What do West Africa and southern India have in common? Quite a lot! Whether it be the presence of semi-arid climates, the reliance upon small-scale agriculture, or the introduction of genetically modified (GM) cotton, rural communities in West African countries and southern India face similar challenges.
In February 2017, Inter Pares organized a learning exchange, in which four activists with member organizations of COPAGEN, a West African biodiversity network, visited the Deccan Development Society (DDS) in Telangana State, India. DDS works with low-income, often non-literate women farmers, who have organized themselves into village-level collectives (sanghams), and who all practice ecological agriculture. In addition to growing and marketing organic dryland crops, DDS members engage in policy advocacy and are involved in an impressive range of projects: community radio and video production, health promotion, permaculture, seed preservation, watershed management, addressing conjugal violence, and youth leadership development.
An ongoing learning process
It was the fourth time that the two organizations had spent time together, as DDS had once visited Africa, and this would be COPAGEN's third visit to India. Over the past several years, Inter Pares has been bringing these movements together, so that they can learn from one another and build mutually supportive relationships.
For this edition, there was a special focus on women's leadership; the four women from COPAGEN were very interested in studying DDS's grassroots model for women's empowerment and leadership development. They were also eager to share back the results of the three-year participatory research project on GM cotton that COPAGEN conducted in collaboration with Inter Pares, as the study's methodology was based on DDS' own similar study a decade earlier.
Learning from each others' successes and strengths
While in India, COPAGEN delegates were deeply impressed by the technical expertise of DDS farmers in dryland crop cultivation, by their marketing innovations and success in reaching urban consumers, and by the range of DDS's initiatives. Above all, it was clear how DDS's thirty years of participatory rural development have profoundly changed the lives of thousands of women and their communities for the better.
For their part, DDS members were thrilled to hear of how COPAGEN's farmer-led research study contributed to growing public debate in Burkina Faso on that country's use of Bt cotton, the form of GM cotton that is also grown in India. In 2017, Bt cotton was phased out entirely, as Burkinabé cotton companies could not find any buyers for the Bt cotton, which proved to be of inferior quality. Despite hundreds of thousands of suicides across India since Bt cotton was introduced - suicides which have been directly attributed to the terrible debts farmer incur through expensive Bt cotton cultivation that have brought low yields of poor quality - it is still cultivated in India. DDS members were also very interested to learn more about the success in advocacy and public mobilization that COPAGEN members have had in different countries.
When participants bade each other warm farewells, it was clear that this relationship was one that would last and continue to grow. Inter Pares is honoured to work with both DDS and COPAGEN to promote agroecology and food sovereignty as we walk the path together.
After arriving in Pastapur, the delegation visited the 18th edition of DDS's Mobile Biodiversity Festival. Each year, it tours villages over several weeks to celebrate agroecology and biodiversity.
Inter Pares staff met up with old friends such as Sammamma, a DDS farmer (centre) who has visited Canada several times, whom the COPAGEN delegates met here for the first time.
After the festival, the delegation met with leaders of different sanghams and committees at DDS’s offices, and received an overview of their impressive scope of work.
DDS had also invited former sangham leaders who had become municipal leaders (seated, left). Staff joined such as Tejasvi Dantuluri, communications director, and P.V. Satheesh, co-founder and director of DDS.
The delegation was thrilled to participate in DDS’s 1st National Community Media Film Festival, which celebrated rural uneducated people’s ability to create their own media. Filmmakers across India submitted 22 films to a jury, of which two were screened.
We were honoured to have Inter Pares’ 8-minute film on GMOs in Burkina Faso included as a non-competitive entry, and to share how COPAGEN modelled the farmer-led research featured in the film on DDS’ earlier research.
Dinesh Kumar, a young filmmaker from rural India, and his team presented a film that documents how a river cuts a community in half during monsoon season. After the film, Dinesh shared how leaving school led him to filmmaking, which has opened new doors.
Filmmakers from North-East Network (NEN) in Nagaland, a member of the DDS-coordinated Millet Network of India, presented their film on millets. They also shared how their film has helped revive traditional millet cultivation in their area.
