When being political makes good business sense

“Some years ago, if we wanted to bring up issues in the gram sabha [village council] about building a pond in the village or something else, there was no place for us women to sit and talk to the sarpanch or the adhyaksh [president] of the village council,” says Godawari Maravi.

Things have changed to a great extent since then but not without the grit and persistence of the women PARI met in Bargagaon, Madhya Pradesh on a rainy day in July 2024.

Godawari and six other members of the all-female Halchalit Mahila Kisan Women Producer Company Limited (HMKWPC) had arrived in the morning. They were seated in the large shed-like office cum warehouse, with a tin roof and walls, located in Samnapur block of Dindori district. A chair and table with a computer, a few shelves and an air-cooler define the small office on one side of the entrance.

The name of the producer company originated through the women’s pride in identifying themselves as farmers. Since working with a hal or plough is traditionally considered a man’s job, they challenged this belief to refer to themselves as women who use the plough – hal chalit. And so the name – Halchalit Mahila Kisan Women Producer Company. Today they have 1,400 registered members who are also shareholders.

Two of its members, Godawari Maravi, 44 and Devaki Wagle, 47, live in Bargagaon (also called Barga village) and have walked to the office. The other women have travelled from their homes in Samnapur block by autorickshaws, or rode pillion on a motorcycle with a family member.

Godawari Maravi is now the Chairperson. She begins by telling us how traditionally, farmers here did not use chemical inputs, but that gradually changed from 2010 when use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides in agriculture became the norm. Since 2022 however, many farmers in Dindori district are trying to move to organic or natural farming, or a combination of both. They are supported and encouraged by organisations working to promote non-chemical agriculture.

“We give organic seeds to the farmers. When the field is ploughed along with grass, weeds and harpatwar [stubble], these get mulched in the soil and are the first natural fertiliser,” Godawari tells us.

In September, after Teej Tyohar (a religious festival celebrated in the monsoon) at the time of sowing, they apply the matka khad which is a natural fertiliser with cow dung as the main ingredient. After the seeds germinate and the stalks come up a little, when the pods develop, they give a vermiwash (liquid fertiliser from vermicompost beds).

“We have followed this procedure for kutki [little millet] and that has increased our yield by one to one and a half quintals,” says Godawari.

They focus on kodo millet and arhar (red gram). Using the mixed seed sowing method, they blended five kilograms of kodo seeds with about half a kilo of arhar and provided it to three farmers in the region. These were sown using the kataar vidhi or line seeding method. This required less quantities of seed than broadcast seeding. The farmers got a yield of 10 quintals of kodo and two quintals of arhar from the five and a half kg of mixed seed.

Kutki is a staple food here, the women tell us. In a four-acre plot for the millet, they leave one half fallow for a year and sow seeds in the other half. The next year they reverse the plots. Leaving the soil uncultivated for one season gives it time to revive and rejuvenate. This is also one of the principles of natural farming. “The mavesi [cattle] graze on these grounds and that too adds to the fertility of the soil,” says Godawari.

The consistent use of natural and organic methods has shown a good result. “Earlier, from one acre, we got 3-4 quintals of millets. Now that has increased to 5-6 quintals.”

Along with kodo-kutki and arhar [red gram] they also add oil seeds like alsi (flax seed), jagni or ramtil (niger seed). This technique of mixed cultivation helps prevent pest attacks. With a variety of different plants in the field, insects cannot devour them the way they can devour a single crop.

By encouraging natural and organic methods, their goal is to increase crop yields and discourage chemical input agriculture.

However, chemical inputs are still used for growing paddy. Mamta Shyam from Bijapur village, a board member of the HMKWPC says, “my family has a 3.5-acre farm in low-lying land. For us, growing dhan [paddy] is the only option. We have to use chemical fertilisers to get good yields and sell them in the market.”

