Every Saturday evening, there is a flurry of activity in the sleepy hamlet of Bhopoli and the surrounding villages of Vikramgad Taluka, Palghar district. The adivasi residents harvest organically grown vegetables, and sort and pack them into crates, which are then carted to the IIT-Mumbai campus to be sold at the Sunday Farmers’ Market.

The Hari Bhari Tokri is an initiative by the ML Dhavale Trust and Mumbai Organic Farmers and Consumers Association (MOFCA) for the welfare of the region’s subsistence farmers.

“We noticed that the local adivasis hardly consumed vegetables, and decided to promote cultivation of organic vegetables to ensure they ate well and earned some additional income,” says Ujwala Pendse, trustee of MLDT.

MOFCA began in 2009 as an informal collaboration between farmers in the Upper Konkan region and consumers in Mumbai to promote food that is sustainably and ethically grown and consumed. When Hari Bhari Tokri started off in 2010, there were only four farmers from the area and a few from MOFCA, mainly city-bred professionals who had quit their jobs to take up farming. The vegetables from the village were transported to a sorting centre, where volunteers packed them into baskets, or tokris , and sent them to various sales points in Mumbai.

The next season, owing to demand, the tokri s were delivered to customers at an extra cost by the dabbawallas of Mumbai. This proved difficult though, especially in the ‘last mile’ delivery in a huge city like Mumbai. Besides, the tokri s had only local and seasonal vegetables, while consumers wanted other kinds too. To get customers more interested, recipes were sent in the tokri s along with the vegetables.

Meanwhile, more farmers wanted to join the group and shift to organic cultivation. Fours years later, when the farmers had gained enough experience, they were encouraged to handle the distribution and sales on their own. They formed their own group and opened a bank account. A secretary, treasurer and working committee were appointed to handle day-to-day issues and financials.

The trust and MOFCA only stepped in with support for production and marketing. One farmer in the group was assigned to travel and sell the vegetables at the farmers’ market in Mumbai. During the week, the produce was sold to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) for its mid-day meal programme.

According to Neesha, founder-member of MOFCA, “It is the distribution and logistics that need to be sorted out for this model to succeed. On one hand there is pressure to survive in the competitive market, where organic is newly fashionable and lucrative. While on the other, we recognise that organic means different things to different people. These contradictions offer tremendous possibilities for local solutions.”

All profit from the Tokri initiative was ploughed back to the farmers as soft loans for farm-related needs such as buying pipes, pumps or digging wells. The loans were recovered from vegetable sales the next season.

Vishnu, an adivasi associated with the Tokri project from the beginning, says, “We get overwhelmed by the paperwork at government agencies or banks. These people give us advances with just a sign on a paper. It has really helped me build infrastructure on my land.” That includes a large water tank, which he fills whenever there is power and uses later for vegetable cultivation.

All farmers with Tokri have shifted entirely to organic cultivation and sell their produce either at the farmers’ market or to organic food outlets such as Navdanya and Green Current in Mumbai. On average, the farmers get about 20 per cent more for the organic produce compared with conventional produce.

According to Gaurang Barot, who assists in the training for organic practices, “Apart from the additional revenue, it is heartening to see the soil reviving. Even in harsh summer, thanks to mulching and other organic practices, the soil does not turn arid.”

In the absence of concrete government assistance, more such initiatives from private trusts and groups are needed countrywide to keep the organic movement alive.

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