Jhadol Field Report
Back to work! Some updates:
I was able to incorporate my project into a 15 Crore INR holistic development project over the next 5 years. The biggest issue for year-long-projects such as mine is that they are not taken up by anyone after the fellowship and all the work is eventually lost and forgotten. I am blessed to say mine will continue long after my fellowship is complete and I leave Rajasthan due to this grant.
Phase I (water management phase) of my project is done. Four lakes across four villages were desilted and deepened to harvest more rainfall during monsoon season. In addition, 40 billboards across ~10 villages were painted to create awareness of how to conserve water in the household and farms.
Phase II (agricultural interventions) is remaining. I am working to introduce a government scheme called the Aroma Mission, where the government provides seeds and planting materials for Ayurvedic, medicinal, and aromatic plants and helps with market linkages post-harvest. All farmers have to do is grow the plants and distill extremely profitable oil from the harvest. The plants I’m introducing (lemongrass and palmerosa) are water-efficient and pest-resistant, making it easy for local farmers in the water-scarce region to grow. We are also constructing a distillation unit for farmers to use to distill the oil to sell.
Here’s my presentation from my second review, held on August 1, which my mentors and co-fellows loved! ◡̈ 🌞 (Here’s also my final project plan, in case you wanted to take a closer look at the bigger picture.)
As a part of introducing Aroma Mission into my local field, I took my mentors and team to the nearby Jhadol district to see how a collective of 800 tribal farmers were implementing the scheme locally.
Visiting tribal farmers under the Aroma Mission in Jhadol with the SEVA Mandir’s Natural Resource Department and the Rajsamand block staff
On July 6, a field visit was conducted in several villages across the blocks of Jhadol and Phalasia to better understand the Aroma Mission* government scheme and observe its implementation in the local Rajasthani microenvironment. Our guide was Prem ji, an exemplary and innovative farmer in Jhadol familiar with the latest government schemes and farming methods. He is responsible for organizing 800-1,000 tribal farmers across Jhadol and Phalasia to take advantage of the Aroma Mission scheme.
*The Aroma Mission is a government scheme to encourage water-efficient, highly profitable crops sponsored by the Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP). These crops are encouraged for farmers in drought-prone areas and material, training, and market linkages are provided by the government.
fields of green
Oh, the places we’ll go!
Prem ji, an incredible human being and highly knowledgeable tribal farmer, is our guide today.
Janu stores lemongrass leaves in my notebook
Guru ji, Prabhu Lal ji, Prem ji, and Rajesh ji stand in fields of lemongrass
🌱
crop variety & oil distillation
The crops currently grown across the two blocks:
Lemongrass
Palmerosa
Geranium
Gudmar
Hibiscus
Turmeric
Chamomile
Almost all of the above are processed in various ways: distilling oil and drying the leaves to create tea are the most common.
Farmers currently associated with this initiative are using a distillation unit donated by CIMAP to process their crop. This distillation unit will be used to process lemongrass (leaves), palmerosa (leaves), and marigold (flowers, leaves, and stems), which my project and Seva Mandir have introduced to the region. The oil is then sold to wholesale distributors at 800-1,500 INR per liter, depending on variety and market. A bigha of land can produce around 30 liters of oil (for lemongrass) per cutting. There are 3-4 cuttings a year, meaning a farmer has the potential to make up to 1L INR in revenue with lemongrass per annum.
Palmerosa, in addition to being profitable at 1,500-2,000 INR per liter of oil, also has the potential to keep out neelgay, moose-like creatures that eat local crops, making it appealing to plant as boundary walls in pasturelands.
Oh, the things we’ll see!
Prem ji stands next to the distillation unit donated by CIMAP. Around him are processed geranium and lemongrass after the oil has been removed.
This half-ton distillation unit costs about 3.7L INR and can process 5 quintals at a time. We have been recommended to purchase a one-ton unit so that we do not have to face bottlenecks as we scale.
Process oil takes anywhere from 3-7 hours per batch depending on crop.
The NRD Gang
We are a very cool bunch of people who stand around talking about how to effectively get cows to pee in the morning for urine in our natural pesticide recipes.
THE ART OF TEA-MAKING
Farmers also dry leaves to make tea. In the photos shown below, a farmer family dries cut lemongrass, which they can sell as tea to wholesale distributors. The tea they are currently processing (see in photo 3) is estimated to fetch 3,000-6,000 INR.
The tea-cutting machine pictured costs 29,000 INR (donated by a local nonprofit). It is transported home-to-home as needed and farmers do not pay a fee to access it. Repair and maintenance costs are addressed on an ad-hoc basis.
Cutting the lemongrass
A tribal farmer shows Guru ji and Prabhu Lal ji how to cut the tea
Tea = sunshine + love
Cut lemongrass is laid out in the front yard of the house to dry and be used as tea. This amount of tea is estimated to fetch 3,000-6,000 INR in the market.
Oh, the teas we’ll drink!
A close-up of the tea-cutting machine
Next steps:
Get at least 30 farmers in my block to start signing up for the pilot in our region; hopefully, at least half will be of ST or SC background to ensure the most vulnerable farmers are realizing the benefit.
Construct a distillation unit in our location, which will be women-run.
Phew. Three more months. Let’s go!