Inter Pares' 8-minute film documented the three-year farmer-led research project on Bt cotton's impacts in Burkina Faso that COPAGEN conducted in collaboration with Inter Pares.
Kadidja Koné, COPAGEN coordinator, announced after the film screening that Bt cotton production has been discontinued in Burkina Faso; as we described in the December highlights, Burkinabé cotton producers are now asking Monsanto for millions in damages.
The delegation visited neighbouring small-scale organic farms to see different practices, and ask farmers technical questions about their planting techniques.
Delegates were honoured guests at the MBF closing ceremonies, marked by song and speeches. Sangham leaders’ accomplishments were awarded gifts of recognition, as were the winners of the community film festival.
Two delegates addressed the crowd, paying tribute to the participants’ success and highlighting that their struggles are shared by farmers in West Africa and Canada.
While each village has its own seedbank and seedkeeper, the community seed bank holds the full range of local varieties (80), including ones threatened with disappearance. Local farmers borrow there and repay it twice-fold at the end of their harvest.
DDS’s station is India’s first-ever community radio station. Its manager, nicknamed “General Narsamma,” was India’s first-ever female radio producer. With a staff of three people, the station broadcasts to 150 villages for two hours each evening.
Inspired by a Quebec farmer in our last exchange, DDS started a weekly vegetable basket for urban consumers, who sign up for home delivery of fresh vegetables, herbs, and spices. Subscribers pay 30% up front, and the rest each week upon delivery.
Delegate members enjoy lunch at Café Ethnic, which DDS established in 2004 as a way to reconnect consumers with traditional tastes and foods. The café's meals are produced with organic millets and other grains grown by sangham members.
The delegation met with members of Community Media Trust (CMT), DDS's video production group. Since 1995, the CMT has been creating films that document their lives and their view of the world.
As informally educated women, CMT members have created their own filmmaking terminology. Terms like "patel [landlord] shot," "slave shot," and "sangham shot" for camera angles (from above, below, or eye-level) reflect their way of seeing power relations.
The delegation screened the CMT's documentary films on Bt cotton’s devastating impact on farmers, which led to a discussion of advocacy strategies in India and West Africa on genetic engineering.
One planning tool DDS uses is “participatory rural appraisal,” or PRA. In this day's exercise, focusing on which crops should be planted, sangham representatives agreed upon their ten most important crops, and evaluated different benefits of each.
After establishing a matrix, participants go through each crop and debate the relative score for each benefit, eventually coming to agreement. Aggregate scores are then tallied.
The delegation held a press conference with DDS in Hyderabad. Delegates shared how Bt cotton was shown by COPAGEN's research to be inferior and costly for farmers, as in India, and highlighted agroecology as a successful alternative to GMOs.
Inter Pares staff Eric Chaurette shared how Canadian consumers are rejecting GM more and more, calling for GM labelling and opting for organic products.
At the scrum that followed the press conference, journalists wanted to explore how Burkina Faso ejected Bt cotton, yet it remains cultivated across India.
DDS-KVK is one of 650 KVKs, or agricultural science centres, across India. At the others, academics share research with farmers, but here, farmers and scientists learn and innovate together, focusing on organic dryland crops.
The delegation was treated to a tour of DDS-KVK’s vermicomposting systems, which were of particular interest to the West African delegates. All of the systems DDS-KVK develops are intended to be adoptable by smallholder farmers.
DDS-KVK lobbied to have its own soil lab. Farmers are instructed on how to collect samples from their field, which are analyzed here free of charge. The analysis guides farmers in their selection of what to plant, and how best to care for the crops.
The delegation was impressed by DDS's processing and marketing operations, which bring sanghams’ crops to village and urban consumers. 600 farmers’ crops are processed and sold to over three thousand consumers at two DDS stores and the mobile shop.
DDS's mobile shop uses a truck to bring products to villages at events such as the MBF and to regular scheduled stops, enabling village consumers to readily access sanghams' goods and for farmers to buy what they do not grow.
