Chaya Kapse depends on family farming for a living. They followed the practice of cultivating green gram, black gram, wheat, jowar and seasonal vegetables by using chemical fertilizers.
Her family owned 5 acres of land but all of it was not irrigated and was dependent on rain-fed farming. She was unable to meet her family’s needs from the farm income, so she worked as a labourer in other’s farm. All this hard work and food deficiency led to frequents spells of illness and she incurred around Rs. 15,000/- annually due to her health eating into her meagre income. In this situation, she heard about Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) and joined as a village leader in 2021.
Working as a leader, she had the opportunity to be part of SSP’s various training initiatives related to women led climate resilient farming. Before she joined SSP, she tried to persuade her husband to shift to organic farming but he refused to make the shift assuming that quick results in terms of crop returns and profits could not happen with bio-farming.
After six months of persuasion, she was given a small piece of uncultivated land near the dug-well. SSP’s training in PLA (Participatory Learning and Action) on nutrition that made her aware about different safe foods groups and food security. SSP provided the seeds and she cultivated several vegetables including brinjal, tomato, chillies and leaf vegetables using bio methods. Chaya used vegetables from her little garden to feed her family and sold the surplus in the village. She began to earn around Rs. 1500/- each week and earned a profit of Rs. 55,000/- totally within 6 months.
This success had a huge impact on her life. The wholesome nutrition of organic vegetables improved the health of her entire family. Her enhanced economic status earned her respect in the village and her husband now gave her two acres of land where she can decide on when and what to cultivate secure and under safe food crops.
Chaya’s journey is a perfect illustration of SSPs vision of women empowerment through leadership and learning. In Chaya’s words, “Being identified as a community leader gives me immense pride and motivates me to contribute more in my village development”.
Swayam Shikshan Prayog
26th July, 2022