Thu, 2006/11/30 - 09:28

Dear Neighbours,

Many thanks for volunteering time to visit our site. The community of Khaparapada seeks our inputs in collecting examples of other co-operatives, especially those engaged in production and marketing of high return spices, medicinal and aromatic plants.

Are you aware of or involved with such a farmer’s co-operative? It would be really great if you could share any related information known to you through experience or researching resources like the internet. Such lead examples would help the community learn from experience of other groups who have successfully formed similar co-operatives.

Look forward to seeing you soon in this discussion! :-)

Poonam

Mon, 2006/12/04 - 17:25

Dear NABUUR Volunteers.

Today it's International Volunteer Day.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your dedication and invaluable support towards finding solutions.

The time and energy put forth into your volunteering work really make life changing differences for other people.

As NABUUR grows we are honored to work with passionate volunteers such as yourself, as you are the ones who make it happen.

NABUUR and all those involved celebrate you today, and we look forward to a long and continued collaboration.

It couldn't be done without you.

Warm regards,

Siegfried Woldhek

CEO NABUUR.com

Fri, 2006/12/15 - 21:37

Hi

Here is some information regarding a similar project from South America

Introduction

Ten years ago, the living conditions in the North East Canelones area were poor - the roads were bad and there was no electricity, running water or communications. Although only a hundred or so kilometres from Montevideo, the region had been neglected and was inhabited by poor, rural families with small plots of land. Sugar beet had been the main income producing activity until the local sugar factory shut down.

A group of women farmers, experienced in producing fresh crops, desperately needed to find an alternative income in order to survive. The setting up of the Cal Manana cooperative was an attempt to alleviate the acute economic crisis they were facing and it was also to help the women improve their self-esteem and gain control over their lives.

The processing and trade of spices has always been an important industry and has a significant impact on the economy of many countries. Although there is little tradition for growing spices in Uruguay, the climate is perfect for producing aromatic herbs and spices. The women started their business in 1987, with a minimal initial investment, under the guidance of Kirai De Leon, by growing four spices - tarragon, coriander, mint and dill - and gradually incorporated others. The cooperative only uses strictly organic methods of production to grow the herbs and spices.

Coriander has thin and feathery leaves and broader and flatter lower leaves.

There are now 24 women working in the cooperative and they are divided into three groups which operate in the areas of Pedernal, Gardel and Tapia. The women have created a thriving business growing, drying and marketing thirty varieties of herbs and spices. They produce five thousand packets a month and sell them to the three largest supermarket chains in Uruguay. Although many husbands are involved in the production of the herbs and spices, it is the women who make the decisions in the cooperative.

There have been changes for the better in the community. Roads have been built; communications have been improved; electric light has been installed and telephones arrived two years ago.

Harvesting

Saffron has blue-violet, lily-shaped flowers that appear in autumn.

It is not possible to produce a good spice product from low quality harvested material. The main obstacle to harvesting spices correctly is picking them while they are still immature which will affect the quality of the spices once they are dried. Picking should be left until the spices are fully mature. The women still use hand sickles to harvest some of the crops, for example, tarragon.

Cleaning

The spices should be cleaned before processing to remove the dust and dirt collected during harvesting. A winnowing basket, which can be made locally from bamboo, palm or other leaves, is filled with the harvested crop and shaken until all the dust, dirt, stones and other waste materials have been removed. This is a quick and efficient method, for example, about 100kg of pepper can be cleaned in an eight hour day. There are small machines available for cleaning herbs and spices but these are rarely cost effective.

After winnowing, the spices need to be washed in water. For small-scale spice processing two or three 15 litre buckets are sufficient but for larger quantities, a sink made out of concrete with a plug hole can be used. The water must be changed regularly to prevent the contamination of the spices through using dirty water. Only drinking water should be used.

Drying

Turmeric has large leaves and clusters of flowers in spikes.

Once the plants have been picked and cleaned, the most critical part of the production process is the drying. Produce that is dried inadequately will develop mould. In addition, the growth of food poisoning bacteria on some spices is a serious danger if the washing and drying is not carried out properly.

Drying the produce too fast or at too high a temperature will burn the crops and cause a reduction in quality through both physical and chemical changes such as the loss of flavour or colour. The market price of herbs will be affected by produce that is mouldy or lacking in colour or flavour, indeed the price can decrease by as much as 50%.

The women have now evolved a drying unit which requires minimal investment and uses a domestic dryer and a long tunnel made out of heavy plastic which has to be replaced after violent storms. The chimney's function is to let the damp air, given off by the herbs during the drying process, escape.

Mustard plants have smooth or hairy seed pods, depending on the variety.

