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PROJECT VISHWAS
Hope Farm
Summary:
Location: Patharlepalle, District: Anantapur, State: Andhra Pradesh, India
Nearest City: Bangalore, 140 km
Logistics: 2 ½ hours by road, soon to be reduced to 1 ½ hours after completion of the highway
Patharlepalle is a village of circa 300 families with a population of around 1200 people. Located in Andhra Pradesh state of southern India, it is part of Anantapur district, which is the second most drought-affected district of India. Over the years the process of desertification has been taking place in large tracts of the district because of soil erosion and sand casting on the one hand, and mono-cropping, chemicalisation, deforestation, excess use of ground water on the other. The total forest cover in the district is less than 5% of the total area. The landscape is undulating and has large arid, treeless expanses of poor soils. Due to the impoverished soil conditions, the scanty rainfall, indiscriminate grazing and poor protection, many of the forests have almost disappeared. Most parts of the district are desolate and barren.
Land ownership in Patharlepalle is fragmented with very small holdings mostly difficult to cultivate due to the sheer lack of resources – knowledge, water and plot size. Quite unconsciously, the people have been neglecting the natural resources and traditional genetic base that they had inherited both from their forefathers and nature.
Patharlepalle Village
Apart from land issues, the children of the village have no opportunities to progress. Nearly every family has one person working in the nearby silk industry or in cities in very low paid jobs. Education is an issue, although there is a school a few miles from the village where the children are enrolled.
The primary source of income for the villagers is agriculture and silkworm rearing. Agricultural yield is circa £200 per acre growing mainly rain fed cash crops. But they still buy vegetables from the market!
“Project Vishwas” is the brain child of Jeremy and Deepa D’Souza, who purchased some arid land in the village and in the last three years realised the need to contribute towards the upliftment of the villagers. This project is aimed at providing community support in terms of awareness of better farming techniques, ways to harvest rain water, looking at weather resistant strains of seeds, providing life skills coaching to the children and follow through with their education in the local school, involving the women in economic activity and restoring ecological balance in the micro area. Without being too ambitious, this can be used as a pilot project and extended in the neighbouring villages in the future.
Some Facts:
The following points provide some technical facts about the district which Patharlepalle is part of and therefore share these characteristics in various measures.
Loss of Vegetation
About 10% of the district is hills, which at one time helped in conserving soil and water while providing green manure and agricultural tools, minor timber and fuel wood for household use and grasses for the cattle. However large scale logging of the trees and then even shrubs in the remaining patches of green on the hills, has increased the rain water run off dramatically. This has lead to severe erosion of topsoil and very poor recharging of ground water. Today the hills provide only very little grass for cattle grazing, and some wood for fuel while the continuous usage of them further damages the soil and prevents it from recovering.
Reduced water storage
Tanks, farm ponds and springs had traditionally been the main source of irrigation in the area for the past millenium and they continue to be so in most villages. These tanks were neglected during the period of British rule, a policy that has not changed since Independence. Increased siltation due to the high rate of runoff, which carries away the precious topsoil, has significantly reduced the water holding capacity of most tanks and so their capacity to provide irrigation water to the farmers. Today, few tanks hold water throughout the year. More and more of these tank beds are being used byinfluential people as agricultural land and when the tanks breach, instead of getting them repaired the local governments have been issuing house building sites, a policy that is extremely short sighted in its approach.
Low Ground Water Levels
With poor recharge the open wells are going dry. This has led to overexploitation of artesian sources of ground water through surface bore wells or in well bores, an option that is open only to rich peasants. Water levels have sunk to great depths of over 200 to 300 feet, from earlier 15 to 20 feet a couple of decades ago.
Erratic Cropping Pattern
The over exploitation of ground water has gone along with a shift away from traditional consumption crops to water intensive cash crops. The farmers have been getting caught in the whirlpool of colourful dreams being projected by successive Governments and international companies, which lead them to alienation from the seeds and animals bred locally, which had sustained their forefathers. Nowadays groundnut has become the single major crop in Anantapur. Instead of creating wealth for the farmers, the cropping pattern has decreased the ground water levels, leading to erosion of the soil and the farmers have become increasingly impoverished and dependent on external powers they cannot control.
Dried up tanks
Loss of traditional species and genetic resources
Massive propaganda and subsidy has promoted the use of hybrid and improved variety of seeds. These seeds need better treatment and more water, they are neither hardy nor pest resistant and they do not supply enough fodder either. The seed is almost worthless for the next crop. Today many indigenous seed varieties are not available even if the farmers want to use them. At the same time, most of the traditional genetic strains of cattle are fast disappearing. In some places the local bulls have been consciously wiped out to introduce foreign strains such as Jersey. These have not done so well and in the bargain the rich local genetic resource, capable of surviving these harsh weather conditions, is gone. Similarly, the traditional poultry are in a mess. Anantapur district alone is supposed to have had more than 40 pure strains of fowl; today they have barely managed to identify 23 varieties that too with a lot of cross breeding. The market has been flooded with “Broiler” chickens for commercial consumption, which are grown in the most unnatural manner fed with chemicals that are known to be carcinogenic.