There are two kinds of land in this rain-fed agricultural region. The low-lying fields are used for growing paddy as they fill up with sufficient rain water in the monsoon. The bharra zameen (barren undulated fields) on higher land are suitable for kodo and kutki cultivation.

All the women agree that in the future they want to follow similar natural and organic farming practices for paddy, and millets are just the beginning. Although this warehouse unit where we are meeting is only a year old, many farmers come here to find out how much these women earn from the organic produce. “Even the kisan bhai [men farmers] are beginning to think about how they can gradually change and move to chemical-free agriculture,” says Godawari.

Apart from their daily household chores, as part of the producer organisation, these women farmers face challenges of both the drudgery of working on their own farms – the repetitive hard labour of weeding – and managing the HMKWPC. One of these challenges was the decrease in production of kodo and kutki due to low rates in the market. To counter this problem, they decided to increase the selling rate from Rs. 20-25 to Rs. 37-42 per kilogram. It helped that their competitor producer companies also increased the rates. It helped even more that the government promoted consumption of millets in the International Year of Millets in 2023.

In terms of natural farming – kutki is the main crop for the HMKWPC. They are also trying to grow a value chain on the little millet. Even if a farmer sells two quintals of it in a year out of the four quintal yield on a one acre farm, the average increase in gross income is Rs. 8,000. The company procures grain from farmers and removes the brownish skin in their processing machine to develop the polished light brown grain. One kilogram of processed kutki sells at about Rs. 100. Many people prefer this variety as it retains some fibre and is healthier than the completely polished white variety. The producer company has managed to increase kutki production by 30 to 40 per cent since starting their operations in 2022. Their long-term target is to produce about 100 to 150 metric tons each year.

But producing paddy through HMKWPC is a huge challenge. “To produce dhan, you need a minimum 25 lakhs rupees investment and you have to pre-book the seeds in February. Only then can you get them in June for sowing. For pre-booking, you need to give 50 per cent advance which is around 12 Lakh rupees. Only then we can do paddy business,” says Harshit Chauhan of PRADAN, the organisation supporting the HMKWPC.

In 2023, HMKWPC made a loss because of no rain and lack of sufficient production. In the last financial year (2023-24), their revenue went down from Rs. 70.5 lakh to a little short of Rs. 25 lakh. That is a huge loss, considering that the revenue had been going up steadily from 2020-21 to 2022-23.

HMKWPC had taken loans through a non-banking finance company (NBFC) at a high interest rate (14 per cent interest plus one per cent transaction charges). They were not able to get government grants due to lack of a proper accounting system and process in place. Gaps in the manual records – mistakes or rather human errors that they couldn’t explain to the auditors – were daunting and difficult to overcome.

But they went about tackling it with vigour. They hired and trained one person from the district to handle a computerised accounting system and changed their process from keeping manual registers to keeping digitised records. Kirti Talia, who lives in Angwar village, near Samnapur is a BSc. Biology graduate and pursuing an online MBA course. She has learned basic accounting and is responsible for managing all the necessary procedures for the operation of HMKWPC.

The financial recovery from the earlier downturn of 2023-24 is likely to start from 2024-25 onwards. What the group has to deal with are the most basic issues that women farmers everywhere face – healthcare access and managing homes and fields.

Mamta says there is a primary healthcare centre, “sirf dikhave ke liye hai [the centre is just a showpiece].” ASHA (accredited social health activist) do their work in the villages and aanganwadis are functional for pregnant women and young children. “But when someone needs to be taken to hospital, there is no transport available to go to the district, except on their own motorcycles,” she adds.

The women have no choice but to do their household chores themselves, but they divide the burden of the hard farm work, Godawari tells us. “If five of us are sharing the work, we space out the activities of ropai, nindai, katai [sowing, weeding, harvesting]. We keep some days between sowing in one field and the next. Aapsi sahyog aur adla badli se ho jata hai [we manage everything with mutual cooperation and working on each other’s fields]. This way, we also don’t have to spend money on hiring labour.”

