I have always been at odds with development institutes. To me, poverty alleviation cannot take place from fancy workplaces with unlimited supply of tea and coffee. No wonder, then, that life placed me at such an organization. Working there has only confirmed my earlier loosely held beliefs on the failures of such institutes. Occassionally, I see some lives improved – I won’t claim that there are too many such changes but some, no matter how subtle, do take place. 

Today I visited a traders’ organization that supports smaller farmer groups receive better services from the government and larger private companies. Farmers, themselves, are usually unaware of what they deserve to know or how they are being neglected from what is their right and these traders’ help them achieve such demands, especially those related to agriculture.

Farmers in that area suffered from a variety of problems, starting with poor credit facilities, poor disease control mechanisms, land grabbing and others. Naturally, the traders’ decided publishing in local media would generate the necessary attention to force the government to take action. The local dailies refused to print such materials, claiming low reader base in spite of the honorium they claimed. The government themselves turned a blind eye.

Usually such events would frustrate traders’ who would then, having lost faith in humanity, focus even more on profiteering. Not these traders.

They appealed to the local authorities and received approval to publish a weekly local newspaper on all farmer issues. They claim they have a reader base of at least 400 traders and farmers. They have already appointed one of their members as the editor for the newspaper, who had been a writer by hobby. Only one signature stands in their way of inaugurating the supplement, one they hope to receive within the next month.

And that is just one way in which traders’ associations are helping the farmers.

Another farmer group I came across on the trip received sanctions to cultivate fish on a natural large lake. The lake had been previously marked off-limits to preserve fishes. Recently, the entreprenuerial initiative of the local farmers persuaded the government to allow fishing again. The deal is such that the government provides the baby fishes. These fishes are allowed to grow, to give babies and to disperse on to the connecting river. After 3 to 4 months, when one such cycle of fish growth is completed, the local farmer groups are allowed to catch fish.

Ten percent of the earnings from captured fish are given to the government; the remainder is divided among the 800 farmers that form this group. As an added income, the group allows farmers not members of the group to catch fish for a small fee.