3 1/2 Weeks in the life of Fertile Ground East

End of February, 2008

 

Greetings from Digboi,

We have yet to get the long-awaited internet connection, so I am hopeful that the service at our local internet café will be up and running tonight and that I can ship this off to you.  Two weeks ago Kel laughed when I assured him the supervisor of the telephone office had promised the phone connection would be made “surely within one or two days,” with a connection to broadband service close behind. 

Well, we finally have a land line in the office – but I have given up trying to anticipate the date of the internet connection

Apart from ongoing communication challenges with the outside world, things are going very well at the Adarsh Seuj Prakalpa site.  The garden is beautiful, we’re getting a lot of visitors and our friends from the local neighbourhood are showing up in record numbers, excited to meet the latest group of visitors from Canada.  We receive several earnest invitations to come to their homes for a cup of tea each day, and the students have already been adopted by their host family at the college hostel and by several nearby families.

Weather has been unseasonably cool, and there have been lots of rainy days.  The tomato crop was wiped out again this year by blight, potatoes have also been infected and a number of plants (marigolds and the cabbage family in particular) have been affected by fungal diseases, but the beans, broccoli, spinach, cabbage &  kohlrabi are producing well – so I get to dine on fresh vegetables at home regularly.

We asked one of the gardeners, Babu (who happens to be a great cook) to prepare lunch for our staff and volunteers each day, and we located a table big enough for all 10 of us to sit down at.  Babu prepares rice, dal and vegetables – fresh from the garden – frequently supplemented by delicious oyster mushrooms which have become the latest self-help group scheme.  We purchased 10 stainless steel thalis (plates), bowls for the dal, a pressure cooker and cooking pot, a gas cylinder & a 2 burner propane stove – so we’re set!

I think all 4 of the volunteers have had a wonderful time since they arrived.  They are cheerful, helpful, enthusiastic and sincerely interested in experiencing life here in Assam.  This morning they headed off for 2 days at a state wildlife park famous for its early morning elephant ride through the grasslands to where the rare one-horned rhinoceros grazes.  We’ve already visited many villages, and the students have started work on a number of interesting projects – which you’ll read about once they get back from Kaziranga.  I’ve assigned them each the task of writing up a short report on one of the activities they’re working on, and asked that they let you know in their own words about their experience.

It’s been great having help and getting some different perspectives on how we might improve our outreach to kids and villagers from some of the more distant communities.

Dhiren is quite fluent in Hindi, and that has been a tremendous help in connecting with people – most of whom speak Hindi as well as Assamese and/or Bengali.  Every day he and Tharani patiently explain that no, they are not Indian, and no, they can’t follow either of the main local languages, but there’s always tremendous appreciation and relief when they discover they can speak to the Canadians thru Dhiren.

We’ve made presentations at a number of villages within a few hours drive from Digboi.   Topics covered have primarily focused on pesticide risks and alternatives, and mushroom cultivation.  The Assam state gov’t produced quite a good video explaining how women can earn extra money growing mushrooms, and it’s a topic many are interested in.  

Taj is doing an absolutely wonderful job of connecting with our audiences.  He’s a terrific presenter – puts people at ease and usually has them laughing and actively participating within just a few minutes.  He’s able to extract important information from people without putting them on the defensive – like the fact that many village women are using DDT to kill the red ants that attack their potatoes.  In their minds, ingesting a little poison is a small price to pay for having enough food to feed their families every day.

Although having to translate people’s comments and ideas takes time, we’ve been making time each week for everyone to discuss how things are going, what people have learned, what’s working and what’s not, etc.  

We’ve also started watching films together – this gives Pompy a chance to practice summarizing and translating the English narrations for future audiences.  She is doing wonderful work and growing into her role each day.  Tharani brought some excellent videos on sustainable farming in Cuba and on the importance of maintaining control of our traditional and heritage seed varieties.  Last Friday we launched the first in a weekly series of films which will take place at the garden site. 

Yesterday it rained, so I made a big batch of chai and invited the volunteers and staff to the Rotary House (my living quarters) to watch a film called “Seeds of Destiny”, featuring Dan Jason a seed saver of international reknown from Salt Spring Island.  It was the first opportunity for the gardeners to learn about GMO’s, terminator seeds and the serious threat posed by the multinational companies who are determined to get patents on cereal crops, grains and other plant species.  I’m learning a lot, myself.  It’s enough to give me nightmares!

We’ve had visits from several television crews and reporters over the past month.  The regional office of Doordarshan, the national television network, toured the site and conducted interviews with rep’s from the Rotary Club, me and the staff – another first for Pompy and Iqbal.

Kel has begun facilitating interviews – individual and group – to help us identify and address some of the issues that we need to work on.  He will conduct his first session with the Rotary Club advisory group on Sunday.

The new tools we brought along are being put to good use by the staff and volunteers.  We’ve stepped up production of compost because several of the beds are still showing signs of being low in key nutrients.  

Tomorrow Indian Oil Corporation is supposed to send out a team to survey the boundary of an extension to our existing garden area which has been in the works for the past year.  The soil is much better than what we’ve been cultivating to date, so consideration is being given to establishing a nursery area in this location.   I’m still hopeful that we can generate a small but regular revenue through the sale of vegetables and seedlings grown on site.

A chopper donated by a friend who works with the local agriculture department has been put back into use.  Dhiren and the two gardeners, Babu and Iqbal, spent a day chopping up weeds, straw and water hyacinth plants, and there are now several new compost piles and “lasagna garden” beds.

