Livelihood Interventions

The much-publicized green revolution, white revolution and industrialization have been largely responsible for the denial of access to common property resources such as grasslands, forests and water bodies on which the pastoral communities, marginal farmers and farm labourers survived all these years.

The green revolution encouraged the use of hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and intensive irrigation. In order to make the highly capital-intensive agriculture a profitable proposition, the farmers started switching over to such cash crops as groundnut and cotton in place of cereals that also yielded fodder as a by-product. Diversity of crops gave way to monoculture.

The white revolution promoted breeding of Jersey and HF cows and buffaloes in place of a variety of indigenous breeds of cows. The land-owning farmers, who could afford to purchase and maintain the hybrid cows and buffaloes, had a distinct edge over the pastoral communities in taking control of the numerous cooperative societies that supplied milk to the modern dairies located in the district towns.

A variety of grass that grew on common grazing land became extinct as the grasslands were acquired by the influential farmers, real estate developers, colonizers and industrialists with money or muscle power. Successive governments favoured these affluent and powerful people as they gained control of the common property resources.

MARAG believes in the concept of ‘Gram Swaraj’ in which the village community has total control over natural resources and equity and social justice are guaranteed while making use of the resources. It is for achieving ‘Gram Swaraj’ that MARAG facilitates formation of community-based organizations in all the villages it has been working. It is through this village level and community based organizations that all interventions related to natural resources management and livelihood issues are being planned, executed and monitored.

MARAG strongly believes that animal husbandry is the most viable occupation for the landless, small and marginal farmers in drought prone arid regions like Kutch and Saurashtra. MARAG is trying to promote Animal Husbandry in its areas of operation by establishing effective backward and forward linkages.