Promotion of women-centric livelihoods collective for economic empowerment

As a part of our initiative ‘Promotion of women-centric livelihoods collective for economic empowerment’, PRADAN is happy to announce its partnership with Experian, one of India’s leading credit bureaus.

This is a three-year initiative and Experian will support PRADAN for the first year. The project is aimed at enabling and empowering 1,000 marginalised agrarian communities in Abu Road, a block of Sirohi District, Rajasthan (Sirohi is an aspirational district). At the end of the third year, all the participating families will get an additional income of Rs. 25,000/- each from farm-based livelihoods.

How will this project work?

There will be two clusters of 500 farmers each – the first cluster will grow cash crops along with dairy activities and, the second cluster will rear goats coupled with cash crops. A total of around Rs. 1.5 crores will be mobilized from credit linkages for the working capital of the participating families.The two farmer producer organizations envisaged to be promoted in the project will do the business in tune of approx. Rs. 5 crores every year from farm produces.

Focus during the first year

We aspire to enable 340 households to get financially included and earn Rs. 10,000/- through improved livelihood interventions. We will collectivise the potential households under micro production cluster for end-to-end support in high-end cash crops and livestock rearing.

These 340 families would be taken to exposure visits to the already-established production clusters in nearby areas for systematic production and organized marketing of the produce. This will help them circumvent market vagaries as well as demand and price instabilities. The dedicated service system for production stabilization by the community service providers and linkage with the input-output services by the local entrepreneurs will help the marginal farmers to opt for profitable cash crops (fennel, castor and vegetables) and rearing of livestock (goat and cattle)for commercial purpose. The families will also be linked with financial institutionsto access working capital for investing in the production system to reap higher yield and income.

Key Outcomes

The ‘Promotion of women-centric livelihoods collectives for economic empowerment’project aspires to achieve the following four key outcomes at the end of first year:

1. Two production clusters will emerge. One primarily for dairy and cash crop farmers and the other for goat and cash crop farmers. Approx. 500 farmers will be promoted in each cluster.
2. A pool of around 2 entrepreneurs and 10 service providers for production stabilization and marketing of the produce will be promoted. The agriculture entrepreneurs will support and establish the linkage with the market for the local produce. The system will thus be developed among these two production clusters that work independently for securing the market services for the farmers in the longrun.
3. All 340 families will gain an income of Rs 10,000/- from cash crops with livestock rearing from the existing level.
4. Total investment in the livelihood production system will be in the range of Rs 25.5 lakhs by 340households from their resources in terms of credit and contribution. This credit is generated through various sources within the self-help group system as well as within the banking system. The investment will be recovered from the harvest itself at the end of each season.

With this partnership, we look forward to building a robust foundation for this initiative and empower women through excellent opportunities.