Taj arranged for two large truckloads of cow dung to be delivered to the site last week, so we should have a ready supply available for several months.   Once the rains come in April, road and pathways to areas where cows are kept get more difficult to access, and this slowed down compost production last summer as well as the summer before.  It’s difficult to get the staff to plan far enough ahead to ensure they have the tools and materials they need to get the job done.  People have a very different work ethic here – and it’s a challenge to find a balance between accepting the values and patterns of their culture and trying to get things done!

I’m realizing that a three month stay will give me barely enough time for me to get a handle on things here.  There’s still a lot of important planning and priorizing that needs to be done, and some days between supervising the students, welcoming visitors and dealing with immediate issues, it’s hard to make space for those discussions.  This morning Taj is coming to the Rotary house at 10 where I hope we’ll be able to work uninterrupted for a few house. 

We made a very interesting visit to Majuli Island, a beautiful agricultural area about a day’s journey from Digboi.  There is no tea grown on the island which has resulted in very little use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers – although recently there have been a number of gov’t schemes taken to the farmers there, which of course include the mandatory package of practices that includes use of both.  Majuli was one of the areas badly affected by flooding last summer, and we saw signs everywhere of people having built tiny, rickety homes on the edge of the dykes that form the roads across and around the island.  Particularly badly affected were the Mising tribal people who have traditionally farmed the lowland areas.

A new project was recently launched by a small NGO on the island, and we spent a day touring farms and learning about their work.  Lots of good discussion, which I think helped them to see that promoting use of purchased “organic” products wasn’t the solution.  We walked around fields of garlic, pumpkin and other gourd crops and most plants were showing signs that some element in the soil is out of balance. We’re hosting a training event here next month to which we’ve invited representatives from several self-help groups and the NGO, and left behind videos and written information on composting and other practices.  I’ve visited this area before and would love to have some ongoing links with the NGO.  They’re doing good work there.

We’ve made presentations to a few groups of “ex-tea garden workers” – families who worked for generations as indentured labourers.  Some of the workers have finally now acquired a small plot of land with a house on it, and many of them are interested in increasing their yields of rice – a great opportunity to promote sustainable cultivation practices.  There are many locally-available materials here for composting, mulching and preparing plant-based formulas for controlling insects and boosting the health of their crops.  Most of them don’t grow much in the way of vegetables – when I asked why, they shrugged and said that the area around their homes floods in the monsoon time so their only option is to plant beans and gourd on mounds that keep their roots out of the water.

I hauled out the insect and animal costumes donated by Superstore and the volunteers and Pompy set to work writing a play that explains how pesticides harm beneficial insects, wildlife and people.  Along with a great new play, we now have 3 colourful fish that hang around the necks of our usually-willing audience of children that flock to the performance along with their moms.  More info and pic’s on this to follow – it’s one of the reports that I’ve assigned someone to write up.

An NGO that Taj worked with for some time has started a “model village” project in one of the tea garden “bastis” close to their office.  They’ve received funds to set up poultry projects – large-scale broiler production units.  With the avian flu getting so much media coverage right now, it’s a tough time to have started this type of project, but the units seem clean and well-run, but like most commercial units, showing signs of overcrowding.  Lots of fat little birds with their rear ends plucked free of feathers by other bored birds with nothing to do all day but eat and drink and sleep.  It is, however, generating income for the participants, so wish them well with the project.

It’s discouraging to see how funds intended to improve the livelihoods and living conditions of the poor are being used (and misused).  Many families are living in small but clean homes, but with just a tarp strung up around some bamboo poles for a toilet and raw sewage lying in pools just a few feet away from their water supply and cooking areas. Although it may be the first choice of family members from the village who were consulted, presenting them with a television set falls somewhat short of the meeting the criteria the money was intended for.

Of interest to our group was a large plot of land on which a vegetable garden has been started.  Even though it was late in the day, we hauled piles of leaves, weeds and dowdung to the site and demonstrated how compost can be made.  Lots of interest in the technique – people often throw all their plant materials into a pit in the ground to decompose, but until we explained how composting worked, they hadn’t understood the benefit of building the pile above the ground. 

On our way to Majuli Island, we overnighted at Jorhat, and had a chance to visit another new initiative – a Farmers Advisory Cell.  This is a project where entrepreneurs who are selling fertilizers and other inputs to farmers can apply for funding to provide low-cost consultancy services to farmers.  Samir Bordoloi, the young man running this office, sells chemical-free vegetables from a small stall in front of his shop.  He arranged for us to visit some of the farms in his area and arranged our stay on Majuli.  He’s a wonderful, earnest guy – someone we’re looking forward to continuing to work with. 

Taj reports that our discussions about the limitations of relying on expensive products manufactured in south India have really opened the minds of both Samir and the NGO on Majuli.  They’re excited about doing more training with us and looking at the possibility of establishing some small-scale production units in their areas. 

Time to wrap up this report – but wanted to share one more good news story with you.  Last year, Marcia and Gerry attended a Rotary Club meeting in Jorhat, and made a short presentation about Fertile Ground’s efforts to promote organic agriculture.  I caught a glimpse of this sign when we were traveling through town and dropped into the shop to meet the owner.  Turns out he’s the president of the Jorhat Rotary Club, attended last year’s presentation and was inspired to add organic tea to the menu of a small snack shop he owns.  They’ve invited us back to do another presentation this year.  We’ve already approached the owner of a new snack outlet here in Digboi about doing the same!  You never know where the seeds Fertile Ground has planted will grow!