Background of Maikal Hill Region:

The MKSP TWAT project area under the Maikal Hill Region comprising of Mandla and Dindori districts is inhabited predominantly by tribals; constituting more than 73 percent of the proposed project beneficiaries. Another 26 percent belong to OBCs. The OBC farmers are mainly from Mandla block villages. The main OBC castes are Patel, Katchhwa, Nanda and Panika. The STs are mainly Gonds, and a very small percentage of Baigas and Pradhan. The region is resource rich but inhabited by poor people. In addition the entire project blocks fall under the IAP area and borders the naxal affected belt of Chhattisgarh. Therefore in general they are targeted for poverty alleviation programme through land based development, particularly agricultural enhancement. In the past majority of these tribes used to depend upon forest wealth for their livelihood but today the traditional access of tribals to the forests is restricted. It has had an adverse effect on the tribal life style. With an almost complete ban on hunting many tribes have been deprived of their precious: protein diet. Collection of minor forest produces barely lasts for about 50 day’s employment in a year. It hardly contributes one-tenth of a tribal household income due to lack of value addition opportunities. Tribal agricultural fields are undulating, and smallholdings are subjected to severe soil erosion. Irrigation, despite high potential is practically absent due to limitation of finance to tap water. Agriculture still is primitive and crops have poor yields. Their animals are genetically poor and give only statistical significance. The wage employment in remote inaccessible areas hardly has any continued scope beyond the MNREGS.

Agriculture still remains the main source of livelihoods among peoples of Maikal region. Agriculture is rain-fed and growing of high output second crop in post-rainy season is limited due to lack of irrigation facilities and limitation of resources due to prevailing poverty. Irrigated area is just 12.43 percent, with just 540 wells and 42 farm ponds among the beneficiaries. Tube wells are only with Mandla block farmers (45 out of total 49). Majority of farmers belong to small and marginal category. Average holding size is 1.84 hectares. Despite high preference of district to extend medh bandhan activity to all farmers, only 30 percent farm area was covered under it during 2011-12.

Area specific indicators

S.No.	Block/cluster	Total HH	Total Area	Cropped area	Irrigated area	Irrigated area as %
1	Ghughari - 1	893	1561.70	1890.38	86.30	4.57
2	Ghughari - 2	897	1668.75	2061.26	130.12	6.31
3	Ghughari - 3	745	1671.96	2840.44	331.04	11.65
4	Mandla	1500	2163.21	2196.97	585.41	26.65
5	Dindori	500	1308.11	1680.38	193.37	11.51
Total		4535	8373.7	10669.4	1326.2	12.43

Traditional agriculture based livelihood may no longer be viable or may not be able to earn enough for the growing requirement and aspiration of the people especially for the small farmers. The harvest from their land is not sufficient to sustain their family throughout the year so they migrate for labor work. Again, small landholder farmer face many problems. Poor fertility, unable to afford quality input, production risk like frequent change in whether, inadequate infrastructure, under developed market and lack of access to credit and technical assistance add impediment. The real challenge is to improve the access of poor farmer and small landholder to the skills, capital and market institutions.

The Respondent Beneficiaries

With this background in mind the primary goal of this proposal is to ensure the household food security and sustain agriculture based livelihood by making systematic interventions to enhance their participation, enhancing capacity and skill of rural women in agriculture related activities. The major key outputs of proposed project intervention may be grouped as follows; Rural women farmers will get household food security; Significant enhancement of the income from agriculture operation on a sustainable basis; Increase in productivity and acreage of cultivation area of diversified crops; Increased access of women in agriculture, market, technology, banks other support organization and Women groups as confident farmers and producers of by product.

The tribal society in the Maikal hills region can therefore broadly be divided in to three categories, i) the well to do, ii) the resource poor and iii) the poorest of poor or the resource less: -

The well to do are those having 5 acres of holdings; half of which is irrigated, have wells and or all lands have proper field bunding, pump facility is also available, etc.

The resource poor are having average of 3 acres land holdings, mostly unirrigated, field bunding is either not or not proper, have few goats and backyard poultry birds, depend heavily on NTFP collection and sale and wage earning. They have average outstanding loan of Rs 5000 to Rs 10000/-.

The poorest poor are those who are either landless or have upto 1 to 2 acres of undulated holdings. They are mainly dependent upon the NTFP collection and the wage earnings from NREGA as well as unorganized sector. A few backyard poultry birds and pigs are a major source of occasional cash income. They are generally illiterate or least literates and have average outstanding loans of Rs 1000/.

