Mitali Sahoo will get virtually all the things she must feed her household from her three acres of land in Angul district, Odisha. She grows paddy, finger millet, pulses, and greens resembling brinjal, tomato, parval (pointed gourd), drumsticks, and potato, on this land that lies on the periphery of Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary in Kothabhuin panchayat. Apart from guaranteeing her two daughters eat wholesome, she additionally has sufficient produce to promote.

“Final yr I earned ₹119,000 from brinjal alone,” stated the 35-year-old farmer. “Even the oil I exploit for cooking is extracted from the seeds of the sunflower I develop,” she stated with satisfaction.

However there was a time when Sahoo and the opposite residents in her village struggled to make ends meet. Dwelling on the periphery of a wildlife sanctuary meant poor fundamental infrastructure — lack of tar roads, no irrigation and transportation amenities, and poor entry to well being and academic providers. Farmers like Sahoo nearly managed to domesticate paddy within the kharif (monsoon) season. Open grazing was rampant, farming was unproductive, and villagers had little concern for forest safety.

Issues began to vary within the early 2000s when the village residents started agitating for higher street infrastructure to their villages that had been surrounded by teak and bamboo forests.

“Initially, village-level conferences had been held. Quickly, we realised that the majority villages shared frequent issues, together with poor infrastructure, unproductive agriculture, and open grazing. It grew to become clear that we wanted a typical platform to return collectively and tackle our issues collectively,” narrated Brajmohan Sahoo, who lives in Bhagatpur village of 130 households, on the periphery of Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary.

In 2005, 28 villages from three gram panchayats got here collectively to launch Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad, a non-registered federation. “Inside a yr, extra villages joined in and the Parishad expanded to cowl 41 villages in 5 gram panchayats,” stated Brajmohan Sahoo, who has been a member of the Parishad since its inception.

Every of those villages has direct illustration within the federation via two elected representatives: a president and a secretary. Thus, the Parishad has 82 ex officio members, largely male. It additionally has members from the panchayati raj establishments.

“We repeatedly interact with completely different stakeholders and authorities line departments for growth works in our area. We will not be ignored,” he added.

Previously twenty years, the Parishad has reworked the realm. Forests have regenerated, water conservation efforts have paid off, grazing is managed, and the area has turn out to be an agricultural hub, with its farm produce offered to distant markets in Odisha and different states.

Seeds of a collective

The nationwide freeway (NH-55) from Cuttack to Sambalpur in Odisha passes via Angul district, virtually dividing it into two starkly reverse areas. On the appropriate facet lie coal mining blocks and factories that belch smoke all year long. Talcher, an industrial zone infamous for its excessive air pollution, can be positioned right here.

In distinction, the left facet options the Charmalik area, characterised by inexperienced forests, rivers, and waterfalls, together with the Mahanadi. The area helps lush, tropical, moist deciduous forests that cowl Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary and Satkosia Tiger Reserve.

Traditionally, this forested belt was a part of autonomous kingdoms dominated by tribal chiefs, primarily from the Kondh tribe. The title Angul is claimed to derive from Anugol, after Anu, the final Kondh chieftain defeated by the king of Odisha.

Regardless of its ecological richness, the area had confronted generations of neglect, prompting the native villages to organise themselves and type a collective Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad in 2005.

Considered one of their first actions was to demand motorable tar roads. “We staged a significant rasta roko on the Angul-Sambalpur freeway and compelled the federal government to construct pucca roads to our villages. As soon as the street got here, there was no trying again,” Sushil Pradhan of Tainsi village, and a member of the Parishad, instructed Mongabay India.

Brajmohan Sahoo, the senior-most member of the federation, defined how the Parishad was constructed. “The principle intention of the Parishad is to carry folks collectively on a typical platform to debate their issues and arrive at options. This requires common interactions with authorities line departments and different stakeholders resembling academic institutes, native NGOs, self-help teams, and so forth,” stated Brajmohan Sahoo.

However bringing all of the villages collectively was not a simple activity. “Initially, every village was pondering of its personal positive aspects and losses. There have been fights over cattle from one village grazing within the farmlands of one other village. A number of conferences had been held to construct consensus in direction of a collective of villages,” he defined.

Every gram sabha elects a committee, and two members from every committee characterize their village within the federation. Sarpanches are additionally a part of the federation, and at current, three girls sarpanches are members of Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad. They be certain that varied authorities schemes and programmes attain the villages in a coordinated method.

The Parishad additionally has methods to resolve conflicts, as completely different villages are part of it. “After launching the Parishad in 2005, the following yr, in 2006, we additionally collectively framed bylaws to manipulate the federation. These embody how forests are to be protected, fines for open grazing, regulating borewells, and so forth,” stated Prakash Chandra, a member of panchayat samiti from Tainsi village. He’s additionally a member of Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad.

Reaping the rewards of unity

In 2009, Brajmohan’s village, Bhagatpur, grew to become the primary village to undertake watershed works to make water out there for rabi (winter) crops. The undertaking was funded by the Nationwide Financial institution for Agriculture and Rural Growth (NABARD) and facilitated by the Basis for Ecological Safety, a non-profit organisation that works in direction of ecological regeneration.

