Environment workshops for Children was conducted by Sunshine Millennium at British Council on Saturday, Feb 25, 2017.

There were separate sessions for 5-6 year olds, 7-8 year olds, 9-11 year olds and 12-14 year olds over the course of the day.

 This was a double first for Sunshine Millennium as it was the first tie up with British Council and a first workhop series for young children. Previous workshops have happened in the School and College setting for students in high school and older.

  Themes covered included: Pollution and tackling it (Alternative modes of transport, ink made from air pollution); Recycling (Story of Stuff and Story of Bottled Water); Germination and Plants that Clean Air; Boyan Slat's The Ocean Cleanup and the Row-bot (TED Talks and discussions) and Communicating Scientific Ideas Interestingly to the Layperson (Green Humour). Activities included: Discussions after presentations and short videos; Story-telling (Environment Protection Agency [EPA] resource); Colouring; Drawing; Poster, Collage, & Plastic bottle planter making.

STUDENT GUEST BLOG 1: In Search of Home: The Plight of Migrants and Those Left Behind

J. Ivvan Lendil

This is a summary of the paper presented by Ivvan Lendil of Madras Christian College at Kriya 2017 – The Students’ Seminar on Comprehensive Security – organized by the Department of International Studies, Stella Maris College in the session on Economic and Environmental Security chaired by Raakhee Suryaprakash on February 13, 2017. 

               The sound of the kulfi bell has become a very common one in Chennai. Enjoying late night kulfies is the routine to many youngsters and IT professionals in the city. But the man who brings us this joy suffers great hardship. Most of the kulfi wallahs in Chennai are from Uttar Pradesh and many among them are or were farmers. They leave behind their families in UP and are living here in this city earning a very meagre amount with which they support their family back home. Their visits home are seasonal.

 

A kulfi wallah in Chennai © J. Ivvan Lendil               Kulfi – “traditional Indian ice cream”

Rural to urban migration has become a serious and increasing menace which is fostered by globalisation. Broadly, the reason for this migration as follows: 

(1) rapid industrialisation of rural areas and 

(2) complete negligence shown by the government towards rural areas.

These two reasons have not only resulted in rural to urban migration but also to international migration. One good example to illustrate the statement can be the migration that’s happened in Sadraskuppam.

Sadraskuppam is a small hamlet in Kanchipuram district located near Madras Atomic Power Plant (Kalpakkam). When you visit Sadraskuppam now all you can find are young children and women waiting their menfolk’s return from Gulf. This mass migration of men has left many families insecure. Talking to the wives left behind one can understand how industrialisation or development projects foster migration. 

Way back in the 1970s atomic power plant construction began in Kalpakkam. The locals at the time were primarily dependent on fishing and agriculture for their livelihood but they never thought that this project harm it. But land was taken from them with the promise that preference would be given to them while recruiting workers for the plant. This remained another broken promise. As the atomic power plant started functioning fish resources depleted. Uprooted from traditional livelihoods and denied jobs at the power plant the locals were forced to search jobs beyond their homes. That’s the time when the Gulf [Middle East] opened its door for them. When a certain set of people were recruited by construction companies in Gulf countries the thought of migrating to Gulf spread like wildfire in the hamlet. It’s very interesting to note that a majority of the village men who migrate to the Gulf are welders. In fact Welding has become hereditary skill in many families in Sadraskuppam since the 1970s.

Some village women break down when one enquires about the working conditions of their husbands. Many of the migrants don’t reveal the hardships they face in the Gulf but the bitter knowledge seeps through. The psyche of the women left behind is also rather pathetic, burdened by depression and physical labour. Women here are the heads of their families. They decide what and where their children should study, “I would never send my child to Gulf, whatever job he does let it be done here itself, I don’t want an another woman to undergo the same stress what I am through right now” were the words of Bakiyam whose husband is currently in Saudi Arabia. These grass widows also stay away from social gatherings like betrothal, weddings etc. as the patriarchal society prefers couples to singles, especially women on their own. 

Picture of Bakiyam showing her wedding photos. © J. Ivvan Lendil

The women’s insecurity increases when their child gets sick and they have to take them to the “city” hospital all alone. The same when their child misses his/her school bus. There are many burdens a patriarchal society puts on a woman head of the family.  But main refrain from the women was “I would never send my child to any foreign country.”

When one examines the local rural to urban migration the problem’s not purely lack of jobs but the unavailability of markets. This January (2017) tomatoes were rolled in streets of Madhya Pradesh, this was because 1kg of tomato was purchased from the farmer by the middle man for just 50 paise. The same applies to all the cottage industry products produced in villages. What’s needed now is proper market reforms from the government side. Moreover when government acquires land for development projects proper compensation needs to be provided with job assurance as early as possible, but this happens rarely. After many years Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam project land compensation judgement was given where SC directed the government to provide Rs. 60 lakhs compensation to the families affected. The delay in receiving compensation increases the burden of the migrating families. 

Serious and urgent steps have to be taken by the government to stop migration threat. Policies with utmost care have to be chiselled taking into account several socio-economic conditions of rural areas in order to stop migration. 

Migration  makes both the migrant and those left being insecure and is a major human security and economic security issue that requires quick attention from the government.

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J. IVVAN LENDIL is a pursuing his undergraduate degree in political science in Madras Christian College. Being a huge fan of P. Sainath, Ivvan shows great interest in rural India currently imperilled by rapid industrialisation and globalisation. Ivvan prefers knowledge gained through first-hand experiences in the field rather than dry data from books. Since these issues in rural India need policy changes to be solved, Ivvan aspires to be a civil servant.