Poverty Alleviation
The World Bank Organization describes poverty in this way:
“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time.
Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many ways. Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action — for the poor and the wealthy alike — a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities.”
Multiple factors attribute to poverty in the society. Poverty varies depending on the situation. Feeling poor in developed countries is different from living in poverty in third world countries. The differences between rich and poor within the borders of a country are also huge.
We are celebrating 75 years of Independence. But, we have notovercome poverty yet. Millions are going to bed with empty stomach, despite they beg for food all the day. It is intolerable. Great Tamil Poet Thirvalluvar writes in one of the couplets of Thirukuralin Tamil as follows:
இரந்தும்உயிர் வாழ்தல் வேண்டின் பரந்து
கெடுக உலகியற்றியான். – குறள் 1062
Transliteration(Tamil to English):
Irandhumuyir vaazhdhal vaeNdin parandhu
keduka ulagiyatriyaan – Kural 1062
Translation (Tamil to English)
If the Creator of the world has decreed even begging as a means of livelihood, may he too go a begging and perish. – Couplet 1062
Poverty is truly a sensitive issue. Any conscious man like Thiruvalluvar will get agitated like this. In our view, poverty is a complex societal issue and we all are bound to work together to provide the opportunities for all the members of society to reach their full potential. We have been in the service of alleviating poverty by implementing the following programmes across India for the past four decades:
For millennia, agriculture and its allied activities have been the major source for employment in India. Anyone who is ready to shed his/her wears in the field is employable in agriculture. No special education, training and experience are not required for it. But we, now, run after other industries after industrialization. Industry require specialized knowledge and training for gathering of which the poorest of the poor cannot afford. Poor needs the food first and everything next.
Hence, our objective is to alleviate poverty through agriculture and allied activities. Nearly 8 lakhs farmers and farm workers have become members of Ahimsa as they have experienced unconditional support from Ahimsa and our experts in their agricultural activities such as:
- Enriching the soil of their agricultural lands by organic way
- Making organic manure, plant growth booster and organic pesticide available in affordable price
- Making provisions to protect their produces until marketing is completed
- Training them to market their products in profitable way
- Assisting them to get shops in Farmers Market (UzhavarSanthai) facilitated by Government of Tamil Nadu
- Guiding them in getting agricultural loans from Banks/FIs/Other Agencies
- Making them aware of various insurance schemes
- Bridging them with urban affordable class dwelling in big apartment clusters to sell the agricultural produce directly within campus or at doorstep
- Creating supply chain with cold storage to market their produce in far places also
Apart from these kinds of supports in their agricultural activities directly, we also encourage farmers, farm workers and rural mass to go for following allied activities of agriculture:
- Animal Husbandry
- Milch animals
- Goat and sheep raring
- Poultry keeping
- Honey Bee Apiary
- Fisheries development
Value addition of agriculture produces fetch more price and thus it increases their income manifold. Value addition industry is a cottage industry for which Governments, Central and States, grant many subsidy and incentive schemes as it generates more employment to rural and suburban mass. Positive effect of this type of cottage industries is that erosion of rural mass to urban is substantially reduced. Governments earn tax too equal or more to the subsidy they grant. Hence, we motivate them to go for following value addition activities:
- Medicinal valued food products from Palmyra
- Lycopene from tomato
- Pharmaceutical Glucose from potato
- Liquid Glucose from maize
- Curcumin from turmeric
- Energy products from Banana and others