The Parishad members had been concerned in watershed mapping, planning, execution, and monitoring. It took practically 5 years to finish the soil and water conservation works in Bhagatpur. Trenches had been dug, and stone contour bunds and free boulder verify dams had been constructed at greater elevations, nearer to the forest.

All these buildings slowed down the movement of runoff and recharged groundwater. Farm bunding was additionally accomplished to cease soil erosion. A percolation tank was constructed within the recharge zone space to lift the water desk.

“The NABARD undertaking required 16% of the associated fee to be coated via shramdan (voluntary labour) to make sure folks’s participation. The Parishad members mobilised native villagers who pitched in, and the undertaking was efficiently accomplished,” stated Brajmohan Sahoo. Quickly, Bhagatpur’s dugwells had been replenished, permitting farmers to domesticate a second (rabi) crop.

“Bhagatpur’s success led to a large-scale watershed administration undertaking within the Charmalik space. The 41 villages overlaying 11,700 hectares had been divided into 13 micro-watersheds, and soil and water conservation works had been accomplished in every of them by 2018-19,” stated Pradhan of Tainsi village.

When water grew to become out there in dugwells and native streams, farmers, aside from rising paddy and millets, started to domesticate pulses and greens resembling cauliflower, cabbage, brinjal, and gourds.

An influence evaluation by the Bankers Institute of Rural Growth (BIRD), overlaying 5 NABARD-funded watershed tasks in Odisha (2008–2020), highlighted advantages for farmers. Within the Bargoth watershed, which incorporates Bhagatpur and close by villages, paddy yields rose from about 6.5 to 10 quintals per acre, whereas pulses and greens elevated from 1.6 to 2 and 12 to twenty quintals per acre, respectively. Crop range improved, and groundwater ranges rose by 2–3 toes, extending water availability by three months.

Nonetheless, there was nonetheless an issue — the harvest was being destroyed resulting from open grazing by cattle.

The Parishad launched measures to cease uncontrolled open grazing. The 41 villages shaped bylaws to follow managed grazing till February-March, in order that farmers can harvest each kharif and rabi crops.

Every village recognized its fallow and pasturelands, which could possibly be used for managed grazing. “One grazer was employed to thoughts 100 cows. They had been paid between ₹1,000 and ₹1,500 per cow for 10 months of managed grazing,” stated Brajmohan Sahoo.

“Open grazing was destroying our forest. To fence an acre of land, a farmer required no less than 200 bamboos. Because of this, we over-extracted bamboo from the forest. This stopped as soon as we adopted managed grazing,” he stated. The efforts to preserve water and soil, in addition to management grazing, paid off.

“Earlier than watershed works and managed grazing, I might get about eight quintals of paddy from an acre. Now I get between 15-20 quintals.  Farmers have switched from direct broadcast to line-sowing of paddy, which reduces weeds and will increase the harvest,” stated Prakash Chandra, who himself cultivates a number of crops in seven acres at Tainsi. “Virtually all of the farmers on this area develop a number of greens and fruits, mango, banana, guava, papaya, inexperienced chilli, garlic, ginger, and onion.”

Entry to greens has had a optimistic influence on the well being of the folks. “Earlier, our staple food regimen was rice, salt, and khatta [a type of mango pickle]. We now eat no less than three to 4 servings of greens a day. Other than kulth [horse gram], we additionally domesticate arhar, chana, moong, and different pulses,” stated Pratima Sahoo of Tainsi village.

After fixing the irrigation and open grazing issues, the following step earlier than the federation was to organise farmers and maximise their earnings. In 2016, two farmer producer firms (FPOs) — the Charmalik FPO and the Panchdhara FPO — had been established.

“Earlier, we had been pressured to promote our produce at no matter value the dealer/intermediary quoted. However now, as an FPO, we pool our produce and demand and get extra aggressive costs from merchants,” Bichitra Pradhan, the director of Panchdhara FPO.

“Final yr, our FPO despatched 20 tonnes of mango to Banaras [Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh]. We additionally promote about 40 tonnes of candy potatoes a yr. Our brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, chilli, and onion journey so far as Sambalpur, Bhubaneswar, and Bhadrak districts,” he stated.

In 2024, the FPOs established two solar-powered chilly storage items with a capability of eight tonnes every, utilising company social duty (CSR) funds. Thus far, round 120-150 farmers have used the chilly storage facility.

From muddy, non-motorable roads to solar-powered chilly storage items, the area has undergone a major transformation over the previous twenty years. A big credit score goes to the Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad, which introduced folks collectively to unravel their very own issues.

“Villages which can be near forest areas have their very own distinctive challenges. Creating village federations helps such villages to return collectively on a typical platform and work for his or her growth. Such federations have to be strengthened and supported,” stated Bishnu Charan Pradhan, a professor of zoology at Angul Mahila Mahavidyalaya, who has witnessed the rise of Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad in Angul.

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Banner picture: Watershed works have raised the water desk in Charmalik area, enabling farmers to irrigate with dugwells and domesticate a number of crops. Picture by Nidhi Jamwal.