The ladies with the lamps

Females in fields

"Where is Khuku Moni?" -- I asked the resource poor female farmers who had courteously came to see me. " She is in the paddy field planting aman crop as a wage labour" -- I was told. Soon she arrived with a smiling face and informed me that, in addition to working in her own plots (with husband), she also works on others' land as daily wage labour. The wage rate is Tk. 40 plus a meal. Reportedly, she works for 4 to 5 months as agricultural wage labour starting from planting to harvesting. In fact, Khuku Moni has no other option but work hard both inside and outside house as she is forced to feed a family of seven. She can only sign her name and her household owns 50 decimals of land. The household also rents out some land to raise farm output. And as I was told, this applies to half of the group members that Khuku Moni seemingly leads to move up the economic ladder.

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Powerful knowledge

Knowledge is power but, perhaps, all knowledge are not equally powerful as far as earning butter and bread is concerned. The female farmers that I was faced with have been trained for few days and then were left to upgrade themselves. Every month, they gather to gain additional insights on farm practices through a participatory path. They discuss their problems, try to find out solutions and in the event of a failure, seek suggestions from RDRS.

"What have you learnt about farming?" -- I posed to the resource poor participants after explaining to them the purpose of my visit. " We learnt a lot. First, traditionally for ages, we used to grow only two crops in aman and boro seasons. In between, the lands were kept fallow. Now, we grow three crops with mustard in the middle. Second, we now use one or two seedlings -- compared to five or more before -- to see that output is not affected at all. We had the wrong idea that more seedlings mean more output. That means, more lands are now being covered with the same amount of seedlings. It saves cost. Third, we did not know that growing "dhancha" gives green fertilizer. We do it now and save huge cost on urea. Fourth, we cultivate "mug dal" as additional crop to help raise fertility of the land. Fifth, there are 41 varieties of paddy in our country but we heard of two or three and they too are low yielding. BRRI dhan 29, 39, 33 are high yielding but were beyond our imagination. Sixth, we used to waste a lot of irrigation water through sippage. Now, we know how to water the fields through canals to save water. Recently, we have been using pipes to save more water. Seventh, we used to grow vegetables just to meet household needs. But the training on ICM showed how to reap home better harvests, especially high yielding potatoes. Vegetables are now grown for commercial purposes also. And the last but not the least, we have been trained on seed growing, preservation and seedbeds. All these experiences we gained through training from PETRRA-RDRS" -- the female farmers narrated to me in the same breath.

Penny to the rich, pound to the poor

Khuku Moni came to quantify some of the benefits of the ICM training. The gains might sound a penny to the rich but appears as a pound to the poor like the "ladies with the lamps" that I met in Shibpur village of Pirgonj. Just two years back, Khuku Moni used to grow boro paddy by borrowing money from village 'mahajans'. Since modern varieties of rice need fertilizer, water and involve other costs which amount to a sizeable margin, it was not possible for her poor household to meet the cash requirement from own source. Therefore, in boro season, her household had to borrow, say, Tk. 2500 or so to be paid in 90 days. The principal and the interest rate amount thereupon totaled Tk. 3750! Gone are those days. She now cultivates an additional crop, Mustard, in between aman and boro instead of keeping the land fallow. Last season, she cropped mustard in 9 decimals of land and reaped home 2.5 maunds of output valued at Tk. 1800-2000. " mustard is not that much water and fertilizer intensive crop. So, by growing and selling it, I have been feeding resources for the boro crop. Now-a-days I do not need the money from 'mahajans' at an exorbitant rate of interest" -- a proud and prized Moni told me. Her "comrades" only confirmed the contentions of their leader.

The poor and paddy

Urubala's son was also sitting there. He told me that her mother regularly conveyed the tone of the training to him. " My mother cannot keep in mind everything all the time. So I come to her help through implementation of her wishes" -- Urubal's son submitted. He informed me that in his 3-bigha plot (90 decimals), he got 45 maunds of paddy this year just because of systematic and cost saving farm practices. In the past, the same amount of land brought forth only 27 maunds. As I could understand, for every resource poor in the village, paddy output more than doubled per unit of land. In other words, their land endowments also doubled in one sense. In a regime of pervasive poverty, such a rise in rice output is really remarkable. Thanks to two 'Ts': technology and training.

