Women-run dairy has plans to go organic

MORE THAN 30 women have gathered to deliver milk at a one-room collection centre here. It’s a daily rendezvous for this clique belonging to a women-run dairy co-operative in the Sundarbans delta in south Asia that is inching its way to becoming 100% organic.

In the bucolic settings of Chowrangi village, these empowered women milk producers, ranging in age from 20 to 80, have now begun to think of themselves as important stakeholders in a potential organic farming-driven rural economy.

As members of the Chowrangi Women Dairy Co-operative Society (CWDCS), they collect milk from native cow breeds, pour them in steel milk cans and diligently present their product at the co-operative’s collection centre for testing.

Their vision is climate-resilient agriculture in this disaster-prone delta.

“We have been through floods that washed our fields with salt and then came (cyclone) Aila in 2009. Paddy fields sank. Livestock was killed. For years we could not do adequate cultivation due to the salt-encrusted soil. Heavy use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides have further degraded systems. Now rainfall patterns have also changed,” said livestock owner Suparna Deb Sharma and chairperson of the CWDCS.

“We don’t want to depend on nature, so our reliance is on organic farming,” she told this visiting Mongabay-india correspondent.

In this climate change hotspot, women have learnt to live on the edge with rising sea levels and salt water intrusion. Globalisation is also making its presence felt.

Beaming with pride, Deb Sharma spoke of “taking matters into our own hands and transforming our systems into organic as it was done traditionally as part of inherited agricultural systems”.

According to Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, the total area under organic certification process is 3.56 million hectares (2017-18).

The DCS is now gunning for organic certification, Deb Sharma informed.

The brand was fêted earlier this year by the National Dairy Development Board for its high-quality dairy products. Apart from cow milk and ghee (clarified butter), eggs, honey from the Sundarbans and rice are sold under the aegis of the brand.

“Our milk is of high quality. They are from indigenous cows and we do not use antibiotics or hormones. Once we bring the milk to the centre, it is tested for fat content and other parameters. Based on those we get the price,” Deb Sharma said.

In arrangement with Mongabay. com. Sahana Ghosh was in the Indian Sundarbans to do a series of stories as part of the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network Bay of Bengal Story Grants. The views expressed in the article are those of Mongabay.com.