The dryer is economical because it is solar powered and operates in the same way as a greenhouse. It is built with wood and plastic sheeting which keeps the costs low. Driers can also be constructed out of any locally available materials, such as bamboo or nylon weave. The best results for drying herbs are achieved by placing black sheets over the transparent sheets to protect the crops from being scorched by the sun.

The drying techniques for herbs and spices vary and each need to be treated individually. The amount of time the herbs and spices take to dry depends on the hours of sunshine, the temperatures and the moisture content in the air. The dryer depends on sunlight and if there is a lot of damp weather or high humidity, the crops turn black before they have dried properly and need to be thrown away.

Packaging

The selection and packaging of the herbs and spices is time-consuming and the whole family helps with it. A white concrete building with a reed thatch roof is used to package the herbs once they have been dried.

In areas of high humidity it is essential to store spices in a barrier film, such as polypropylene, or cellulose film if it is heat sealed, which retains the quality of the spices, prevents contamination and provides attractive packaging. Most spices can temporarily be stored in boxes or sacks providing the humidity of the air is not too high although over long periods of storage there will be a significant reduction in flavour.

For information on Por un Manana products, please contact:

Mananitas, Ruta 12, Km 89, Canelones, Uruguay.

Tel: (0310) 5334 - (0399) 9572

Sandra Quintans / Lujan Banchero, IPRU, Instituto de Promocion Economico Social del Uruguay, Colonia 2069, 11200 Montevideo, Uruguay.

E-mail: ipru@chasque,apc.org

For further information, please contact:

Partners of the Americas Farmer to Farmer Programme, 1424 K St. NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005. USA.

Tel: (202) 628 3300 Fax: (202) 628 3306

References

Norman, J : The Complete Book of Spices

This programme is one in a series of five about what ordinary women, often in very challenging circumstances, are doing to build better lives for themselves and their families.

TVE/ITDG gratefully acknowledge support for the HANDS ON programmes from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Commission (EC), the UN Foundation and UNDP/The Equator Initiative in collaboration with the Government of Canada, IDRC, IUCN, BrasilConnects and the Nature Conservancy.

Hope this is of some help

Paul

Fri, 2006/12/15 - 21:42

What seems a good link is;

http://www.agriculture-industry-india.com

This contains a whole rane of links to information and sources in India

Paul

Sat, 2006/12/16 - 03:18

Dear Paul,

This one is a quick hello and big thanks for your contribution. I will go through details of your post and get back soon.

Big Welcome!!

Poonam

Sun, 2006/12/17 - 03:59

Dear friends,
I on behalf of KHAPARAPADA village have a big and warm welcome to you all.Very sorry for making delay in welcoming you.
Our facilitator Poonam Srivastava has already started a great work for us which will definitely have a positive result in uplifting the community.
Our new neighbour Paul Cawsey has started with very good informations.
I am very much thankful that you all have selected our village.
Santanu

Tue, 2006/12/19 - 07:16

Dear Paul,

Thank you so much for sharing with us information about the North East Canelones project which is a very relevant example of how women in similar circumstances have taken the lead in doing such good for their community.

It would be really useful to learn more about the initial stages of this project as that would provide excellent learning points for the Khaparapada community given their current situation. Can we seek your help in finding more information about what were the starting steps undertaken under the guidance of Kirai De Leon?

You have mentioned some addresses at the end. Can we request you to contact these resources for any additional information that would benefit our discussion?

Many thanks for all your effort. We really appreciate your initiative. :-)

We look forward to receiving further valuable contributions from your end!

Poonam

Wed, 2006/12/20 - 12:09

Hi Poonam

I willtry and find out abit more about the N.E Canelones project and contact a few people after Chrismas.

Have a bit more information for you;

'BAIF Development Research Foundation is a Non-Government Organisation working for rural development across seven states of India. Registered as a Public Charitable Trust in 1967, BAIF is today managed by over 1000 dedicated professionals, implementing a multi-disciplinary programme in Livestock Development, Water resource Development, Tree Based Farming Systems, Community Health and Empowerment of Village Communities, especially women, spread over 10,000 villages.

THE BAIF MISSION

BAIF’s Mission is to create opportunities of gainful self employment for the rural families especially disadvantaged sections, ensuring sustainable livelihood, enriched environment, improved quality of life and good human values. This is being achieved through development research, effective use of local resources, extension of appropriate technologies and upgradation of skills and capabilities with community participation. BAIF is a non-political, secular and professionally managed organisation.

