Bazaar bonanza

A women’s collective in Odisha’s Keonjhar district has delivered in spades by creating a dedicated market for its 2,000-plus members

Saraswati Hansda has a large family. The 36-year-old from Barigaon village in Odisha’s Keonjhar district lives with her husband, two children, in-laws and sundry relatives, bringing the total number under one roof to 10. Ms Hansda’s husband works as a driver, but the family’s primary source of income still comes from farming their 3-acre plot. And the money’s never enough.

“After every harvest, I would worry about where to sell our produce for a good price,” says Ms Hansda, a paddy farmer. “We used to keep some of this for our consumption, but with so many mouths to feed, we were forced to find buyers.”

Ms Hansda would take the rice and vegetables she grew to the local haat (village market), simply because she did not have any other sales avenue. “Whatever I could not sell would simply rot on the farm, and we would lose a lot of money. I had no idea how or where to approach traders, or how much I should get for my produce.” In the circumstances, getting a fair price for her produce was impossible.

“That is the biggest question of all small farmers,” says Santanu Dutta, team lead, Odisha, with the Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI), an associate organisation of the Tata Trusts. “Where can they sell their produce, do it in a seamless, hassle-free way, and also get the right price for it?” 

With this and other cultivator concerns in mind, CInI helped set up a collective for marginal women farmers in Harichandanpur in Keonjhar in 2022. The Sakam Sindur Farmer Producer Company (FPC) started with just 97 members but now has more than 700 shareholders and 2,000-plus farmers from some 60 villages in its fold.

These members access a range of agricultural services through a professionally-managed organisation run by a president who is assisted by an elected 10-member board of directors.

At the heart of the Sakam Sindur’s success is a mahila krushak bazaar (market for women farmers) that has been set up in Bhagamunda, a village in Harichandanpur. This is a collaboration between the FPC and the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) fund, established by the Odisha government to benefit citizens living in mining areas.

One-stop solution

The bazaar, a one-stop agricultural platform, connects farmers to markets so that they know — unlike earlier — where their produce goes, exactly how much it fetches in the market, and what they can plan for the following season.

“If market connect is a concern with farmers, so is timely agri-inputs,” adds Mr Dutta. Other than seeds and saplings, mechanisation is something smallholding farmers desperately require.

“Preparing the field manually takes a lot of time and hard labour,” explains Mr Dutta. “You might miss the rains and the sowing season altogether. A tractor, on the other hand, can help you get the land ready in a matter of hours.”

The bazaar provides access to farm machinery services at minimal cost. It also facilitates the repair and maintenance of solar pumps and drip irrigation systems for Sakam Sindur’s farmer-producers.

Most of the FPC’s members are first-generation vegetable farmers. That is, they have moved away from traditional subsistence practices to increase their incomes. For that to happen, they needed some handholding.

“Sakam Sindur has empanelled expert local farmers who reach out to cultivators and provide know-how and practical training,” says Mr Dutta. Alongside knowledge transfer, the FPC generates hyper-local advisories that help farmers bring climate resilience and better management to their practices.

“We link the farmers to new technologies and constantly seek information and insights on their pain points, so that these can also be addressed,” adds Mr Dutta.

In September 2023, the DMF fund provided an electric vehicle to the FPC, transforming the service delivery process overnight. Doorstep delivery of farm inputs and equipment, as well as pickups for produce to be transported to the market, have made the lives of Sakam Sindur’s members a lot easier.

“As smallholder farmers in remote hamlets, we struggled to reach the threshold volume needed to connect with markets,” says Saraswati Behera, president of the Sakam Sindur FPC. “Input access was time-consuming, often requiring a full day’s travel to various places. For this reason, many women farmers were discouraged by their families from taking up agriculture. The mahila krushak bazaar has changed all that.”

The FPC has also connected its farmer-members to 45 external vendors at both the input and output ends. It has fostered public-private collaboration by building strong ties with the state government, specifically the Department of Horticulture, the DMF and district authorities.

As Sakam Sindur continues to grow, it aims to expand its produce portfolio beyond vegetables and paddy; increase access to input credit and agri-tech solutions; and, importantly, train more women farmers to become entrepreneur-leaders.

As the 35-year-old Ms Behera puts it: “We never thought we could run a business, talk to officials, or make decisions that impact hundreds. But now we do. Sakam Sindur has made us believe in ourselves and one another.”

That kind of self-assurance also comes from having a regular and steadily growing income, like Ms Hansda does. Thanks to CInI’s training and the bazaar, this board member of Sakam Sindur earns at least three times what used to be the annual baseline salary of farmers here: ₹30,000.

Ms Hansda’s husband drives a local passenger vehicle and his earnings now go entirely into the family’s savings box. Ms Hansda runs the household with what she makes from farming. “Earlier, we had just enough to survive, and I tried to keep us afloat by managing the home in the best way that I could,” she says. “But today my income from agriculture pays for the children’s education, our family’s health requirements and more.”

Ms Hansda has gone from being a reticent, unlettered homemaker to a respected champion for her FPC in the community. “Nobody has helped us as much as the CInI dadas [brothers],” she says. “I want to mobilise more women to avail the same benefits that I did and become successful.”

CInI, however, is looking at minimising its role here. “Previously, there was a lot of dependence on us for services and inputs,” says Mr Dutta. “Now the FPC has taken over all operational and advocacy activities. We wanted to eventually make ourselves redundant, which has been achieved. Sakam Sindur can run entirely on its merit with its strong woman leadership.”