Since 2020 CPR Baby Patar has been working in Patkita village on issues of Food Sovereignty, Traditional Food Systems and Agriculture, Natural Faming, Climate Change, Wild Foods, Sustainable livelihoods and women’s empowerment. The women of Patkita have been cultivating traditional brown rice variety Bali Bhojna, processing the rice in a village rice mill and selling in Moubhander market which is around 15 km from their village. This being an industrial area close to Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL) factory a majority of their customers were high ranking factory staff who expressed a desire for traditionally processed (Dhenki) organic rice.
This gave rise to an idea among them to come together as a group to jointly market organic brown rice. In December 2023 in consultation with CRP Baby Patar and Jagabandhu Sanda (Consultant, EI project) a women’s group of Patkita – Ajivika Sakhi Mandal, came together to establish a community enterprise based on the marketing of traditionally processed Brown Rice.
The group comprises of 13 women belonging to the Bhumij Adivasi community. The group has divided various tasks among their members like – purchase and procurement of brown rice, processing of the rice using Dhenki (traditional De-husking tool), selling of the final produce, maintaining accounts. Through the Eastern India project the group received initial support in the form of 1 quintal of brown rice, 1 weighing machine, utensils for parboiling the rice, steel drum for storage, registers for accounts.
Baby conducted multiple training programs on different aspects of enterprise development like group management, financial management, small business plan preparation. The group has subsequently purchase 8 quintals of Brown rice of two varieties – Bali Bhojna and Petar Nadu.
They purchased the Brown rice at the rate of Rs. 17-18 per kg. After cleaning, processing and parboiling they sold the rice within the village at the rate of Rs. 40 per Kg and in the market at Rs. 50 per kg. However, the women preferred to sell within the village itself and to adjoining village due to challenges going to the market especially in Summer months. Till date they have made a profit of Rs. 12,200. However, they have not accounted for hidden costs like the labour they provided and cost of fuelwood for parboiling. At present they have set aside the profits as working capital and not divided it among the members. They are in the process of deciding how to distribute future profits.
