Lahanti Club Story Featured

Gaon Connection released ‘The State of Rural India Report’ in December as a unique compendium of over 40 ground reports from rural India published by Gaon Connection last year. The report provides insights into the key events of the year in Rural India. Lahanti Club story on Santhali youth of Chakai documenting their traditional knowledge systems on sustainable food with DSLR cameras was featured in this report (Pages 76-78).

Arundhita and Atul published an article in Agriculture World (print) magazine (January edition) on Food Sovereignty and how COVID pandemic helped the Santhals in Chakai reconnect with their forests and reiterated Food sovereignty in is about the right of people to determine their own policies relative to food and agriculture–rather than having their food supply subject to market forces.

Astha, our Research Associate with the TIGR2ESS project visited ICRISAT with Kusum and Sonalal, Lahanti Club members (who are also our CHIRAG mentors and volunteers in CHIRAG-GRTA project now) to study the use of accelerometer devices. The concept of using accelerometers (and Actigraph in this case) in our research project emerged from an interest in understanding the direct relationship between food intake and energy expenditure among communities in our location, Chakai.

Click here to read Astha's blog where she shares her learnings from the visit and how she applies that in Chakai with the team.

The talk presented by Nivedita, Gautam and Shuvajit provide insights from CHIRAG - a project on sustainable food systems amongst Santhal communities in India. Focusing on experiences from the Santhal Parganas region of Bihar and Jharkhand, the panel reflects on two key elements of the community-based creative learning and participatory design approaches it has adopted, namely, participatory film-making and virtual platforms. The presenters discussed how youth from the community have ‘taken hold’ of these technologies and adapted them to meet their needs, in this case, running educational programmes for younger children in the context of covid-19-induced school closures, or supporting stranded migrant workers, moving beyond food and nutrition literacy. The talk was attended by around 130 participants in the stimulating webinar where important questions were raised and insights received on creative learning practices

On February 20, we presented our CHIRAG project in the second Nutrition IRG webinar. Our presentation titled “Sustainable food systems and community-led creative approaches to address food and nutrition security” delved into the concept and framework of sustainable food system and outlined PRADAN’s engagement in this theme in Chakai. The talk also presented the methods that we used to build and understand the context that we are working on (Santhal Parganas and Chakai) and how we applied our findings to design interventions. CHIRAGVaani, the Interactive voice Response System (IVRS) and creative practices on field are the two ways in which we are working with the Santhal community in these regions to address food and nutrition insecurity.

Project updates

IKEA-PRIDE (Regenerative Agriculture): As part of the baseline study for monitoring the impact of regenerative agriculture interventions, the third round of soil sample collection was completed in 7 intervention sites across Jharkhand by Anju Bhaskaran and Siddharth Panda. Samples were also collected from 5 matching villages where such interventions are not being carried out. A survey of the sample farmers was also carried out to capture farming practices as well as agricultural calendars of the area.

GROW: Pre and post evaluations and summary reports for all trainings so far have been completed. Change story summary analyses and remaining data collection currently in process
Plans ahead: Creating Operations manual, Training manuals for each training conducted and change story data analyses; scoping study 2 - design and implementation ; FGDs with CLF SAC members; Pre and post for remaining gender trainings planned for SMMU staff plus Gender point person (GPP) training/,mentoring process to be documented.

Sustainability of SHGs (3ie): Our report titled ‘Understanding India’s Self Help Groups: An Organisational anatomy of functionality of SHGs in a district in Madhya Pradesh has been submitted to 3ie after incorporating feedback. Our paper with the same title (co-authored by Michael Walton, Imago and Surili Sheth, UC Berkeley and Nivedita and Arundhita in PRADAN) has been accepted for a panel discussion for the Gender and Politics in South Asia workshop at the inaugural Politics Workshop of Center on Contemporary India at University of California, Berkeley

TIGR2ESS: Data collection is coming to a close, with the survey completed and land panel discusions underway. A paper titled “Building equity and inclusivity through the shaping of collective spaces: The case of Farmer -Producer Orgnisations in India” has been submitted to a journal and we await comments. The paper is co-authored by Tomas Harrington and Nitya Rao from UEA, Rengalakshmi from MSSRF, Reetu Sogani from Lok Chetna Manch and Nivedita, Shuvajit and Astha from PRADAN.

GRTA-CHIRAG: Our first ‘campaign’ on CHIRAGVaani (IVRS), the Winter Campaign, is currently running. Using audio dramas and interviews, the campaign focusses on knowledge and perspectives around dietary diversity and its link with food cultures and practices, health and nutrition. CHIRAGVaani also allows listeners to record their own views on the issues discussed. These programmes draw on findings from the Dietary Diversity Study conducted between December 2020 to February 2021 among households in Chakai. Data was collected by community CHIRAG mentors and the team is now analysing the data.

We have received a new QR (Quality Related) GCRF grant from the UEA and UK government, to focus on research during the times of COVID, to support the work with the CHIRAG project.

EMERGE: The manuscript titled “Measuring Women’s Political Empowerment” is under preparation. The manuscript is co-authored by Soledad Prillaman and Natalya Rahman from Stanford University and Nivedita from PRADAN.

DEVELOPMENT-LED INQUIRY: A paper titled “Inquiring Systems and Development Led Inquiry: Uniting the Efforts of Farmers, Development Professionals and Researchers” was accepted in a special issue on Research Methods for the Third Sector and is undergoing review. This paper describes the approach that was developed during the ACIAR research projects from 2006-2012; extended to the ACIAR-CSU Pulses project in Pakistan. The paper is co-authored by Gavin Ramsay from Charles Sturt University, and Nivedita and Arundhita from PRADAN. In addition, a proposal to ACIAR around Food Waste in Goat Value Chains: A Study of India and Zambia” is in the final stages of approval, and uses Development-led inquiry as an approach to research.

Here are the links to Newsletters from our collaborators in two projects: TIGR2ESS Newsletter  and  GRTA Newsletter

In the limelight:

New Study done by our collaborators at ICRISAT fills critical gap in understanding pandemic impact on food value chains and offers solutions. Read the key findings of the paper here

Does improving food market access improve rural household nutritional outcome in developing countries?

Diversification of farms is often advocated for bringing diet diversity to rural households and improving nutrition, but how does it compare to market access? This blog written by our collaborators at ICRISAT traverses an extensive review of literature on the subject that was recently published. The review sought to determine the association between market access and dietary diversity in developing countries. Verdict: the answer lies in context and detail..

Shreya Sinha, our collaborator at the University of Cambridge writes an insightful piece on the recent farmer protests, titled India protests: Farmers could switch to more climate-resilient crops- but they have been given no incentive. Read the article  here

Shreya’s commentaries on the ongoing farmer’s movement in India have featured on the NDTV, BBC, the India Forum and a number of other media outlets.