We have mainly concentrated on these two categories of the target women beneficiaries who have farming as a profession. The landless households are proposed be covered under the MKSP-NTFP proposal. For the other households our strategy is to on one hand increase the household income through better resource management and to save on unnecessary expenditure by adapting to improved scientific practices as well as by restrain from social taboos and evil practices. The present resource use scenario and proposed actions are;

S.No.	Source of Income	Reasons of improper resource Utilization and low incomes	Suggestive measures for Income enhancement
1.	Land	Improper use of land	Training on land based farming practices
		Low investment in Agriculture	Inputs from government sources
		Priority to low output food-grain cultivation practices	Work plan for introducing cash crops and high yield food grain crops
2.	Livestock	Small ruminants based livestock practices prevalent	Awareness regarding livestock economy
		Absence of good breed cattle	Introduce quality breed systematically
		High mortality rate due to poor harvesting practices	Introduce animal husbandary practices
3.	NTFP	Individual based collection and sale	Introduce group based NTFP collection and sale
		Lack of value addition process	Value addition process introduced
4.	Human Resource	Individual approach to work	Group based activities introduced
		Limitations of proper utilization of available capacities	Capacity enhancement as per available levels
		Wage based approach to life results in non productive outputs	Sustainable Livelihood approach introduced
5.	Social Practices	3 practices of smoking, drinking and gambling	Social awakening among women
		High rate of disease break due to poor hygienic practices	Safe waer, sanitation, nutrition and hygiene practices introduced
		Dependency on local money leanders/exploiters for emergency needs	Self help based saving system introduced

The Poorest among the Poor

The baseline was conducted with the specific purpose to identify the category (iii) beneficiaries; ie; the poorest among the poor. The indicators for such households in addition to the above indicators were set as; female headed (widowed or deserted) households, households with disabled member, Particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG)- Baiga households, and households with other reasons for poverty.

Poverty Status of Households

S.No.	Name of Block	Total Female farmer	Poorest of Poor Group				Total
			Female Headed	Disabled	PVTG/Baiga	Others
1	Ghughari - 1	893	26	1	72	226	325
	Ghughari - 2	897	56	7	22	176	261
	Ghughari - 3	745	45	4	28	138	215
2	Mandla	1500	85	3	54	202	344
3	Dindori	500	77	8	31	64	180
Total		4535	289	23	207	806	1325

A large number of 1325 female member households (29%) were found to be termed as poorest of poor. More than two fifths of these are women headed households. This large number (289) is because of many such young women who have been deserted by their husbands and widows. 207 farmers are from Baiga caste, which is PVTG group. But large number (6 out of every 10) is otherwise termed poorest of the poor by the village communities. Many among these poor are forced to migrate in search of livelihood options. Migration for living is another dimension of poverty. The table below shows the migration status of sample area.

Migration Status of Sample Area

S.No.	Name of the block cluster	No. of female farmers	Status of migration
			Yes	% to col 3
1	Ghughari - 1	893	318	35.61
2	Ghughari - 2	897	258	28.76
3	Ghughari - 3	745	188	25.23
4	Mandla	1500	45	3.00
5	Dindori	500	58	11.60
Total		4535	867	21.32

At least one member of as much as 19 percent of total households is migrating in search of employment. Mostly these migrating members are female. In Ghughari – cluster 1 the migration is as high as 35.6 percent. This area requires special attention.

Strategy for Sustainable livelihood of the poorest of poor:

Under the MKSP special inputs are being/ to be provided for these poorest of poor women. As the TWAT project does not involve direct inputs by way of assets under land & water or any other scheme, therefore we propose to improve the living of these marginalised women through these integrated activities:

The Social Inputs:-

• Bring women in to group fold by introducing/ strengthening SHG/ CIG/JFMCs
• Integrate these SHGs/ Groups in to FPOs.
• Introduce the concept of group savings and thrift use by evolving gram kosh
• Social bindings for bad habits among men folk

The Economic Inputs:-

• Introduce these household to the benefits of medh Bandhan on preference basis.
• Link with other government schemes for integrated benefits.
• Cover these households under the agriculture demonstration and trials for small direct benefits under the MKSP.
• Recruit suitable women among these as CRPs and empower them for future sustenance.
• Cover these households under various other programmes of CARD

Progress of beneficiary-wise action taken (2012-13)

Although we intend to benefit all the MKSP kisans through one or the other scheme, but special emphasis is given to cover the poorest of poor among these under various programmes/ schemes that CARD is directly or indirectly involved in.

The status of such scheme benefits till December, 2013 is as under:

Block/Cluster	No of villages	Total Farmer	PoP Farmers	Benefits under MKSP
				MKSP	CARD Programs	Nrega (FB)	Social Security Schemes	CARD CRPs
Ghughari - 1	18	893	325	129	75	30	25	38
Ghughari - 2	18	897	261	73	40	99	116	17
Ghughari - 3	15	745	215	115	72	100	155	16
Mandla	31	1500	344	92	267	2	42	48
Dindori	10	500	180	89	2	91	86	5
Total	92	4535	1325	498	456	322	424	124

It is our endeavor that by the end of the project all the MKSP beneficiaries earn enough through enhanced capacities, knowledge and their access to technologies and entitlements, with specific focus on the PoP group of households …….