Overcoming Covid despair

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 Overcoming Covid despair

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• Returning migrants, the only Covid-sensitive component of indigenous communities in India: 

1. Unlike densely populated urban areas, houses and hamlets are located at a distance from each other
2. Major occupations, subsistence farming and foraging also don’t require people to be in close proximity 
3. More than 50% of tribal population consists of seasonal migrants many of whom got stranded outside their villages when lockdown was announced in March

• Ghugri village: 

1. Gond community of Ghugri village manages forests
2. Ghugri villagers learnt cultivation fast and now grow millets, paddy, maize, pulses, oilseeds, and some vegetables. They grow rabi crops like sweet peas, lentil, flax seeds, and mustard. Common kharif crops include paddy, maize, kodu, red gram, little millet and black gram. 
3. A combination of forest produce collection, farming, seasonal migration and wage labour in forest protection tasks ensures diversity of livelihoods and food. 

• Impact of lockdown: 

1. Other than inconvenience in movement restrictions and closure of markets, lockdown didn’t impact the villagers much. They did not intend to sell their produce anyway. Some surplus produce of peas, paddy, mustard got sold when the lockdown was lifted. They saved a major portion for family consumption. Other than this, they relied on public food distribution scheme.
2. Being a family occupation, farming didn’t need outside labour. For the few operations that needed labour, farmers exchanged labour days with fellow villagers.
3. Some tribals travel to Kerala annually after the rabi harvest and work as guest farmers. They were in Kerala when the lockdown was announced but reached home in the second week of April after transportation services resumed. 

• Tribal migrants that travel to Kerala: 

1. Most of the tribals that travelled to Kerala this year were in their 20s and worked in spice plantations of Kerala.
2. They were given workers’ quarters to stay and Rs. 12000/- every month. Each migrant typically manages to save around Rs. 30,000 over the four months.
3. Plantation owners take care of the medical expenses of these migrant farmers. Access to healthcare and transport was an issue for them during the lockdown 

• Two projects of importance in evading food and livelihood crises in the future: a) Part-time rural employment b) Sustainable agri intensification
• Part-time rural employment: Many tribal farmers who migrate to Kerala after rabi season would prefer staying in Ghugri if employment is available.
• Sustainable intensification of agriculture: Sustainable intensification means that farmer nourishment and consumption should not get impacted even when local millets and pulses fetch good prices in cities. Cultivating millets and pulses is not very capital and resource-intensive but its sustained productivity depends on soil fertility.
• Soil fertility: Soil fertility depends on a) nutrient flows from forest b) erosion due to local cattle grazing. Ghugri villagers are trying to rejuvenate their eroded grazing lands and over-exploited forests through collective action. 
• Summary: Forest produce collection, farming, seasonal migration and wage labour in forest protection tasks form the livelihoods of an indigenous community of Ghugri. Part-time rural employment and sustainable intensification of agriculture are two projects important for evading food and livelihood crises in the future. For sustainable intensification, villagers are trying to prevent soil erosion through collective action. Villagers of this community realize that farms, forests, village commons and collective knowhow will make them less vulnerable to future crises.

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