Sonagara is home to 45 families belonging to the Bhumij community and it is situated in Potka Block of East Singhbhum district. Anita Kumari, a PNF (People and Nature Fund) fellow from Paryavaran Chetna Kendra (PCK), has been working with the women of Sonagara on issues pertaining to the promotion of traditional and wild food, conservation and management of forests and natural resources. Along these lines PCK has been facilitating community discussions with women’s groups at the fore to explore the possibility of establishing a community enterprise focusing of NTFPs, wild food and traditional agricultural produce. A series of meetings and consultations have been held with the villagers in this regard. On the 17th of June 2022 a village level meeting on the proposed community enterprise was facilitated by PCK represented by Sidheshwar Sardar and Anita Kumari. On behalf of Keystone Foundation, I was also a part of the meeting. Lakhindra Sardar, Up Pradhan (Deputy Headman) of Sonagara, chaired the meeting which involved 18 women and 8 men. The villagers present shared that they were eager to establish a community enterprise in their village. Based on initial discussions and exploration of different livelihood options they have decided that they would initially like to focus on the production of leaf plates and bowls using Sal leaves and extraction and sale of oil from a variety of trees like Mahua, Kusum, Karanj and Neem. The challenges of establishing a community enterprise as well as processes and strategies that could help ensure success of an enterprise were presented and discussed by the PCK and Keystone team. Villagers were made aware that as a part of the Eastern India project PCK and Keystone would be supporting the development of this community enterprise both in terms of infrastructure support as well as development of requisite skills, capacities and knowledge needed by the members to establish, manage and sustain a successful enterprise. Sidheshwar from PCK announced that prior to establishing the community enterprise a team comprising PCK staff, fellows, and village representatives from different areas of East Singhbhum would be visiting Gram Swaraj in Odisha for an exposure visit to learn more about community enterprises. He asked the villagers to select 4 representatives would go for the exposure visit. Those present decided that since the women would form the core of the enterprise, they would like to nominate 3 women and 1 man to go for the exposure visit. They would select representatives who would be able to absorb the experiences and learnings from the visit and share them effectively with fellow villagers once they returned. The exposure visit was scheduled for the 4th and 5th of July and the villagers would be sharing the names of representatives in a few days.
The meeting concluded with the distribution of a variety of different seeds among the men and women farmers present. While in the past a variety of different crops like millets and different pulses were cultivated in Sonagara the ever increasing focus on paddy has resulted in the decline in the cultivation of many subsistence crops that made a vital contribution to the health and nutrition of the villagers. In order to ensure health and nutritional security farmers are being encouraged to cultivate a variety of different crops like millets, maize and pulses. The seeds were sourced from other areas where traditional agricultural practices are being supported like the Paharia villages of Sundar Pahari. They included maize, sorghum, finger millet, pearl millet and little millet. While the elder farmers could identify seeds like finger millet which were cultivated till a few years ago, they found it harder to identify seeds like little millet as the cultivation of these crops ceased several decades ago.
