Section - IX - The crucial 1/2 acre of land as a beginning

In the preceding sections we had talked about the inability of the dryland or a farmer with less water than optimal to do cultivation in his complete area of the land. S/he would leave some land fallow without using it or only doing rainfed farming to some extent.

Step 1: So the starting point is to identify one such farmer (need not have to be a progressive / philantropic farmer). Negotiations are done with the farmers to partake with 1/2 an acre of land for beginning the work. Sometimes it is also done in such a way as to identify the net profit s/he would have got from the land and then compensating him/her for the same either by employing one of the 5 women to be the farmer's wife so that the farmer's family gets 1/5th of the share of the produce ( which would invariably be higher than the net profit that the farmer would have got from the land) or an MOU is signed with the farmer by the organisation stepping in as a Leasing Company paying out a lease to the farmer for 5 years ( typically in the region of Rs. 2000 / year). But one small condition is that some water is assured for this plot of land

Step 2: 5 landless Women ( or one of the women is from the farmer's family) are given "Food-for work" (EGA, Rs. 60 per person per day for 100 days either as cash or grains) to work on this 1/2 acre of land. These women typically are from the Self Help Groups (SHG). This could be seen as a value-addition to SHG itself. If NREGA is already in place then it should be utilised. Whichever district at present has NREGA, there is a movement taken up by organisations to fight for making this work for the people. So as a value-addition to such mobilisation by organisations this can be taken up. Since the landless would have a stake and entitlements through this process they would be in a position to demand the same from the Gram Sabha. The Organisations should play a facilitating role

Step 3: These women will then start using the various organic farming techniques on this land to improve the water utilisation, soil preparation , soil nutrition improvements, water holding capacity etc., These women also combine the various innovative practices around the country. The target ouput for them is to achieve 10T in ½ acre) per year! To begin with they would use the Renke method of High Biomass input. Most of the EGA in the first year is used up for the collection of Biomass and preparation of the Compost. The quantity of Biomass needed is 1.2 Tons / Guntha!!! Obviously this is a very high Input but since the intent is to show spectacular / matching results in the first year itself rather than waiting for a slow upgradation of the soil in 2-3 years this much input is needed. This would take care of the 2 percieved problems of low productivity and long gestation periods of organic farming

Step 4: Since the output is a minimum of 10000 Kgs of vegetables. Even if the vegetables sell at Rs. 3 per kilo ( but normally the price is on an average Rs. 6) then from the 1/2 acre it comes to Rs. 30000 which is equal to the EGA we have provided for the women. So we are indirectly recovering the cost of the EGA!! Each woman will now have the entitlement to 1/5th of this which is Rs. 6000 from this plot.From some of the Microplanning data we have collected, the farmers get around only Rs. 2000 from 3 acre plots!! Thus we have a program for the first time which talks of ensuring the entitlements to these resource poor women (Section-II), actually this is the USP of the whole Intervention....

Why Vegetables?

1. Vegetables are high value crops because of their perishable nature
2. They are short term crops (45-60 days) with a chance of doing 3-4 cycles in a year
3. Since they can be repeated over 3-4 cycles, if for some reason a mistake happens and the crop is lost there is still a chance of doing 2-3 cycles more and overcome the loss due to the mistake


The Effect of this 1/2 acre in overcoming some of the problems mentioned in the previous sections

This 1/2 acre would thus try and overcome 3 serious limitations mentioned in the previous sections

1. Entitlements to the Resource poor (Section - II)

2. NREGA is being used for capacity building and creation of assets wherein the labourers also have some stake and sense of belonging for the work they are doing. The more they take interest in developing their portion of the land, the more they can grow and more the earnings (Section - III)

3. This would also break the perceptions of low productivity and long gestation periods of organic farming (Section - VIII)