Tag: entrepreneurship

Surender Prasad stands next to his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT)

An aspiration for entrepreneurship

Written by Nima Chodon on December 22, 2020. Posted in News.

The agricultural sector is possibly the largest livelihood provider in India, with the smallholder farming community in the vast Indo-Gangetic Plains making the bulk of it. They are the community responsible for growing the food available on our table. In celebration of India’s National Farmer’s Day on December 23 — known in Hindi as Kisan Diwas — we share the story of a farmer-turned-entrepreneur from eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have invested in supporting smallholder farmers to implement best farming practices and improve yields through sustainable intensification.

“I am a farmer and I am hopeful of a future for my children in the farming sector,” says Surender Prasad, a 52-year-old farmer from Umila village in Santkabir Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh. Prasad is one of the innovative farmers in and around the district who has time and again strived to introduce new implements and technologies on his farm — often a big risk for smallholders like him.

In 2014, Prasad met researchers from CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project while visiting the village Lazar Mahadeva during an inter-district traveling seminar. After seeing the farmer demonstration plots for himself — which, incidentally, is one of the best ways of raising farmer awareness in the region — Prasad was convinced of the efficiency of transplanting rice by machine and using zero tillage in wheat production.

Through his continued association with the project, Prasad has now adopted both practices, in addition to direct seeded rice (DSR) and Laser Land Levelling. With a single 35 horsepower tractor, cultivator and harrow, Prasad was able to improve his wheat grain yield by one ton per hectare during the 2014-15 cropping season, and secure improved profit margins as a result.

Encouraged by these results, in 2018 Prasad purchased a 55 horsepower New Holland Tractor, a Happy Seeder, a tractor-mounted sprayer and other machinery for custom hire under the state government’s machinery bank scheme. His aspiration for entrepreneurship grew in the months following these purchases and he has since established himself as a local service provider, alongside his role as a farmer. According to Prasad, his continued association with CSISA and its network of partners helped him gain better technical knowledge and skills as well as confidence with using conservation agriculture-based machinery, thanks to trainings provided by the project team.

Surender Prasad stands in his field, where wheat grows under rice-crop residue. (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT) — Surender Prasad stands in his field, where wheat grows under rice-crop residue. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)

A budding entrepreneur

Today Prasad is an important entrepreneur in the region, providing custom hiring services for Happy Seeder and DSR and promoting agricultural mechanization in his community. Going forward, scale-appropriate farm mechanization will help farmers in the area to intensify their cropping system at a lower cost, supported by use of the conservation agriculture approaches encouraged by the CSISA project team, which have been shown to improve yields, reduce farmer costs and preserve natural resources. For example, using these best management practices Prasad was able to harvest an additional 1.1 tons of wheat from the 10 acres of land owned by him and his brother, and most farmers in his village now follow his crop management advice.

He is quick to adopt new ideas and has become something of an influencer in the area, earning him friends among the farming community and helping the CSISA team reach more farmers with new innovations.

This year the opportunity for hiring out mechanization services has been immense, largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created difficulties for farmers engaged in rice transplanting. As a result, Prasad managed to sow 90 acres of DSR on his own farm and in the nearby village, as well as seeding 105 acres of wheat in the fall 2020 season. “Thanks to mechanization we were far less affected by the COVID-19 disruptions and managed to plant rice and then wheat without much delay,” he explains. Prasad also provided tractor-mounted sprayer services for applying herbicides and insecticide on 90 acres of rice crop. Considering these successes, he has now planned to offer year-round extension services.

“I feel overwhelmed after serving my own community as a service provider,” says Prasad. “I feel proud of myself when other farmers come asking for my assistance.” Endorsing his contribution as an innovative farmer, the Department of Agriculture for the Government of Uttar Pradesh recognized him with awards in 2015 and 2019. He attributes his success to his exposure to CSISA interventions and support and believes that CSISA acted as a facilitator, encouraging him to use his ideas for his own benefit and for the benefit of the larger agrarian community around him.

Surender Prasad drives his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT) — Surender Prasad drives his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)

Empowered rural women take on entrepreneurship

Written by Nima Chodon on October 9, 2020. Posted in Features.

Sashimoni Lohar, a fifty-three-year-old from Badbil village, in Odisha, is like any other woman you would encounter in India’s rural heartlands. Her life is mostly confined within the boundaries of her home and farm.

