Leaves of Prosperity
Reaching out to the poor, landless and marginalized betel vine cultivators and supporting them to better their cultivation practices and to bypass sale of their produce to middlemen is steadily improving the lives of these farmers and holding up hope for them of a way out of abject poverty
T he picturesque Anaimalai block of Coimbatore district offers ideal agro-climatic conditions for betel vine cultivation. Numerous landless Pandiya Vellalar communities have, for many generations, leased land from the owners of coconut plantations to cultivate betel vine, or paan.
The process of cultivation for this ancient crop (it has been in use globally for 2000 years) is highly labour intensive and, therefore, the communities involved invest most of their time and labour tending to it. Betel vine cultivation and its trade and commerce offer employment to about two million families in India and the livelihood of these people is solely dependent on the performance of this bread earning crop. The farmers have become members of the Thenchitur Vetrilai Urpathiyalargal Poocharam, or Common Livelihood Group (CLG), an intervention at the community based organization (CBO) level, to bring under one umbrella all those individuals involved in this business at the habitation level.
During cultivation, betel vine is very susceptible to diseases such as leaf-spot, leaf rot and a powdery mildew. This results in great losses. Against this background, it is important to mention the integrated support provided by the Pudhu Vaazhvu (New Life) Project (PVP). PVP began its operations in Tamil Nadu in 2005, covering 26 districts, 120 blocks, spread across 4,174 village panchayats. It had a project outlay of Rs 1,667 crores, funded by World Bank. The objective of PVP is to empower the poorest of the poor, the marginalized and the differently-abled, and to promote sustainable livelihoods for them. PVP follows the community-driven development approach, and has absorbed the poor and the under-privileged into the mainstream development process. CLG members of Thenchitur derive enormous benefits from PVP, which has largely reflected the overall mandate of the Project—of poverty reduction and shared growth. These benefits have been taken to the ground through sustainable natural resource management, effective disease control, arrangement of micro-finance and business development.