Report from former intern, James Sprunt in India

07 January 2004
James trained at the Seed Centre as an intern in August 2003 for three weeks and went on soon afterwards to work in one of our sister organisations, the GREEN Foundation in India.

Community seed bankers proudly standing in their participatory crop improvement of a finger millet

I am now into the second leg of my trip to India in Jamkhed, Maharashtra teaching on a primary healthcare course (same as the one earlier this year).

My six weeks with the GREEN Foundation was fantastic. The organisation is what I expected and more. Their programs have worked very hard in trying to hang on to, and build on, traditional and indigenous knowledge particularly in terms of agricultural practices and crops grown. They have collaborated with small scale farmers to construct 45 community seed banks which the local farmers (predominantly women) manage and use as the means through which they discuss (usually on a weekly basis) their plans and activities for the weeks and months ahead. This is participation at its best. These 'sanghas' (meetings) are not usually quiet events - one never knows if there is an argument taking place as the noise reaches a crescendo - and then raucous laughter fills the room which allows me to relax a little in the knowledge that events are not becoming too heated.

Community Seed Banks

The community seed bank, as the name suggests, the place that holds some of the community?s stock of seeds. The diversity in one seed bank is astounding: many varieties of finger millets (ragi - one of their staple foods), sorghums, tens of bean varieties, vegetables, paddy rice, dryland rice. The varieties are local - and are constantly improved by plant selection, which is also done in a participatory manner. There is no multinational creating a high yielding (high input) crop in a faraway land. These crops are improved and adapted for local conditions: rainfall, soil, pests and disease resistance, animal feed requirements, etc. By the farmers' admission, these local varieties are much more nutritious than the high yielding varieties ? they need less. If there is a reduction in yield compared with the high yielding variety, this is more than made up for by the additional nutritional value of the local variety.

The seed bank is used for festivals and for income generating activities. Some of these include value adding to the crops they have grown: pickles, delicious millet mixes, powders which are used in hot milk drinks; millet poppadoms (the best poppadoms I have eaten - much thicker like prawn crackers), organic open-pollinated seeds for sale or exchange.

Seed Management Committee

My partner, Beth, and I were fortunate enough to witness a Seed Management Committee (SMC), which consists of two women from each community seed bank from nearby villages. This is the forum through which activities for each community seed bank are discussed as well as the marketing and sales strategies are thought through. Many of these women have had some training in marketing. For all products sold, the SMC receives a small amount. It is also the source of microcredit loans for the women's income generation projects, or other needs they may have. The SMC, especially the initial revolving loan funds was funded by the Seed Savers' Network in Byron Bay, the organisation through which I became connected to the GREEN Foundation.

(Beth has just burst into the room announcing that the proposal she worked on for a Gates Foundation HIV/AIDS project in north east India is looking like being selected which means we are more than likely moving to India early next year.)

Training Key Farmers in Biodynamics

The farmers are predominantly using organic techniques (although some are still in the transition phase from chemical farming). This is where I come into play. After trialling a few different growing techniques on the GREEN Foundations' conservation centre farm, I was fortunate to be asked to re-establish their biodynamic (BD) program with a select group of the best organic farmers. Many of you will be well aware of the value and quality of biodynamic products. If you don?t' know of biodynamics then perhaps you are aware of Steiner schools, an alternative way of educating. Well, Rudolph Steiner is also the mastermind behind biodynamics.

I started with a full day workshop with a number of the better organic farmers from five or six villages and GF field staff. The reason for only including a small number of farmers was to ensure that the time would not be wasted. Experience had shown this method was very useful as these better farmers will then train their own village farmers ? village farmers will often follow the lead of a good local farmer if they can see things have improved for that farmer.

The workshop comprised of both theoretical and practical sessions. The practical sessions included the making of BD compost, a cow pat pit and BD 500 (cow horn manure). Given the importance the cow plays in Indian culture, and the pivotal role it has in BD, it makes a lot of sense that the farmers would grasp BD. At the end of the day we constructed an action plan for my work with the farmers either in individual farms or nearby their community seed banks. Two days later I was on a bus, then a train, for a thirteen hour journey to a sorghum workshop that GF was holding in the north of Karnataka. Five farmers from the southern project area came on what was for some their first journey on a train. It was amazing (and often quite funny) to watch. I gave a short session at the workshop on BD practices (especially in terms of timing) of harvest and grain storage. This was similar to some of the indigenous knowledge, which was reassuring. Many western farmers may have great difficulty in comprehending some of the BD ways, and yet they make a lot of sense to many of the Indian indigenous farmers. After three days of a workshop conducted in a local language, we returned to the conservation centre for a two-day monthly staff meeting at which I again gave a number of sessions to the field staff on BD.

Training in Villages

Now to the villages to work with the farmers. Four days of training in five days including long journeys on the back of 100cc motorbikes on some of the worst roads and the nicest landscapes - a bit of balance I guess. We did all the practical compost, CPP, and BD 500 and in some cases applied BD500 and CPP (purchased from an NGO in India that has been using BD since the mid 90s). The last day was a bit tricky as India was playing Australia in the final of the cricket so we did not manage to collect enough material for the compost. The dedication of that farmer was amazing. My first sight of him the next day was coming though the mist at 7am with what looked like a forest on his head, and from under it, a huge smile (an even bigger one that when I first met him as he had new teeth). This particular farmer has been used as a resource person to teach other farmers practices such as permaculture garden design and vermicompost. We finished the compost, had breakfast, had some photos with the family - who, although they didn't speak English, had shown me the most beautiful hospitality whether it be for breakfast, sitting with the two sons (who did speak a bit of English and who could give every cricket statistic ever, while watching the cricket on TV and doing homework, all at the same time) and the grandfather who would sit and quietly read always with a nice peaceful smile. People from the west could learn a lot from village people - although they have little in terms of material wealth relative to westerners (only 2 acres and a nice small house), their giving and peacefulness was extreme. They are intelligent, patient and could teach us all a lot.

Conclusion

It was then back to the GF farm to share with the staff the sweets we had bought. More photos than imaginable followed this. Every staff member, of whom there was about ten, wanted a personal photo with Beth and me. Some of these were even taken on the bike. Then we were gone. I think we achieved a lot in a small space of time but this will depend upon the staff ensuring the work continues. I think it will but only time will tell. Their young field staff are a great bunch of mainly young men with various levels of education.

I must run. I have about five sessions to prepare for this primary health course including development, globalisation, agriculture and the environment. It has been rewarding yet very tiring - I need to get some patience and fast. There has not been a day in which everything has run smoothly - a great learning curve for me. It has given me more confidence in my abilities to adapt though which is great.

As well everything on this course I just remembered I have to edit a book entitled: Investing in Indigenous Knowledge, the most recent publication by the GREEN Foundation. Bye for now