Mission 2014 Field Trip: From one Coop to another

Thursday, March 24, 2011

From one Coop to another

Today was our last day of official fieldwork in Sirsi! It’s a bittersweet ending though. I am really excited to go see the Yana Rock formation and the bat cave tomorrow, but I will really miss the villagers of Hallusarige that we have got to know over the past couple days. They are some of the most hospitable people I have ever met and ever will meet in my opinion. They truly welcomed us into their homes and were willing to halt their daily lives to show us their way of life and to give us a tour of their village. Our day today was a little different than the last three days of rotating between agroforestry, land use and household surveys. Back in Boston, our student store at MIT is known as the coop because it is a cooperative society and pays back dividends to the student members. Here in Sirsi, we visited a farmer’s cooperative. It was really moving to see how the farmers have banded together in this cooperative and how much power they actually now have. The cooperative now corners over half of the local areca nut market and can establish an effective minimum price for the areca nuts and stop the local vendors from exploiting the farmers. They have also built a hospital specifically for the farmers and their families that is essentially free for them. The cooperative society has established value added products for the farmers in the form of five brands of areca nuts and supari. We got to sample the areca nuts and supari when we were given a tour of the factory. I got to interview one of the girls who sorts areca nuts for quality in the cooperative. She told me how the cooperative sends a vehicle 13 Kilometers to pick her up and drop her off every day. The cooperative really seems to have drastically changed the community in a positive way and is really helping hold the community together through tougher times. It strikes such a contrast to the cooperatives in the US. These seem like they are truly a step towards establishing food security for India.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About the Class

Mission 2014 is part of Terrascope, a learning program for MIT freshman. Each year the program begins with the class (12.000 Solving Complex Problems, Mission 201x). For this year their mission was to design a plan that will produce and distribute enough food to feed the planet over the next century, while ensuring that efficiency and equity are maximized with minimal disruption to the environment. With a world population of 9 billion expected by 2050 – and a billion people currently malnourished – we simply cannot continue with business as usual. An integrated cost-effective global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security. This must include a major re-thinking of agricultural practices as well as modifying the diets of much of the world's population. The students of 12.000 researched the problem and presented their solution in the form of a website as well as a public presentation followed by interrogation by a panel of experts. The website and presentation were a huge success.

About Terrascope

In the Spring semester many Terrascope students take part in one or more of three activities. These include: a hands-on class (1.016) where the students work on designing, building and implementing solutions to their problem; Terrascope Radio (SP360), where the students produce a series of radio programs on their topic including the field trip; and lastly the Terrascope field experience.

Each year alumni mentors play a very important part in the success of Terrascope. Many come to class and group meetings, communicate via email, and are generally extremely helpful if not a little bit jealous of being a MIT freshman! This year we are fortunate that three of our mentors are making the trip with us—Bob Gurnitz, Johnny Yang and Bhupendra Khetani

Acknowledgements

Many people have helped to make this trip possible. At Earthwatch the complex logistics have been coordinated by Grace Velardi and Alana Jones in the U.S. and the educational program by Rachel Batley in the U.K. At MIT our Terrascope administrator, Debra Aczel has spent countless hours guiding everyone through the acquisition of visas, answering many many questions, and remaining enthusiastic and upbeat. We all owe Debra a great deal of gratitude and hopefully the trip will go off flawlessly and she will be able to enjoy it and learn alongside the rest of us.

The trip this year is supported by the Baruch Foundation whose generosity ensures that another Terrascope class can take part in an international learning experience.