Collective Action Transforms Farming & Forests In Odisha

Mitali Sahoo gets almost everything she needs to feed her family from her three acres of land in Angul district, Odisha. She grows paddy, finger millet, pulses, and vegetables such as brinjal, tomato, parval (pointed gourd), drumsticks, and potato, on this land that lies on the periphery of Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary in Kothabhuin panchayat. Besides ensuring her two daughters eat healthy, she also has enough produce to sell.

“Last year I earned ₹119,000 from brinjal alone,” said the 35-year-old farmer. “Even the oil I use for cooking is extracted from the seeds of the sunflower I grow,” she said with pride.

But there was a time when Sahoo and the other residents in her village struggled to make ends meet. Living on the periphery of a wildlife sanctuary meant poor basic infrastructure — lack of tar roads, no irrigation and transportation facilities, and poor access to health and educational services. Farmers like Sahoo just about managed to cultivate paddy in the kharif (monsoon) season. Open grazing was rampant, farming was unproductive, and villagers had little concern for forest protection.

Things started to change in the early 2000s when the village residents began agitating for better road infrastructure to their villages that were surrounded by teak and bamboo forests.

“Initially, village-level meetings were held. Soon, we realised that most villages shared common problems, including poor infrastructure, unproductive agriculture, and open grazing. It became clear that we needed a common platform to come together and address our problems jointly,” narrated Brajmohan Sahoo, who lives in Bhagatpur village of 130 households, on the periphery of Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary.

In 2005, 28 villages from three gram panchayats came together to launch Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad, a non-registered federation. “Within a year, more villages joined in and the Parishad expanded to cover 41 villages in five gram panchayats,” said Brajmohan Sahoo, who has been a member of the Parishad since its inception.

Each of these villages has direct representation in the federation through two elected representatives: a president and a secretary. Thus, the Parishad has 82 ex officio members, mostly male. It also has members from the panchayati raj institutions.

“We regularly engage with different stakeholders and government line departments for development works in our region. We can no longer be ignored,” he added.

In the past two decades, the Parishad has transformed the area. Forests have regenerated, water conservation efforts have paid off, grazing is controlled, and the region has become an agricultural hub, with its farm produce sold to distant markets in Odisha and other states.

Seeds of a collective

The national highway (NH-55) from Cuttack to Sambalpur in Odisha passes through Angul district, almost dividing it into two starkly opposite regions. On the right side lie coal mining blocks and factories that belch smoke throughout the year. Talcher, an industrial zone notorious for its high pollution, is also located here.

In contrast, the left side features the Charmalik region, characterised by green forests, rivers, and waterfalls, including the Mahanadi. The region supports lush, tropical, moist deciduous forests that cover Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary and Satkosia Tiger Reserve.

Historically, this forested belt was part of autonomous kingdoms ruled by tribal chiefs, mainly from the Kondh tribe. The name Angul is said to derive from Anugol, after Anu, the last Kondh chieftain defeated by the king of Odisha.

Despite its ecological richness, the region had faced generations of neglect, prompting the local villages to organise themselves and form a collective – Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad – in 2005.

One of their first actions was to demand motorable tar roads. “We staged a major ‘rasta roko’ on the Angul-Sambalpur highway and forced the government to build pucca roads to our villages. Once the road came, there was no looking back,” Sushil Pradhan of Tainsi village, and a member of the Parishad, told Mongabay India.

Brajmohan Sahoo, the senior-most member of the federation, explained how the Parishad was built. “The main aim of the Parishad is to bring people together on a common platform to discuss their problems and arrive at solutions. This requires regular interactions with government line departments and other stakeholders such as educational institutes, local NGOs, self-help groups, etc,” said Brajmohan Sahoo.

But bringing all the villages together was not an easy task. “Initially, each village was thinking of its own gains and losses. There were fights over cattle from one village grazing in the farmlands of another village. Several meetings were held to build consensus towards a collective of villages,” he explained.

Each gram sabha elects a committee, and two members from each committee represent their village in the federation. Sarpanchs are also part of the federation, and at present, three women sarpanchs are members of Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad. They ensure that various government schemes and programmes reach the villages in a coordinated manner.

The Parishad also has ways to resolve conflicts, as different villages are a part of it. “After launching the Parishad in 2005, the next year, in 2006, we also jointly framed bylaws to govern the federation. These include how forests are to be protected, fines for open grazing, regulating borewells, etc,” said Prakash Chandra, a member of panchayat samiti from Tainsi village. He is also a member of Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad.

Reaping the rewards of unity

In 2009, Brajmohan’s village, Bhagatpur, became the first village to undertake watershed works to make water available for rabi (winter) crops. The project was funded by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and facilitated by the Foundation for Ecological Security, a non-profit organisation that works towards ecological regeneration.