Processing the millets would have been difficult to achieve without the training they got from the processing machine manufacturers from Nashik.

“We learned how to deal in business to some extent after the training and support from PRADAN,” says Godawari. But selling the produce is even more challenging than processing the millets that arrive at their unit.

She goes on to add: “I had no idea about what is required to sell a product in the market. When I went to Jabalpur to talk to traders, pata nahin tha ke product ki gunvattayen batani padti hain [I didn’t know that the features and composition of our product had to be identified].”

Identifying product composition is required to get an FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) licence for selling processed products. The composition must be printed on the package label.

“We couldn’t say what is the percentage of protein, carbohydrate and such composition of the kutki chawal [dehusked little millet] that we wanted to sell in the market.” She learned from a trader in Jabalpur that FSSAI can help a seller in adding this information to the product package.

Harshit explained that they were aware that certain logos have to be displayed on the product package as per FSSAI requirements. “But we didn’t know there is more to it – that the nutrition content on the packaging such as protein, iron, sugar, carbohydrates etc. also has to be mentioned. To get this information, we have to first get it tested in a laboratory. And they will come to us every six months to verify the information. Only then can we legally sell our product in the market.”

The Halchalit team got in touch with the Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR) Hyderabad to help reach FSSAI. They also got in touch directly with the krishi vibhag (department of agriculture) for getting a mandi (market) licence, without which one cannot sell in the market.

“For every new product this [license] is required. At this time, we are selling kodo, kutki, paddy and vegetables. Which means that we need the licence and other information for these. If we add a new produce or product, we will have to do the same for it. Slowly, we began to understand these things, how to expand our business.,” says Godawari.

HMKWPC’s 1,400 registered members are shareholders. Each share costs Rs. 500. There are 12 board members. Among the women PARI met, Godawari, 44, Bhuvaneshwari, 52, Mamta, 42, Dropti, 52 and Ramkali, 45 are board members. Devaki, 47 and Kirti, 26 are ordinary members of the producer company. All members are women farmers. An FPC is a Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) that is registered as a company under the Companies Act 2013. An FPO can also be registered as a cooperative society.

While Ramkali and Kirti are Panika (Other Backward Class), Godawari and Mamta are Pardhan Adivasis, which is a subgroup of the Gond tribal community while Dropti, Devaki and Bhuvaneshwari are Gond Adivasi women.

In July 2024, the Government of India announced that 10,000 FPOs were allocated to 14 implementing agencies, out of which 8,780 FPOs have been registered across the country. There are 614 of these in Madhya Pradesh. Across the country, 810 FPOs have an all-women membership.

Harking back to the old times when the men in the gram sabha ignored issues raised by women, Godawari says, “The sarpanch [president] would not even take an aavedan [application] from us. We were simply ignored! That is when we realised that we have to be politically strong.”

Godawari Maravi is now the Chairperson of the Halchalit Mahila Kisan Women Producer Company Limited. It has not been an easy transition for this woman farmer. The process entailed building trust at the family and community level as well as standing up to troublemakers and participating in village and district level elections. She has also been a janpad sadasya – a member of the zilla parishad in Dindori district.

When Godawari first joined an SHG (self-help group), there were problems: “my husband was a little suspicious about where I was going, who I was meeting, and such. But then, when we started with cultivating vegetables, in the first year itself, using the natural farming techniques, we were able to earn 10-15,000 rupees. That made a difference.”

And then people in the village realised that they were doing good work. “After that my husband didn’t stop me or question me if I went out for SHG work or later when we formed the FPO.”

When the women went to Dindori town for three days of training, some of the men in the village belittled them and made snide remarks about their three-day absence from their homes. Now some of the same men from their villages come to their office to ask for information on cultivation cycles and to buy seeds.

As we said goodbye, Godawari told us what they would say in response to the nasty remarks by men. Raising their fists, they said in unison, “hum Bharat ki nari hain, phool nahi chingari hain – we are women of India, we are sparks, not flowers.”