Under the Agri Division, which is the major division among them, AHIMSA registers individual farmers in the villages and maintains a data base of about 7.5 lakh members from farmer families across the state comprising of farmers, women SHG members and educated youth. AHIMSA organizes farmers into village level Farmers Clubs and providing the farmers with technical guidance and arranging for inputs in a small way and procures the farm produce at village level and aggregates it and sell in bulk to traders who are registered with them. The Farmers Clubs are consolidated into Farmers Producers Companies at the rate of 50 Farmers Clubs in a contiguous area to ensure that there at least 1000 farmer share holder members for each Farmers Producer Company. AHIMSA has so far been able to organise 7 FPCs in the state and three more are in the pipeline and one more in Karnataka, AP and Uttarkhand state. AHIMSA also organizes the women in the rural areas into Self Help Groups and many of them help the procurement centers in receiving the produce, weighing them, sorting them and packing them for delivery. AHIMSA also undertakes skill development training and guidance for village youth to make them small entrepreneurs in the villages. Under this Division AHIMSA helps farmers with sericulture, dairy, goat farming, poultry, apiary and crop husbandry
Keeping in tune with the policy of encouraging formation of Farmers Producer Companies by the Government of India and NABARD who has identified the scheme called “Farmer Producer Organizations” to mobilize farmers and build their capacity to collectively average their production and marketing strength, AHIMSA has mobilized farmer members of Farmers Clubs, women self help groups and youth club to form Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) and registered under the special provisions of Companies Act, 1956 as per Government rules. Through this scheme they can get improved access to investment, advanced technology, inputs and markets and also to build prosperous and sustainable agriculture and getting enhanced productivity. We can arrange to get them loans and subsides. We can assist them in establishing Agro industries to process their agricultural produces and to manufacture value-added products which can be marketed by developing chain –link marketing centers.
Taking into consideration the welfare of the farmer producers and consumers, AHIMSA had made arrangements to start FPOs in Madurai, Trichy and Tiruvallur, districts and registered. Further AHIMSA has extended the scheme to Kanchipuram, Virudhunagar, Tirunelvelli and Karur Districts during 2016. At present AHIMSA further extended the projects widely over some other states of our country also. . AHIMSA has so far been able to organise 7 FPCs in Tamil Nadu and three more are in the pipeline and one more in Karnataka, AP and Uttarkhand state. AHIMSA also organizes the women in the rural areas into Self Help Groups and many of them
help the procurement centers in receiving the produce, weighing them, sorting them and packing them for delivery. AHIMSA also undertakes skill development training and guidance for village youth to make them small entrepreneurs in the villages. Under this Division AHIMSA helps farmers with sericulture, dairy, goat farming, poultry, apiary and crop husbandary
AHIMSA is publishing a monthly News paper covering the latest news and information related to Agriculture, Industries, Government Schemes etc. to the members of AHIMSA. This News paper has been been registered with the office of the Registrar of News paper for India vide Registration Number TNTAM/2008/26417 and bearing ISBN Registration Number 907243
Industries which generate more employment and environment friendly will be one of the key solutions to alleviate poverty. We have been attempting to nurture the following industries in rural areas and in the places where urban poor are living:
Biofuel: Import of crude oil is day by day increasing for processing petro products. Instead, uncultivated lands of the country can be used to grow plants like Jatropha, Maise and Sugarcane and biofuels can be produced at large scale at affordable cost. These plants are suitable for Indian tropical climatic condition.
Readymade garments: Making ready to wear garments from cotton is an industry which is not only high profit yielding, but also employment generating in large scale especially for women and youth. From cotton cultivation to packing and loading finished garment products to the market, it is full of employment opportunities.
Consumer Chain Stores: Multinational companies and big market players are running shops selling consumer items in many names like Super Markets, Superstores, Departmental Stores and etc. Their motive is to earn high profit. They will buy products at lowest possible price from farmers and value addition industry people and sell them in highest possible price to consumers. In this chain, mediators play big role and they are gaining more. But the ones who produces and the ones who consumes are ultimate sufferers. In order to avoid this kind of unethical market practice, a Consumer Chain Stores run by farmers are encouraged to be promoted. Consequence will be that farmers/producers will get fair price for the produces/products and the consumers will get goods in affordable price. Notably, this type of Chain of Stores generate lot of employment opportunities to uneducated to educated, unskilled to skilled and untrained to trained.