RID POVERTY & HUNGER IN 50 INDIAN TRIBAL VILLAGES

THE EARTH TRUST (ET) REPORT JANUARY  TO MAY 2022

 Safe food through sustainable agriculture 

and

Womens Programme For Optimal Health and Skill Development

The first quarter of the year saw annual village festivals including the Pongal festival that is celebrated not just in the district, but in the state. As always, ET works around local cultural compulsions.

In January, focus shifted to the training of our own team which is an ongoing ‘on the job ‘ exercise anyway . We are proud that Nadiya, the little girl who grew up on our farms where her mother worked, is now a mother of a 4 year old daughter. Nadiya, a single mother had lost touch with writing just a year ago when we employed her. She can now do simple maths and even maintain farm records. Nadiya’s bonus is that her own little girl ‘learns through farming’ by mimicking  her mum and grandmum at work!

During February, we visited the small farmers of the Earth Trust collective in Gudalur in the lower Nilgiri hills and brought back their produce ranging from organic red heirloom rice to spices for sale at a farmer protection price. These person to person interactions help in both bonding and networking where contact on the phone fall dismally short. The same team comprising  of a budding solo farmer from the upper hills , ET staff and a trustee also visited  a cattle shelter for old and ‘retired’ cows run by the district Jain Trust followed by IPAN  an initiative that gives succour to abandoned animals. We usually transport and distribute cow dung and vermicompost produced by these organisations to our farms and farmers. This is an ET effort to partner with others who also champion the cause of the biosphere that we share.

In March, a Festival of Traditional Seeds was organised by a small organic farmer in collaboration with another NGO at Degalai village near Kotagiri. This event turned out to be a sacred gathering for the Earth Trust seed savers, Dhana, Chitra and Ranjit who displayed their heirloom seeds with much pride. Seed savers from other indigenous communities also exhibited their booty. The participants returned home with a renewed commitment to saving and sharing seeds, especially those seeds that are in danger of being lost to the next generation.

We celebrated our small women farmers on and after International Women’s days with posts dedicated to them on our Instagram page (@theearthtrustnilgiris).

Our 3 month Womens programme was inaugurated at Kollimalai village, which is home to the Kotha community and our own Biodynamic farm, Manaara too.

Besides the routine skill development platform of tailoring, crochet knitting and optimal health, our students (most of whom are landless), have begun to cultivate a kitchen garden on 5 cents of land lent to them by a generous older woman compatriot, Nachiaamma. This is a small but significant attempt to grow one’s own safe food and an experiment in taking women who are essentially from an agrarian race back to their roots and the soil. We have the magnanimity of Nachiamma to thank for being instrumental in realizing this dream both for herself and for the Earth Trust.

Nachiamma is willing to lend them more of her land  … she will wait and watch to see how things pan out on the small piece of  land she has given our Kollimalai trainees most of whom are related to her.

With the covid numbers dwindling, we hope to move forward with greater zeal and energy in our quest for safe food, good health and livelihoods in the Nilgiri hills over the coming year!

THE EARTH TRUST REPORT OCTOBER TO DECEMBER 2021

Safe food through sustainable agriculture  and

Women's Programme For Optimal Health through Skill Development

October

In keeping with the Earth Trust philosophy to sensitise young people to protect their future world, we had the pleasure of training two agriculture students who interned with us. They were trained in the various methods of organic cultivation at our farms. They also learnt the nuances of the supply chain from procurement of produce from the farmer to packing and dispatch, besides the nuances of customer interaction and consumer behavior.

As part of ET’s ongoing farmer mentoring, motivating and motivating we inducted a farmer couple belonging to the local Kotha tribe. Traditionally the Kothas farmed the organic way and this couple wished to return to sustainable agriculture with the help of our training and minimum support price. The literate wife was able to read a book on organic farming written by the district horticulture department that we lent and explain concepts to her unlettered husband who is a hands-on farmer.

ET was also instrumental in initiating a movement called CMC safe harvest at a Medical college campus miles at Vellore away from the Nilgiris. It connected local Vellore natural farmers (who were struggling without a fair price), to an outlet that serves 3000 health conscious customers who are health professionals. We send hill vegetables to the same group when available and volunteer to manage the activities (including awareness creation) on the group remotely. This group has opened many eyes to the down side of chemical cultivation.

October saw extremely cold and misty weather but our marketing team carries on with fervour to help with picking up vegetables from small farmers across the district and reaching it to customers in the cities far away.

The Earth Trust conducted a Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign in MelKatty village where our  Womens programme  was going on. Owing to Covid restrictions we could address only 12 of our students, but found a way of spreading the message by announcing a competition wherein the one who informed the most number of other women known to them would win a prize. This way breast cancer awareness reached at least 100 other women!

November

ET, as a persistent champion for safe food and sustainable agriculture, is represented on the core committee at TOHFA, the body instituted by the government to make the entire district organic. The AGM of TOHFA was held in early November and ET  continues to be an active motivator beyond its own NGO boundaries. It also continues to contribute to framing of state government policies and keeps the conversation of safe food alive.

As part of the District Steering Committee for Fairtrade towns (www.fairtradetowns.org) ET organised the Nilgiri Fair trade towns week. ET hosted the event for Coonoor town at our Coonoor sales outlet at Birdhouse a backpacker’s hostel. We had an informal interaction on Wild Nilgiri Plants as Food and Medicine attended by many Coonoor citizens and our regular patrons. The intention of this event was to bring other initiatives working with disabilities, tribal welfare, solid waste management etc under one roof to strengthen the combined effort towards sustainability. ET organised a similar Fairtrade towns event in Ooty where our trainees from Mekavatty village met with the district head of horticulture to understand the districts efforts and incentives available for organic farmers. We also organised a session on Sustainable Menstruation by an expert which had a lasting impact.

December

At the culmination of our 3 month health and skill development programme in Melkavatty we held a valedictory ceremony where we distributed a course completion certificate each in health and tailoring, knitting and crochet. We also distributed rooted herb cuttings developed on our Biodynamic farm Manaara to intitiate micro level herb cultivation. The ET certificate is greatly respected by government welfare schemes and gets top priority among those aspiring for free sewing machines.

ET understands that its mission has greater impact when it partners with other like minded platforms. It coordinated a combined effort to introduced dry groceries to the CMC Safe harvest group created in October and which now has close to 100 members. We partnered with two other initiatives from Tamil Nadu ie  Sittilingi Organic farmers Association (SOFA) which is a group of 500 millet farmers who were badly hit during the pandemic. This was also an opportunity to popularise millets which are by default, organic. The other was Idler’s farm, a small sustainable farm cum café which employs villagers in a very small village where other means of employment were non-existent during the pandemic. The sale was well received and created much awareness on the importance of safe food on health and environment.

2021 ended with a bang with two of our small farmers receiving a medal and citation for their contribution to organic farming from the state government at a function organised at Ooty attended by farmers and other stake holders. This was particularly uplifting as both these farmers had struggled hard to keep afloat against all odds during the toughest two years in the world’s battle against a virus that mutates just when the seed is sown with the hope that the pandemic has been conquered!