Khuku Moni, Urubala, Kironbala, Josna, Shefali and others who gathered before me also depicted their developments on food security. " I always faced food deficit of six months or so. That meant either I had to borrow money to buy rice or borrow rice to pay at a later time. In any sense, it was not dignifying. Now I know, how to get good crops in a cost effective manner. Costs are saved and at the same time outputs are raised. I now have little surplus to sell in the market. The sons and daughters are in schools. They are fed and clothed better than in the past" -- Khuku Moni continued to confirm her comfortable present conditions. Urubala's son joined in the joy with the news that his family can now meet whole year's food need plus save Tk.2000-4000 by selling the surplus.

The spillover effects of their training were also on the discourse. Some villagers already requested for BRRI dhan 31, 30. Their relatives from far and wide have become fond of their farm practices. The most important spillover effect has been in terms of growing additional crop, growing 'dhancha' or 'mug dal' immediately after the harvests of wheat.

Rose smells the same

From Shibpur, I went to Uttar Shibpur that lies few kilometers from Shibpur. There I met seven female farmers. The utterances and the upshots were almost the same. Per acre yield increased by a big margin due to the development of ideas on cropping pattern, new varieties, seed management at household levels, water and fertilizer application etc. Asiran Begum (55) said: " In the past, we needed three liters of diesel for watering one bigha of land. Now, 2 liters. By adopting canal and pipe system in irrigation, we have saved water and hence diesel cost by Tk. 22 per bigha. This meagre amount matters most for us". The participants reported that, over the years, they improved upon their housing, children's education and clothing, health etc. They are now able to eat more than before. Some of them also bought land or released the earlier mortgaged land.

Correlation and causation

"But that could be due to factors other than the training on crop management that you mentioned" -- I invoked. " It is true that we got credit from RDRS to buy bullocks, poultry birds, set up grocery shops etc. But you see, we now get 20 maunds of paddy per bigha compared to 13-14 maunds in the past. It is mainly due to our hitherto unknown new varieties. We now grow additional crops to raise income. That is the product of our gained knowledge that we hardly had before. So, we reckon that income from growing crops increased and hence we would put ICM training at the top." The spillover effect was brought on board: "Ashe pasher manosh bole hamrao bichon nebo (neighbours say we shall also take the seed)".

Costly credit!

During the discourse in both the villages, I wanted to know whether they would prefer (a) Tk. 10,000 credit at 15 per cent interest rate or (b) a ten-day training on such types of activities or (c) both. Surprisingly, out of the 17 female farmers from both the villages, 10 opted for (b), two for (a) and five for (c). The proponents of (b) held that their option was not repayable but, at the same time, riskless and rewarding. The other two options were repayable at a certain date, risky and in case of an odd situation, could even turn out to be unrewarding. The supporters of (c), on the other hand, argued that knowledge without implementation is useless and the only way to implement ideas of this kind is possible through credit to the poor. The difference between a rich and a poor farmer -- so they argued -- is the difference in terms of resource availability during the boro cultivation period. The former fawns upon own sources while the latter, on costly credit.

Ladies lit lamps

As I drove back, I found females planting aman seedlings in muddy fields under the scorching heat. It was surprising to see that the resource poor females along with their male counterparts were sweating under the sun for a sustainable livelihood through upgrading their skills and expanding their frontier of knowledge. My hats off to the "informal professors" that I met in those two villages. I am told that a lot of such ladies are being trained in several places on agricultural practices. Let ladies like them carry the lamps all over Bangladesh. To this effect, what they need is new knowledge, new ideas and new technology.

Epilogue

"What would you expect from your politicians?" -- I asked the female farmers. Some of them talked about training, some about education and some about housing and health etc. But sitting at the corner was sweet and shy Shanaz (19) who expected stoppage of hartal. I was taken aback by the answer and asked: " Why? How come you are affected by hartal living in a remote village of Pirgonj?" Shanaz covered her smiling face with her saree amidst laughter from others. An old lady later explained to me that due to the last hartal, her newly married groom could not come from Chittagong.

"Necessity is the mother of invention" -- I uttered in my mind. It is true for Shanaz, for the females that I met and perhaps for all of us.

Abdul Bayes is Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University