Introduction

Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems is a non-governmental organization working towards promotion of indigenous agriculture. Our target audience is small and marginal farmers. Our focus areas are biodiversity conservation, organic agriculture and vrkshayurveda. We do both action research and extension work. We are currently working with a network of 3000 farmers spread over five districts of Tamil Nadu.

The organic farmers' sangams have benefited immensely from the construction of seed storage structures with support from the Cottonwood foundation .

Our programmes are implemented through Organic Farmers Sangams (OFS) (associations/ groups) that we form in every village. The idea of establishing these organic farmers sangams is to empower small and marginal farmers to handle sustainable agriculture programmes effectively on their own after any project. During a particular project period our organization provides support and prepares them for effective and sustainable running of the programme after the project period is over.

One of the activities that is being promoted by these sangams is organic cultivation of indigenous rice varieties. There are a large number of indigenous varieties which can be cultivated organically with low inputs with good returns. CIKS has been providing farmers the initial supply of these seeds through various programmes. The OFS is in charge of supply and maintenance of these seeds to the members. The farmers associations have made a common decision that they would return twice the quantity of seeds that they take initially from the seed bank. They would use part of these seeds to provide seed supply to other farmers in the village and neighbouring villages. Part of it would also be marketed and the income would be used for common activities to promote organic agriculture in the village.

Besides returning twice the quantity of seeds to the seed bank these farmers have also been encouraged to market their surplus collectively. Volunteers from OFS are involved in procuring quality products (standards are evolved by the farmers) from their members. All these grains procured from the farmers need to be stored in a common place. The grains have to be stored for at least six months before it can be processed (if it is processed before that the quality of the rice is not very good). It is difficult for farmers to store it in their houses since they do not have provisions to keep it away from pests and rodents. In fact, most of the farmers end up selling their product as grains immediately after harvest for a much lower price because of lack of good storage place.

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Work undertaken with support from Cottonwood Foundation

To overcome these problems the OFS members decided to have a common storage structure in their villages. The cost for construction of these structures were raised in several ways. For construction of 10 storage structures partial support (about 60%) was provided by a funding agency CAPART – functioning under the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. Farmers contributed nearly 30% in the form of labour and materials. About 10% was provided as support from Cottonwood Foundation. Farmers from these 10 villages in the Kancheepuram district of Tamilnadu currently have completed their common storage structures with this support. The dimension of these storage structures are 10’ x 10’ with proper roofing and ventilation.

Farmers construct a common storage structure in a village . Thanks to structures like this one, farmers no longer have to sell their produce immediately after harvest - and can instead wait until they get better prices.

Benefits from the project

• Currently, farmers are able to store their grains properly after harvest.

• Farmers are able to process these grains into rice and sell it when they get a good price.

• Farmers have also organized a community seed bank by making use of this community storage structure.

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Ways in which the funding from Cottonwood foundation has made a difference

• OFS members have organized a Community Seed Bank (CSB) utilizing this common storage structure. Each member is provided the required seeds as loan from the CSB and after harvest every member returns twice the quantity of seeds to the seed bank. The returned seeds are carefully stored in these common structures and would be utilized by the farmers during the next season. The additional seeds are shared with other villagers and part of it is also converted to rice and the additional income is generated for the OFS. Seed is very basic to agriculture and farmers are able to have access to their own indigenous seeds through these CSBs.
  
  

  Lighting a lamp to inmaugurate one of the storage structures the traditional South Indian way.

  
  
• The community storage structures have also helped the farmers to market their products very effectively. Since small and marginal farmers most often do not have proper storage facilities they would sell their products immediately after harvest. In fact, buyers would come to the fields and collect the grains soon after harvest. The buyers would dictate the price and farmers had no choice but to sell it at that price. After the construction of these community storage structures farmers are able to store the grains and sell it for a good price. The farmers also have entered into collective marketing of their products directly to consumers. This has helped raise their income levels.
• To sum up this project has helped farmers store their produce and and a result, get better prices for it.

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