Sandip Kar
Managing Trustee, GRINS Network, www.grins.bio
E-mail: contact@grins.bio
We have been hearing the need to address farmers’ concerns for decades now and for past few years, a yardstick has also evolved, that of doubling the farmers income (Chand 2017) as a measure of their economic progress. What was earlier only a slogan has now finally got some teeth in terms of policy making and a much more supportive agricultural ecosystem.
However, all that was for the mainland, and not much was heard regarding the fortunes of the small and marginal farmers of the mangroves of Sundarbans (Ghosh 2015) which is very recently coming up in discussions as a fragile landscape whose preservation is an important tool in the fight on climate change management, a conclusion intensified after the collapse of the Kyoto protocol ((Wilcoxen and McKibbin 2002).
It was the promise of this new enabling ecosystem and our personal experiences on few visits to the mangroves of Sundarbans between 2014-17 to execute an advisory mandate to design a responsible tourism roadmap on behalf of the government, that we jumped the gun and left our salaried jobs (www.grins.bio).
Our country is a study in contradictions. Mangroves of Sundarbans are no exception. Sitting on a Delta flush with natural resources, the local farmers are desperate to make ends meet and the choice of the younger farmers between migrating as nameless laborers, or continuing with pride, farming on their small and marginal land holding is but obvious. It is a unique problem that makes youngsters of all gender vulnerable to social evils and exploitation.
We, three bankers, gave up on the intoxication of the month end salary credits, ignored cautionary words from dear ones and joined hands in 2018 with an NGO working on conservation in that geography for many years, to embark upon an adventure, that evolved into a pioneering effort to build from scratch a farm to fork model, situated in a mangrove delta. The partnership was possible because the NGO was co-led by an ecologist whom we had consulted during the aforementioned advisory mandate on responsible tourism. She continues to be a dear senior and guide on matters of the mangroves.
We spent a good amount of time in researching and interacting with several think tanks, government departments, and stakeholders engaged in North & South 24 Parganas and assessed the possibility to connect our observations with the ethos of People, Planet, Profit – popularly known as Triple Bottom Line, coined in 1994 by John Elkington and fashionably showcased in almost all CSR publications now; recalled by the creator in 2018 (Kraaijenbrink 2019).
Bankers love bullet points and here we were with the key points, seemingly disjoint observations, that we will attempt to connect and convert the farmers’ desperation into a farmers’ business that will hopefully contribute to ongoing battle to manage climate change concerns.
- Phenomenal demand in Kolkata for affordable clean food devoid of harmful chemical additives and pesticides. No reliable supplier in sight.
- Farmers in the mangroves about 100 km away from Kolkata, sitting with abundant horticultural and marine produce, mostly sold at pathetic prices below their production cost or wasted. No appreciative consumer in sight.
- Mangroves emerging as one of the last frontiers in the fight on climate management (Barnes 2022). Policymakers and think tanks are struggling with livelihood options to preserve and protect mangroves. Reality has sunk in that knee jerk donations and planting of saplings is nothing but lip service to what otherwise needs to be a long-term process demanding a sustainable solution to this preservation activity by local communities (Anonymous 2022). Can chemical-free farming – or climate friendly farming – be a way out to provide the livelihood that will allow communities the luxury to preserve mangroves in their backyard?
- Significant central government effort on policy front to enable small marginal farmers get together to form collectives and improve their economic conditions as also get organic/green certification in an affordable manner (https://pgsindia-ncof.gov.in/, http://sfacindia.com/). Is it a workable model for Sundarbans?
- Exemplary effort from the state government to provide financial support to such collectives and also help in their sales offtake through various programs (https://www.sufalbangla.in, https://www.biswabangla.in). Can the farmers rely on such support from government machinery as and when needed?
- Startup India program flourished and many great ideas gave shape to affordable innovative products and services merging technology to tradition that were long needed to address numerous post-harvest challenges in agriculture. Will they fit the tough mangrove environmen
Can we visualize the solution?