The Parishad members were involved in watershed mapping, planning, execution, and monitoring. It took nearly five years to complete the soil and water conservation works in Bhagatpur. Trenches were dug, and stone contour bunds and loose boulder check dams were built at higher elevations, closer to the forest.

All these structures slowed down the flow of runoff and recharged groundwater. Farm bunding was also done to stop soil erosion. A percolation tank was constructed in the recharge zone area to raise the water table.

“The NABARD project required 16% of the cost to be covered through shramdan (voluntary labour) to ensure people’s participation. The Parishad members mobilised local villagers who pitched in, and the project was successfully completed,” said Brajmohan Sahoo. Soon, Bhagatpur’s dugwells were replenished, allowing farmers to cultivate a second (rabi) crop.

“Bhagatpur’s success led to a large-scale watershed management project in the Charmalik area. The 41 villages covering 11,700 hectares were divided into 13 micro-watersheds, and soil and water conservation works were completed in each of them by 2018-19,” said Pradhan of Tainsi village.

When water became available in dugwells and local streams, farmers, apart from growing paddy and millets, began to cultivate pulses and vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, brinjal, and gourds.

An impact assessment by the Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), covering five NABARD-funded watershed projects in Odisha (2008–2020), highlighted benefits for farmers. In the Bargoth watershed, which includes Bhagatpur and nearby villages, paddy yields rose from about 6.5 to 10 quintals per acre, while pulses and vegetables increased from 1.6 to 2 and 12 to 20 quintals per acre, respectively. Crop diversity improved, and groundwater levels rose by 2–3 feet, extending water availability by three months.

However, there was still a problem — the harvest was being destroyed due to open grazing by cattle.

The Parishad introduced measures to stop uncontrolled open grazing. The 41 villages formed bylaws to practice controlled grazing until February-March, so that farmers can harvest both kharif and rabi crops.

Each village identified its fallow and pasturelands, which could be used for controlled grazing. “One grazer was hired to mind 100 cows. They were paid between ₹1,000 and ₹1,500 per cow for 10 months of controlled grazing,” said Brajmohan Sahoo.

“Open grazing was destroying our forest. To fence an acre of land, a farmer required at least 200 bamboos. As a result, we over-extracted bamboo from the forest. This stopped once we adopted controlled grazing,” he said. The efforts to conserve water and soil, as well as control grazing, paid off.

“Before watershed works and controlled grazing, I could get about eight quintals of paddy from an acre. Now I get between 15-20 quintals.  Farmers have switched from direct broadcast to line-sowing of paddy, which reduces weeds and increases the harvest,” said Prakash Chandra, who himself cultivates multiple crops in seven acres at Tainsi. “Almost all the farmers in this region grow several vegetables and fruits, mango, banana, guava, papaya, green chilli, garlic, ginger, and onion.”

Access to vegetables has had a positive impact on the health of the people. “Earlier, our staple diet was rice, salt, and khatta [a type of mango pickle]. We now eat at least three to four servings of vegetables a day. Apart from kulth [horse gram], we also cultivate arhar, chana, moong, and other pulses,” said Pratima Sahoo of Tainsi village.

After solving the irrigation and open grazing problems, the next step before the federation was to organise farmers and maximise their profits. In 2016, two farmer producer companies (FPOs) — the Charmalik FPO and the Panchdhara FPO — were established.

“Earlier, we were forced to sell our produce at whatever price the trader/middleman quoted. But now, as an FPO, we pool our produce and demand and get more competitive prices from traders,” said Bichitra Pradhan, the director of Panchdhara FPO.

“Last year, our FPO sent 20 tonnes of mango to Banaras [Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh]. We also sell about 40 tonnes of sweet potatoes a year. Our brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, chilli, and onion travel as far as Sambalpur, Bhubaneswar, and Bhadrak districts,” he said.

In 2024, the FPOs established two solar-powered cold storage units with a capacity of eight tonnes each, utilising corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds. So far, around 120-150 farmers have used the cold storage facility.

From muddy, non-motorable roads to solar-powered cold storage units, the region has undergone a significant transformation over the past two decades. A large credit goes to the Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad, which brought people together to solve their own problems.

“Villages that are close to forest areas have their own unique challenges. Creating village federations helps such villages to come together on a common platform and work for their development. Such federations need to be strengthened and supported,” said Bishnu Charan Pradhan, a professor of zoology at Angul Mahila Mahavidyalaya, who has witnessed the rise of Charmalik Aanchalik Bikas Parishad in Angul.

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India)