Today we had our first meetings for work related purposes. We were unsure of what to expect in the meetings and what our agenda was, so we decided that the best course of action would be to view this as a networking opportunity, and to absorb as much information as possible. These people had years of experience to draw from, and we were on day 1.
The first meeting was with Kiran from Deccan Development Society (http://www.ddsindia.com/www/default.asp). They are concerned with natural resource management, and they work at the village level with the lowest castes to establish control over food sources and markets. Because of government subsidies for rice (which is not the traditional crop in these areas), it has been more economical for people to seek outside work and buy rice instead of farming traditional crops. With loans from Decca, fallow and underutilized land has been used to farm millet, which is more nutritious than rice. The loans are repaid mostly in grain, which is then sold below market prices, providing cheap grain for villagers, and a source of funds for the organization.
Decca also runs schools for children who would have normally not gone to school for economic reasons. They are housed in hostels and given both a traditional school education and training in jobs skills like tiling, agricultural work, electrical work, etc. Upon graduation, the students will have the equivalent of a high school education and an employable skill.
Very interesting, but not very connected to SRI, our area of work.
Our second meeting was with Dr. Ramunjaneyulu of CSA, Community Sponsored Agriculture. He knew we were there to talk about SRI, and jumped into an rapid-fire, extemporaneous criticism that would have passed muster as a conference presentation if he had had a powerpoint presentation behind him. I mean "criticism" in an academic sense here; he clearly shares values and goals with proponents of SRI, and works closely with them in other areas. His criticisms centered around how it was implemented in AP - the recommendations were adopted as gospel, and the difficulties farmers encountered were not acknowledged.
He believes that these types of issues are present in most systems of Indian agriculture. Something works on a small scale, under certain conditions, and that approach is then spread without concern for adapting to local soils, climate, and topography. SRI, he said, works best for small plots of land in hilly country... luckily these are the conditions that are present in the areas JSS serves.
This has been more of a work log than a travelogue, but I know many of you are interested in the social justice/poverty alleviation/resource management issues that we are over here to work on, and I hope you appreciate the change of pace!
The first meeting was with Kiran from Deccan Development Society (http://www.ddsindia.com/www/default.asp). They are concerned with natural resource management, and they work at the village level with the lowest castes to establish control over food sources and markets. Because of government subsidies for rice (which is not the traditional crop in these areas), it has been more economical for people to seek outside work and buy rice instead of farming traditional crops. With loans from Decca, fallow and underutilized land has been used to farm millet, which is more nutritious than rice. The loans are repaid mostly in grain, which is then sold below market prices, providing cheap grain for villagers, and a source of funds for the organization.
Decca also runs schools for children who would have normally not gone to school for economic reasons. They are housed in hostels and given both a traditional school education and training in jobs skills like tiling, agricultural work, electrical work, etc. Upon graduation, the students will have the equivalent of a high school education and an employable skill.
Very interesting, but not very connected to SRI, our area of work.
Our second meeting was with Dr. Ramunjaneyulu of CSA, Community Sponsored Agriculture. He knew we were there to talk about SRI, and jumped into an rapid-fire, extemporaneous criticism that would have passed muster as a conference presentation if he had had a powerpoint presentation behind him. I mean "criticism" in an academic sense here; he clearly shares values and goals with proponents of SRI, and works closely with them in other areas. His criticisms centered around how it was implemented in AP - the recommendations were adopted as gospel, and the difficulties farmers encountered were not acknowledged.
He believes that these types of issues are present in most systems of Indian agriculture. Something works on a small scale, under certain conditions, and that approach is then spread without concern for adapting to local soils, climate, and topography. SRI, he said, works best for small plots of land in hilly country... luckily these are the conditions that are present in the areas JSS serves.
This has been more of a work log than a travelogue, but I know many of you are interested in the social justice/poverty alleviation/resource management issues that we are over here to work on, and I hope you appreciate the change of pace!