Many are unaware that Anantapur district had more than 300 to 400 traditional varieties of rice at one time and almost none of them are sure how, where and when they were grown. Much of the medicinal herbs that used to be seen commonly even 20 years ago are not easily found today. Those who used to know about them have taken this knowledge to their graves.
The Plan:
The main trustees of this project own 14 acres of very arid land in Patharlepalle which had not been cultivated for five decades till three years ago. This parcel of land had 18 signatories, which speaks of the fragmented ownership. The purchase of this land was seen with lot of apprehension by the villagers, who initially thought the move to be purely a commercial development with a future sell off plan. However, now that they are certain of the intentions of a definite integration into their local community, sentiments are positive and supportive.
We have secured half an acre (21780 sq ft) of this land towards the project as a donation. The current value of this donation is roughly £2000
The next steps:
A ‘community centre’ is proposed to be built on this land. The centre will be used to bring the people of the village together and introduce them to various new skills.
Short-term targets will include involving the villagers and improving their economic output through new skills, facilities and options and could include:
• Awareness of farming techniques to make this land yield more
Identify alternate methods of farming
Identify alternate crops for their land
Better methods of water harvesting
Drilling Bore wells
• Women’s empowerment through learning new skills
Immediate involvement in skilled output – handicraft, commercially viable products
• New ways of earning through pisci-culture in the artificially created water bodies
Long- term targets would be based on gradual improvement of life style, skill sets, attitudes and overall standards of outputs from this community and could be achieved through:
• Alternative education for children
Life skills
Computer skills
Entrepreneurial skills
• Ecological restoration and natural resource management
Starting with tending their land and initiating a process of identifying water resources
Planting saplings and tending them
Develop a vegetation cover to prevent run off of top-soil
Rain water harvesting
• Awareness building and leadership development among local youth, disadvantaged and the disabled for self betterment
Capacity building for local self governance
The community centre will be the hub of all social activity in the village. A retired school teacher or public servant would be employed full time to provide after school help to the children on their school curriculum and drive them to continue with their education. He will also be the mainstay to coordinate activities and programmes for the villagers and provide support on communication in the local language.
Immediate Requirement:
The ‘community centre’ is required to be built immediately. Although some awareness of the intention has already been spread amongst the villagers, they are very apprehensive of ‘lip service’ of any kind, which they have experienced over the years, mostly during elections. The building will instil belief in the project by bringing tangibility.
Our proposal is for a built up structure of 2400 sq feet – 40’ x 60’, using local labour and local raw materials – timber, thatch, rocks and some concrete.
To keep costs low, initially if the plan includes a concrete floor, open sides and thatched canopy as roof – for people to gather in and be spoken to. This space could be 1200 sq feet (40 x 30).
The rest 1200 sq ft could be slowly developed into 2 class rooms of 20×20 each, a set of toilets and studio guest room with a built in toilet and kitchenette.
Structure Grid for the Community Centre (subject to more professional inputs)
The estimated cost of building this structure is:
Phase 1 – Concrete/stone flooring, thatched roofing, open sides 40’ x 30’. Example shown in picture below:
With labour and raw material – £ 7000
Basic finishing – £ 500
Total – £ 7500
Estimated construction time – 30 days
Phase 2 – 2 x Classrooms, toilet, guest studio room
Labour and raw material – £ 9000
Basic furnishings – £ 1200
Computer/AV Equipment – £1500
Total – £ 10200
Estimated construction time – 45 days
The studio room has been planned to provide basic comfortable onsite accommodation to volunteers.
Cost of employing full time caretaker cum coordinator as mentioned before – £1500 per annum
Scope:
The immediate plans and scope on this project are:
1. Exploring alternate farming methods
2. Exploring suitable crops for this land
3. Harvesting rain water and sourcing water from bore-wells or alternative pumps
4. Teach people to store water
5. New skills – culturing aquarium fish – for faster and higher returns
6. Teaching women new skills – handicrafts
7. Involving children in schemes that would reap commercial benefits
8. Life skills and alternative education to the children
9. Start growing vegetables for local consumption
10. Initiate the idea of vegetation cover as a means of improving the fertility of the land
Contact & Trustees:
UK:
Ari Sengupta
Email: ari.sengupta1@googlemail.com
Phone: 07984 165 677
India:
Jeremy D’Souza
Deepa D’Souza
Email: jeremydsouza@yahoo.co.uk
Phone: +91 98450 72484
