High on sweet success
Dehradun, January 2
Kala Bisht, a diminutive women farmer, has become a symbol of grit and determination for small farmers in nearby areas of the Dehradun valley for farming as well as entrepreneurial skills.
Kala Bisht gives tips on fruit preservation. Tribune photograph
The courage displayed by her not only helped her save her land but also show the way to thousands of other hill women. Five years ago there were few options for Kala woman who had two infant children. Her husband is an Class IV ad hoc employee of the forest department.Their only asset was two-and-a-half bighas of ancestral agriculture land in Ambiwala village not far from the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in the Doon valley.
She and her husband tilled the land and toiled hard to make both ends meet. “The land could not give us enough food to eat for a year,” she recalled.They even thought of exercising the option to sell their land to the land mafia since there was sharp appreciation in the land prices around Dehradun after it was made a capital town in 2000.
However, Kala decided to take the hard way and continue farming adopting a new strategy. Instead of rice and wheat crops, she decided to experiment with organic farming and diversify in other agricultural-related activities.
Getting technical help from Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO), a non- government organisation, she started a fruit nursery, a bee-keeping unit and a vermi composting unit on her land. She also decided to go for fruit processing.
She decided to undergo basic training in fruit processing and preservation and started with mango pickles and papaya chutney. The products were sold in the local market and were much appreciated.
Buoyed by the initial success, Kala decided to switch over from traditional crops like wheat and maize to strawberry.
“It was tough convincing my in-laws to give up traditional crops as these provided food security to the family,” she recalled.” But the strawberry crop perished within days and I was unable to do anything,” Kala said. Then she decided to get more information and training on value additions to harness the potential of her crops. HESCO helped her in going to the Central Food Training Research Institute (CFTRI) in Mysore for training two years ago.
Since then Kala and her husband Trilok Singh have had never to look back. Kala prepares jams, jellies, fruit juices, pickles and chutneys from locally available fruit like the mango, guava, papaya, amla, and strawberry.
With active support from her husband, she has been able to find a market for the products. “At every fair and mela hosted by organisations like the ITBP, the forest department, the Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP)etc we are able to sell our products and get orders,” said a proud Kala.
In the past two years, the young women entrepreneur had to take a bank loan of Rs 5 to set up a workshop and buy fruit-processing machinery. “I am not only repaying a loan instalment of Rs 10,000 per month but also paying salaries of Rs 5000 each to four employees assisting me,” said Kala.
She set up a shop and a workshop in her village and a nursery of plants in her strawberry fields. She has more than fifty boxes of honey bees to produce honey. “ The fruit nursery, honey and vermi composting have started paying me back,” she claimed.
More and more people are coming to her daily to either buy her products, plants or honey. Her most sought-after-product is “Bel (aegale marmelos) fruit juice.”
“Earlier, the villagers with one or two fruit trees had little option but now I buy fruits from nearby areas and pay them well too,” Kala said. She preserves fruit and fruit pulp and prepares the requisite quantity of jams, jellies and pickles on order. HESCO has also helped her in getting an FPO certification.
A successful farmer-cum-entrepreneur, Kala (35) visited Switzerland in July 2007 on the invitation of the people of the Angeden valley under the Alps-Himalaya exchange programme to learn better farm and fruit-processing techniques.
“The Swiss experience helped me in knowing better and latest techniques for fruit and vegetable preservation that I am trying to employ here,” she said. “I think economic empowerment of the rural poor is the biggest empowerment and the example of Kala Bisht shows that through value addition and science and technology (S&T) inputs and by tapping local resources and local market, a decentralised approach to development is possible,” Dr Anil Joshi of HESCO opined.
More and more women are flocking to Kala Bisht for training. “Two women after training have started their own fruit-processing units,” Kala informed.
Kala and her husband now plan a bigger workshop to expand business. Earning more than Rs 30,000 a month, she has inspired the hill women to utilise their fruit and farm products which otherwise go waste.
Kala Bisht at her fruit preservation workshop. Tribune photo: Vinod Pundir
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