The COVID-19 lockdown has been hard on people across India, but particularly agonizing for families like Lohar’s. Both her sons lost their jobs as laborers, one in a town near home, and the other in a city in a different state. Her younger son Debodutta, a migrant laborer stuck in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru when the midnight lockdown was announced, managed to survive and returned home two months later, aggrieved and penniless. Her husband remained the only earning family member, though on a meager salary, and the family dreaded not only the virus but hunger, as the small reserve of income and rations they had was coming to an end.

Lohar was the only one who refused to give up hope. With support from her village self-help group (SHG), she cultivated two acres of hybrid maize this year. The income generated through selling the crop at a roadside stall next to her farm ensured the wellbeing of her family in this critical period. For a brief time, along with her husband’s small income, she became the provider for the family with seven mouths to feed during the lockdown.

Lohar did worry for her jobless sons’ futures but believed that as a successful maize farmer with the skills acquired in the last few years, she can do even better. “Maize farming has supported us during this low-income and very critical period. I shall continue maize cultivation and hope to increase our lease in land next year,” said a visibly triumphant Lohar.

Investing in maize

Today, along with her husband and a new-found entrepreneurial spirit, she hopes to keep Debodutta and her older son closer to home. After lockdown restriction were eased, she invested about Rs.12,000 (roughly US$165) into maize cultivation and set up two stalls by the national highway next to the farm to sell green maize cobs again alongside her family. They made back almost double their investment from less than one acre and she plans to keep the excess as dry grain for the poultry feed mill. A budding entrepreneur full of confidence, Lohar now plans to start a small grocery shop with a loan in the coming months.

A few years ago, many women from these tribal areas in Odisha did not even step out of their houses and villages. They were reluctant to go to the market or the bank – anywhere away from the familiarity of their home. Today, through the opportunities afforded by government economic development programs and collaborations such as the one with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia project (CSISA), these women have established themselves as successful maize farmers and entrepreneurs.

Lohar is just one of many women in the rural villages of Odisha — particularly in Mayurbhanj district where COVID-19 has left many male family members jobless — who either individually or in groups erected about 27 small stalls adjacent to their maize fields to sell green cobs to travelers on the highway. Many are very confident and determined to support and lead their families through this difficult time.

Women shows off maize stall. — Farmer and budding entrepreneur Sashimoni Lohar proudly shows off her new maize stall next to her farm. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CIMMYT)

Engaging tribal groups

Mayurbhanj is a district in Odisha where nearly 58.7 percent of the population are from tribal groups. During the kharif — autumn, monsoon and cultivation — season, thousands of hectares of upland are left fallow, due to lack of education and knowledge and tribal farmers’ low risk-bearing capacity. CSISA began working in the district in 2013, improving farming systems for higher yields and providing sustainable livelihood options for tribal farmers.

From 2013 to 2020, CSISA, in collaboration with the State Department of Agriculture, Department of Horticulture, NGO partners, private seed companies, women SHG federations and the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), helped develop maize cultivation as an important part of the tribal people’s livelihoods. Thousands of hectares of fallow lands are now being converted to cultivate maize, focusing on sustainable agriculture and livelihoods, predominantly involving women as most men were occupied or engaged in migrant jobs. This year alone, more than 100 tribal women from Badbil village have cultivated approximately 120 acres of commercial hybrid maize.

CSISA supports the farmers all the way from sowing to crop harvesting. To strengthen dry grain marketing and to avail the benefits of different schemes under the government of Odisha’s support for farmer producer groups (FPGs), CSISA has formed two women’s FPGs in Badbil alone. Some of the SHGs working with CSISA on maize cultivation in the region in the last four-five years include Maa Jagat Janani, Johar Jaher Aya, Biswa Jay Maa Tarini, Maa Saraswati, Subha Patni, and Maa Brundabati.

The women from the villages in Mayurbhanj have become well-known, both within and outside the district, for their good quality green cobs and marketing intelligence. These women had the courage to change their circumstances and lifted their families out of situations of uncertainty and hardship. The rows of industrious rural women selling maize by the national highway became national news, and many of the state’s media channels that come to cover this story hailed their determination and capacity for income generation, even in a pandemic, as symbols of women’s empowerment in the tribal community.

Cover photo: A womens’ group sells green cobs by the national highway next to their maize farm. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CIMMYT)