Teaching farming to over 1,000 families in India

In this report we are delighted to be sending you our latest Annual Review for 2018/19 and this recent case study from West Bengal.

Case Study

Meet Raju (centre of above photo), a young man of 23 years old living with his parents in one of the many villages on the outskirts of Kolkata. Raju’s father (pictured on the left) has been farming a small plot of leased land all his adult life and his two sons grew up helping him too, but, as the costs of farming increased year on year and his yield decreased, it became a struggle to earn enough to provide for the whole family. Gradually he fell more and more into debt, resorting to taking loans from expensive and unscrupulous money-lenders. Seeing no future in farming, Raju’s brother moved to Kolkata in search of work and has not been home since. Raju began to think this was the only option left to him as well so, in a desparate search for work, he booked a train ticket to Chennai, a city over 1,000 miles from home.

At this point, Raju and his father found out about our programme, Agri-management Services, and they both attended a community meeting in the village hosted by our field team. We introduced the programme and explained how our farming techniques and services could make their farming business profitable again by reducing their input costs and increasing their yields. Raju was reluctant to join, especially as he now had his train ticket to Chennai in his pocket. Our LSP managed to persuade him to stay for at least one more crop cycle to prove that AMS really works and would bring the results to turn their farming business around. Raju stayed and they completed our training programme. At the end of that season they made a profit of Rs. 10,000 (about £114). Raju and his father were delighted, reporting they had never made this much profit in their whole life.

Raju now says that cancelling the train ticket and joining our AMS programme was the best decision he had ever taken in his life. He is now leasing an additional plot of land and, alongside his father, is growing crops based on our training and guidance, using mainly bio-fertilisers rather than chemicals. They have already repaid the money-lender and so now their income can be used to care for the family. Raju told his friends who moved to the city about our programme and how well he is doing back in the village. Three of his friends have come home and they too have joined our AMS programme. To add to his success, Raju is now seen as a very eligible bachelor and is receiving many proposals of marriage!

Thank you for helping Raju to make the best decision of his life!

With best wishes from the team at Shivia

UN Sustainable Development Goals

AMS is aligned to Goal 12: Responsible Production and Consumption

• Shivia's Annual Review (PDF)