Empower Women Farmers in India

January 19, 2009

Dear Friend,

New Year Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Thank you very much for your continued supported. I am Deepti and I look after the Reporting and Communication Program in Seva Mandir. I will be staying in touch with you regularly to keep you updated about the program that you have been supporting.

We have some exciting news to share. However, before sharing the exciting news I would like to go over the time line for this program as to refresh what we have done in past few months in this program.

Starting with discussion on a Mill project in October 2007 we successfully sold the procured Tur Dal (Piegon Pea) in January 2008. This boosted confidence in all the member farmers (a total 50 farmer got registered initially from 5 villages). As a result, we agreed to revise the business plan and submitted its proposal to our various Partners including Global Giving in February-March 2008 for raising funds.

In April we organized a training on Processing Technique of Dal (Pulse) for member-farmers. This was funded and supported by the Government of India. In May the marketing of the processed Dal that farmers had learnt to produce during training in April was done. This particular exercise encouraged the farmers since they sold Dal at a price they could not imagine (the farmers otherwise sell off their Dal without processing at a very low price). As a result the member began to grow slowly and reached to about 100 in January 2009.

In June 2008 an agreement was made between the farmers, Seva Mandir and the Government for granting the farmers funds for buying Machinery for this Project. It was followed by procuring Machinery in July and in August the process of locating a piece of land where the machine can be installed was completed. In three months of last year i.e. from October to December the member farmers managed to procure a piece of land from the Local Village Council (Panchayat) and began the action plan of installing the Machinery.

The exciting news is that the member farmers have laid the stone of Foundation on 3rd January 2009. Every member is very excited about this. All part of the Mill has been bought except the Diesel Engine.

The procurement of Tur Dal is currently going on and the target is to procure at least of 100 qtl. We expect that Building the Mill-House will be completed by March 2009 if we manage to raise $ 3650 which is the deficit amount for construction.

On the other account, for procurement too, we are looking for funds. Although, we did manage to raise $ 2100, but we are in deficit of another $4000 to support the remaining costs for procurement.

It has become quite a long feedback, but there is more I want to share with you as what a member-farmer is? How does it work? Why we need funds for procurement etc.

We would like to say a big Thank you for keeping your faith in us and proving these farmers a big opportunity to earn more income.

Thank you once again. I would be very happy to address to your queries if any.

With warm regards,

Deepti Ameta In Charge Reporting and Communications deepti@sevamandir.org