Agriculture Collectives for Marginalized Farmers

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

South Asia

2023

2023-24 Scale-up project

Overview

This project supports a transformative approach to small holder farming through the pooling of land, labor, and capital to overcome barriers and disseminate new practices in India’s West Bengal and Bihar.

Led by the University of Birmingham, the project brings together interdisciplinary expertise to support marginal and women farmers in addressing problems of land fragmentation, water use efficiency, and improving their bargaining power in markets and with landlords.

Project's trajectory over past year

This year, we formed 28 new collectives, reaching a membership of 300 households, and secured the funding needed to extend our models into other parts of West Bengal.

After our year of SCUP mentorship, we aim to reach 25,000 farmers in the next two years and ensure the sustainability of our models by continuing with key partnership such as the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Initiative which provided training to support the dissemination of natural farming methods among participating groups.

Impact

“The project has showcased a transformative model of smallholder agriculture which directly challenges structural barriers to agricultural intensification through collective action across the value chain.”

Fraser Sugden, Associate Professor, University of Birmingham.

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