Livelihood:

Indian economy mainly depends on the agricultural productivity and (undivided) Bihar was not an exception in that term. Still the main source of income of most of the rural people is depends on the agriculture. But in the case of the undivided Bihar, it was found that, most of the farmers possess less than a half hector of land which is not sufficient to produce the adequate food for a family for the whole year. On the other hand, water crisis for the irrigation is one of the biggest problems of this state which is another cause of the less agricultural productivity of this state. In addition to that, the community hasn’t any other alternative income generation option. So, from the all context, the security of food supply for through out the year in any rural poor family hardly found. And with out securing the livelihood of any poor family, it is simply impossible to ensure their Health, education or other rights. Lok Prerna also very much aware of this fact. So, in the very beginning of the organization, Lok Prerna started to take initiative first to secure the livelihood of the poor and marginal rural peoples.

During the year 1992 to 2002, to give an alternative source of income to the poor and marginal families to cope with their harvest lost or less production and also to develop entrepreneurship among the rural youths and women, lok Prerna started to train them on motor driving, bamboo craft making, Tasar yarn spinning, weaving and Manipuri handicraft making and it gave the organization a very positive impact that 160 youths and 431 women become able to secure their livelihood through these trainings. During the year 1994-95, Lok Prerna again trained another 135 youths on the rural entrepreneurship development and through this, the organization able to secure the livelihood of these youths too.

Keeping the positive impact of the aforesaid initiative in mind, Lok Prerna again started to replicate the same things in the other areas too from the very next year. And thus way, Lok Prerna again trained 105 youths in the motor cycle, by cycle and pump set repairing and presently all those youths are started their income generation with those skills. This initiative of livelihood development become also effective to decrease the migration of youths, even who haven’t any skill, to the other state.

Especially for the women, Lok Prerna started to form and strengthen women Self-Help-Groups (SHGs) in the rural areas to make the women economically empowered. Lok Prerna formed a total number of 285 SHGs consisting of 3755 women in the Deoghar, Dumka and Pakur District of Bihar state in the first ten years of the organization. Lok Prerna organized different types of skill development trainings for these SHGs and besides that, the organization also took initiative for the marketing of the productions produced by those SHGs and accordingly organization started conducting craft melas in the different places to sell the productions of SHGs and other youths and in that way, Lok Prerna able to secure the livelihood of those 3755 women and they started walking on their own feet.

In the last eight years too, Lok Prerna formed a total number of 859 women SHGs in the most interior villages of Deoghar, Dumka, Pakur, Jamtara and Giridih districts of the newly formed Jharkhand state and started to provide many kind of skill development trainings for those SHGs, too. Lok Prerna also able to build up bank linkages of these SHGs and some of the SHGs got the support from the SGSY scheme of the Government. In addition to that, Lok Prerna also started to link those SHGs to NABARD also for the financial assistance. On the one hand, through different types of skill development trainings, Lok Prerna make those SHGs so able to start their economic activities by their own, on the other hand Lok Prerna also able to build up some marketing linkages for the marketing of the production of SHGs and linking them up with different schemes to get financial support- all these effort of the organization again able to secure the livelihood of 743 SHGs. And now the organization is in the process to make independent of the rest 116 SHGs earliest.

Lok Prerna conducted varieties of activities in its operational area for promotion of different handicrafts which are loosing existence and vanishing rapidly. Insurance of artisans is one of the promotional and welfare activities. The insurance scheme was launched under General Insurance Co. in collaboration with the Ministry of Handicrafts, Govt. of India. As a result of the effort, 111 artisans get insured by paying their share of premium i.e. Rs. 40 for one year against the total amount of Rs. 200 which is met by the Govt.

But, as it is already mentioned that the main source of the livelihood of the people of this state is agriculture, so, it is very important to develop the agricultural productivity of the poor and marginal people of this state. Lok Prerna also accept that matter and started taking initiatives to develop the status of agriculture of poor and marginal farmers of the Deoghar, Dumka and Pakur districts of Jharkhand state.

The main constrain of agriculture in the Jharkhand state is the insufficient water for the irrigation. Only the 14% of cultivable land is under the coverage of government’s irrigation facility. As a result, in a dry state like Jharkhand, development of irrigation facilities for the upgrading in agricultural productivity, is an exceptionally concern matter. Accordingly, in the first ten years, Lok Prerna started taking initiative to improve the irrigation facilities in those areas where the main reason of the less agricultural productivity is scarcity of water. The organization conducted training on the different types of water conservation methods for the farmers and simultaneously organized training on the soil conservation methods, too. To conserve water, Lok Prerna started renovating existing water sources like Ponds, Wells besides contour bounding and watershed development. In some areas, Lok Prerna also gave the input supports like lift irrigation, pump sets, etc. according to the necessity, Lok Prerna also constructed check damps for the irrigation purpose.

Besides bringing improvement in the irrigation facility, Lok Prerna also started to train the small and marginal farmers on the dry land farming, multi cropping, System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and System of Wheat Intensification (SWI), vegetable cultivation, cultivation of cash crops, etc.