Can we use the rising demand for affordable clean honest food in Kolkata as an engine of development to improve the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers of Sundarbans Delta, the two separated by about 100 km, under a conservation approach around the ethos of People, Planet & Profit.
Strategy
We intended to formalize the effort under the policy making framework of SFAC (Small Farmers’ Agri Business Consortium) (http://sfacindia.com/), an autonomous society registered only in 1994 and deep dive into the success stories under Startup India program, launched in 2016, that were merging technology with the needs of the traditional farming community.
Straddling the two, we intended to build a supply chain with a Farmer First approach and Zero Intermediation that will connect fresh produce of climate friendly farming (another jargon for aspirational traditional farming which our forefathers had done before the green revolution, to be achieved progressively over time) with the affluent consumers of Kolkata. Farm to Fork.
One needs capital to start an enterprise and in the social sector this is often in the form of an initiation grant and for us this was from one European consortium who were looking to work on similar sustainable solutions around fragile ecosystems like the Sundarbans Delta. We put in conscious effort to ensure that all man-hours, including ours, were budgeted, albeit highly discounted, and that we neither touch the cashflow of the farming ecosystem nor do we allow ourselves to become an indispensable part of the livelihood program we proposed to build.
Key hurdle to actualizing our goal
In the corporate world, we had learned of the differences between consulting and transactional businesses, never the twain shall meet, like chalk and cheese. Likewise, in the present context, former corporate professionals used to their gentle weekends on golf courses and gentleman’s clubs of the city had proposed to drop their suits, roll up their sleeves and work together with young progressive farmers in the heart of the hostile environment of Sundarbans! First, how will the professionals metamorphosize into the demanded role and secondly, will the associated farmers accept these ‘foreigners’ with their foreign ways?
How was it done?
First, we were not parachuted into the mangroves but were acclimatized. As covered in in the earlier sections, though the actual project implementation started in 2018, the preparation, orientation and introduction with the land and people had started from 2014 through our trips and overnight stays on the boats listening to stories of the land and understanding the people.
Second, we were three mad hats, so confident with the project that we were willing to embrace the changes that the project would demand of our lifestyle. We were aware of the dramatic change in money, lifestyle and societal response around us that would accompany this work.
Two elements were a first for us, even after this orientation. One was the experience of the Canning Local which we mostly boarded from Baghajatin Railway Station, walking distance from the place two of us were staying at that time. Canning is the closet railway station to the mangroves of Sundarbans that connects Kolkata. The second one was introduction to the world of Pice Hotels (Kishan 2021). In terms of dividing the work between the three bankers, I was the one who was blessed with the responsibility of operations which meant that I was the face of our social enterprise for the stakeholders; and had almost the entire share of bundled exposure to Canning Local & Pice Hotels.
One may say that this was one of our efforts to blend with the milieu but I was later so grateful to myself for having made that choice. Apart from the fact that I was nourished with some of the most lip-smacking fish meals I have ever had and that I was lucky to avoid crowds on most days since I often took the trains on non-peak hours, they taught me so much about the land and its people. Travel and food tell many tales.
Third, the NGO we had partnered with had been working at the mangroves for over a decade and had deep rooted relationships with local families. The same families they engaged for their conservation work were often the same farmers who tilled their small and marginal plots in search of a livelihood, who participated in our program.
Fourth, honesty and integrity probably shone through. We kept the farmer directors – on board the Farmers Producer Company (FPO) – in loop on all matters and never did we assume that anything that we used in the project would be too complicated for them to understand. On the learning curve aspect, we were taken by surprise.
As mentioned earlier, we did a deep dive into the technical 
world of agriculture (popularly called agritech), that had flourished under Startup India banner and handpicked two innovations that would simplify the farmers’ lives. Apart from these, there were three existing techs that we adopted –web application that works like an app on one’s phone, WhatsApp as a business tool and digital payment platforms.