The Maharashtra Programme

BAIF, through its Associate Organisation MITTRA, has taken up the Wadi programme for tribal livelihood promotion. This is done through a holistic approach incorporating horticulture, agriculture development, management of natural resources and introducing off-farm activities to add value to the farm produce. The programme also has interventions for improving the quality of living through improved health and creating development opportunities for women. The programme is implemented in over 325 tribal villages from Nashik, Thane and Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra State. In these areas programmes reach out to about 20,000 families. The programme has now also been initiated in other areas such as Nandurbar and parts of Vidarbha.

The above programmes are implemented in exclusive tribal areas where the families do not have year-round livelihood opportunities, and are forced to migrate for survival. The Wadi programme has made possible for them to have a secure and stable livelihood.

HERBOTECHNIK: A UNIQUE STRATEGY

A new programme direction is now launched by BAIF in selected areas, to understand, conserve, cultivate and utilise medicinal herbs. The Herbotechnik approach has the following cornerstones:

 Help sustain the traditional knowledge systems on medicinal herbs, in a living form
 Promote availability of medicinal herbs in all their diversity
 Integrate use of herbal medicines in the community health programme
 Commercialisation with benefits to the local communities who have contributed to the knowledge.

Proposed Programme

It is planned to integrate the Herbotechnik strategy with the ongoing Wadi Programme. In order to have a people based programme for production and forward linkages, BAIF / MITTRA have started to work with the traditional herbal healers and other tribal farmers in order to take up production / procurement, cleaning, value addition and marketing of medicinal herbs and semi processed products. As a step in this direction, the following is planned to be undertaken:

 integrate cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants within the ongoing “Wadi” activities (agri-horti-forestry)
 promote block plantations of identified trees having medicinal value
 establish herbal gardens and backyard plantations for local use
 introduce appropriate quality standards in the collection, handling and storage of new herbs
 introduce field level quality and purity testing methods
 establish forward linkages for sale of pure and quality herbal materials

The above field level components will be backed by the necessary work on:

 standardization and transfer of practices for propagation and cultivation
 establishment of “mother” plantations of medicinal plants / herbs from authentic sources
 developing protocols for assurance of purity and quality
 standardization and transfer of techniques / methodology for field level testing

Support Request

Requested to support the above programme for which a detailed three year project proposal will be worked out. '

Dr.Anil Saraf.
Additional Programme Director
BAIF Development Research Foundation
Dr. Manibhai Desai Nagar, N.H. No. 4.
WARJE, PUNE- 411 029. INDIA.
Tel.: 91 20 25231661. Fax: 91 20 25231662.
E-mail: baif@vsnl.com OR ansaraf@rediffmail.com

Have a good Christmas

warm regards

Paul

Thu, 2006/12/21 - 07:22

Hi. Paul,

Many thanks for all your inputs!

It is interesting to read about BAIF- HERBOTECHNIK project. I have two questions-

1. Do I understand correctly that this is a new project (the HERBOTECHNIK part) just getting started? Then do you think there are enough lessons here already to be shared with Khaparapada?

2. Shall we make contact with this organisation to check how they can be involved with our project in the state of Orissa?

I must complement you on researching resources very relevant to our case. :-)

Wish you a Merry Christmas!

Best Wishes

Poonam

Thu, 2006/12/21 - 10:31

Hi Poonam,

It sounds if this is a new project - its hard to tell sometimes with rsources on the internet.

We could adopt their strategy to the village and base our plan around it - seems a sound strategy.
It really depends on the resources available from the villagers and local area.

It could be worthwhile contacting this organisation, you may find that they can give you all the support you need, but you would need to ensure that the villagers ideas are met.

Best Wishes

Paul

Fri, 2006/12/22 - 05:55

Hi Paul,

I agree that the BAIF strategy appears to be sound and its worth exploring a link up with our village.

Will you contact them on Khaparapada's behalf to check out possibilities in this regard?

Meanwhile I am going to get us more information on the village resources through our local representative Santanu.

Many thanks for your effort

Poonam

Fri, 2006/12/22 - 17:51

Hi Poonam

I will contact BAIF after christmas and hopefully get some good information back from them.

It will be intreresting to see waht resources the village has already.

Regards

Paul

Sat, 2006/12/23 - 16:21

Great! Will wait to hear from you.

Happy Holidays!!

Poonam

Mon, 2006/12/25 - 16:50

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
Many many thanks to Paul and Poonam.
Resources of our village-
1.We have lands
2.We have manpower to work
3.We have suitable agroclimatic conditions for many herbs,aromatic plants,spices and some other cash crops.
4.Traditional knowledge to grow the crops
5.Occasional technical supports from the nearest Agriculture Science Centre and State Agriculture Department.
Regards
Santanu

Wed, 2006/12/27 - 19:07

Hi Poonam

Just a quick note to say that I have sent a email to BAIF to try and get some more information. I will let you know if I hear anything.