When Shoukath Ali from Malappuram wanted to cultivate paddy in his 50 cents of wetland, he could hardly find any agriculture workers to assist him. That was when he came to know about a new project of Kudumbashree - Bhoo Nidhi - by which he could lease out land to it for raising crops.
He has signed up for the upcoming project under which women farmers would be gathered as part of the collective farming initiative of the Kudumbashree. These groups will cultivate in the leased out land and will pay a dividend to the land owner.
“The ancestral property has been handed over from one generation to the other and we had been growing paddy for years. As I didn’t want to leave the land fallow, I had earlier given it to a private party for carrying out farming but I only got some produce in return. If the new project of the Kudumbashree works out well than it will be a boon to many land owners like me who want to use their land for agriculture,” said Shoukath Ali, who is an accountant by profession.
The project that is going to be officially launched soon is envisaged in such a way that the Kudumbashree self-help groups, known as joint liability groups, of women farmers are formed under the collective farming initiative to help women cultivators.
“Each one of the joint liability groups will have from 4 to 10 members exclusively for conducting farming. Their activities include selection of beneficiaries, clustering them into groups, giving training, distribution of inputs and release of incentives,” said K B Valsala Kumari, executive director, Kudumbashree Mission.
She said the women cultivators would be carrying out organic farming, thereby increasing the fertility of the soil.
“After the harvest, the group will be selling the produce directly to the market with the help of government agencies. The lease period of the land can be decided by the owner,” she said. Valsalakumari said the project would help achieve the twin benefits of poverty eradication and food security for women farmers and also financial returns through agriculture to the land owner. “So far, two persons each have signed up from Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts. People have also come forward to lease out land from Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Malappuram and Idukki.’’ Paddy, bananas, vegetables like bitter gourd, snake gourd, are in the list of crops aimed to be cultivated.