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One of the two was a startup from Bangalore innovating an affordable source authentication process using blockchain, a reasonably new technology then, already lapped up by the financial services industry. This technology coupled with google maps, allows an FPO to digitize farmers and farmlands and then track the entire agri life cycle and also allow the consumer to track, in a fool proof method, the source from where the produce has originated. With this, an FPO can have a dashboard of supply – demand scenario, farmers’ database, crop lifecycle data and the consumer can access a QR code to track the origin and several data points as may be relevant for the crop. All of this at an affordable cost for the farmers.
We were surprised to see the speed with which the 
farmers, many unfamiliar with technology, quickly grasped the relevance of the technology and could immediately associate themselves with the same, with quick familiarity in uploading farm data into a smart phone on their own.
The second one was another innovator from Surat who had established a farm level affordable small cold storage unit, which can run both on conventional electricity and solar power. This one also had almost zero learning curve because the menace of farm wastage is an unfortunate part of post-harvest experience.
These two were powerful tools for the farmers with the potential to help rapidly scale up the FPO which is very important to have bargaining power in the marketplace and achieve increased control of their destiny, except for the variability of climatic conditions which did play havoc during our implementation in the form of Cyclone Amphan in May 2020. But that is another narration for another time on resilience of the mangrove farmers of Sundarbans.
The fifth reason is probably the most important reason for the farmer-professional force to last as it did. It was because nothing succeeds like success and when the farmers actually saw the monetization of their hard work with such seamless involvement from production to home delivery, it had a convincing power like no other.
The jumpstart that we needed at the beginning came in the form of civil society support from a large residential gated community by way of a free captive store within the premises. We had access to in house consumers of about 900+ households and plenty of room for trials and errors to experiment with various parts of the business.
We stood shoulder to shoulder with the farmers in showing them the ropes to building a base of affluent city customers and retaining them. There have been numerous instances when we visited customer households to cover shortage of delivery persons and then there were instances of establishing institutional connect with banks for loans and bulk buyers from both private and government segment. They could perhaps sense that we gave 100% to the business and had as much stake in making this a long term success.
We were amazed to witness the resilience of the small 
farmers of Sundarbans to succeed amidst towering odds and often stretched ourselves to match their expectations. Chalk and cheese did blend well in this scenario.
Seeds of hope
When we handed over the reins late November 2020, soon after the second AGM of the farmers’ company, we left with the satisfaction of having demonstrated to the progressive marginal farmers the means of more than doubling their income through natural farming, options to reduce farm waste, means to develop consumer trust, earn credit worthiness, benefits of embracing affordable state of the art technology and through it all, conserve the fragile ecosystem of the mangroves of Sundarbans that protects Kolkata.
The guardians of the Sundarbans can now protect the mangroves from their backyards while earning their livelihoods.
We continue to track developments in this space and always ready to lend a hand.
Reference
1. Anonymous (2022) How sustainable living can help counter the climate crisis.
URL: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-sustainable-living-can-help-counter-climate-crisis
2. Barnes E. (2022) Mangroves as a solution to the climate crisis.
URL: https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/mangroves-as-a-solution-to-the-climate-crisis
3. Chand R. (2017) Doubling farmers’ income: Rationale, strategy, prospects and action plan. National Institute of Transforming India, Government of India, New Delhi. NITI Policy Paper no.1/2017.
URL: https://www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/DOUBLING%20FARMERS%20INCOME.pdf
4. Ghosh A.K. (2015) People in Sundarbans most susceptible to climate change. URL https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/people-in-sundarbans-most-susceptible-to-climate-change-50650
5. Kishan J. (2021) Pice hotels: A lifeline for Kolkata’s hungry workers. URL:https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210608-the-indian-cafes-that-fed-a-revolution
6. Kraaijenbrink J (2019) What the 3Ps of the Triple Bottom Line really mean. URL:https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2019/12/10/what-the-3ps-of-the-triple-bottom-line-really-mean/?sh=3fa519c55143
7. Wilcoxen P.J. and McKibbin W.J. (2002) Climate Change after Kyoto: A Blueprint for a Realistic Approach. URL:https://www.brookings.edu/articles/climate-change-after-kyoto-a-blueprint-for-a-realistic-approach/