Lok Prerna conducted a research based programme on the promotion of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method in the thirty five villages of Deoghar and Dumka district of the state in the year 2008-09. The research conducted approximately on 95 acre of land of total 322 small farmers who mostly belongs from the SC/ST or other marginal communities. The objective of that research was to explore the probability of SRI method promotion to ensure the food security of poor farmers of the Jharkhand state. Conclusion of that experiment brought a massive positive change in rice productivity of those farmers. Farmers able to produce 50 - 55 quintals of rice from the each acre of their land by using SRI technique, where from the traditional methods, they only able to produced 20-25 quintals of rice from each acre. On the other hand, this research also shown that the production cost in SRI method is just the half of the traditional method. In addition to that, in SRI method, requirement of water is also just half of the traditional method. So the research became a great success from the side of the organization to improve the food security of the marginal poor. The most positive impact of that research is the other small farmers, who afraid to adopt SRI firstly, after observing the productivity started to adopting SRI from the next seasons and now them gradually shifting to the new SRI method.

In case of SWI, the same thing happened to the farmers. In the year 2009, Lok Prerna started researching on the SWI with 112 farmers in their 14.70 acre of lands in the Devipur and Mohanpur block of Deoghar district. This time also, lok Prerna able to bring positive change in the wheat productivity and lessen the production cost. The farmers got almost 75% to 100% more yield after adopting SWI in their same land which influenced the other farmers to adopt the SWI method from the next season gradually.
After observing the research result of both SRI and SWI, the farmers and the Organization become satisfied to spread those methods in the other areas also to bring the food security of the poor and marginal farmers. Accordingly, from the next season, Lok Prerna started spreading the SRI and SWI technique in the other villages of Devipur, Mohanpur blocks and additionally, in the Sarwan, Deoghar, Palajori blocks of Deoghar District and in the Birbhum district of the adjacent state West Bengal, too.

Other than the SRI and SWI promotion in the rural areas, Lok Prerna also took initiatives to secure the nutrition of the rural poor, especially, for the women and children as nutrition is very important to get a good health. Accordingly, the organization is giving enough emphasis to mobilize the small farmers and also to mobilize the Kishan clubs and the SHGs to make them involve in the vegetable cultivation. Lok Prerna started organizing training on the procedure of different types of vegetable cultivation, cultivation of pulses like Kurthi, arhar, etc. in the barren land, kitchen garden preparation, vegetable garden preparation, Potato cultivation in the ponds, etc. Besides the small farmers, the organization also mobilized some of the SHGs to adopt vegetable cultivation as an income generation activity which was also helpful to improve the habit of intake of nutritious food in the regular food intake. After the effort of last eighteen years, Lok Prerna found that, the organization able to reach the goal of ensuring food security of the rural poor people up to a certain level as the changed food habit able to fight with the mal-nutrition and the wrong – nutrition one hand and on the other hand it also become helpful for the income generations of the farmers and the SHGs. A total number of 687 farmers adopted vegetable cultivation in the Devipur, Mohanpur, Sarwan and Deoghar blocks of Deohar District.

But, still a long way to go. So, in the present days also, Lok Prerna is mobilizing rural people to adopt the vegetable cultivation as the livelihood option and providing the orientation to the farmers on the improved technologies of the cultivation and about the improved variety of local seeds.

Another experience of the organization got in the last eighteen years that is the farmers use a huge amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the field for the cultivation. It is well known to all that the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is very much harmful for the field as it minimized the productivity of farm land day by day and also it is harmful for those people who intake that production. Not only that, these things are also very much costly which maximize the production cost of the cultivation and most of the poor farmers has to take credit from the local money lenders with a high rate of interest to purchase chemical fertilizers and pesticides. To cope with that, Lok Prerna started to take initiative for the promotion of Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides in the rural areas since the year 2004. With the support of different agriculture institutes and other organizations those have expertise in that field, lok Prerna started awareness generation

programme in the field areas on the bad effect of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the good effect of Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides. Simultaneously, organization also started to trained farmers on the preparation of different types of Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides like Vermin-compost, Lokamrit-1, Lokamrit-2, Peela Kwath-1, Hara Kwath – 1, Kala Kwath – 1, Neem Kwath-1, etc. which is not harmful for the field and very much cost effective too. By the use of Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides farmers are getting very good result in their agricultural productivity thus they become so much interested in it and now a days the farmers are mobilizing other farmers too to adopt Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides in their field too. Besides that, some farmers and SHGs also become engaged to prepare Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides for the marketing purpose as they adopted that as an income generation option and Lok Prerna still working on the promotion of Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides among the rural poor and marginal farmers.

Another way Lok Prerna adopted to secure the livelihood of the poor and marginal people by the means of ensuring peoples entitlements towards the government poverty alleviation programmes. Liaison with government, international bodies and other networks for facilitating development works initiated by the government in the targeted areas – is a major activity Lok Prerna engaged with since the inception. In order to procure long term improvement in the livelihood options, lok Prerna regularly alert community people on the government services like ICDS, PDS, MGNREGS, etc. as the people can get the benefit from this schemes. Besides that, Lok Prerna also linked up people with the other services they can get from the irrigation department, from the agriculture department of from the horticulture department, too. According to the necessity, Lok Prerna also engages in dialogue with the different government officials for the advocacy. In all of its targeted areas, Lok Prerna regularly engaged to ensure the benefit of poor and marginal people from the government poverty alleviation schemes.

And the journey of Lok Prerna still running on all the aforesaid components as there is a long way the organization has to walk on to ensure the livelihood of the people.