Gist : Kaithi Visit -
Discussions with Nar Nahar - About Beekeeping and the Honey Bees -
Vallabhacharya at the Lucknow Conference - Asha
Contacts - Discussion - Suggestions -
Full Budget for Reference
Kaithi Visit :
The visit to the Kaithi Center was made
by Mahesh, Ajit Singh (Guria, Varanasi) and me
on 30th Dec 1999.
Kaithi is about 25 to 30 kms from
Varanasi city and the center is situated on the
Varanasi - Ghazipur highway; the area is thick
with trees and shrubs.
At the time of our visit, Nar Nahar
Pandey, one of the two brothers operating the center,
was present. His brother, Vallabhacharya (Munnu),
whom I had met at the Lucknow conference earlier was out of station.
We held detailed discussions with Nar Nahar about their work. Later he showed us the beehives in various stages of development and explained the beekeeping and honey collection process.
Discussions with Nar Nahar Pandey at Kaithi:
The discussions with Nar Nahar are summarised below in question and answer format.
Question : How did you become
interested in primary production activity ?
When did you begin ? How well is the work
going on ?
Nar Nahar : We are from agricultural
ancestry. We were not really interested in
services (Nowkri) like our father or
grandfather did. So Munnu left his job and started
working in our farm. I soon joined him. We
started in 1993-94. We comfortably support
both our families with this income.
But we want to do more than that. We want
to help others also benefit from
our knowledge and expertise.
Question : Why do you grow aromatic
plants ? Why not vegetables or other ordinary
plant varieties ?
Nar Nahar : One major problem we have in
this region is that wild cows ( 'Neel Gaai' ) and
other wild animals destroy crops. But they don't
attack the aromatic plants.
Also with vegetables prices change a lot. They also have to be sold soon.
Sugarcane is very popular here. But in
this region there is a peculiar arrangement that we
should give the sugarcanes to the mills and there
is no guarantee when the returns will come.
In contrast the products fromt the
aromatic plants we grow, if kept in air tight storage, can
be kept as long as one wants. They are constantly
in demand. In fact, the longer they've been
in storage, the more is their value.
We did try mushroom cultivation. But we
discontinued it because we had a problem
in its marketing.
Question : Where did you get your training ?
Nar Nahar : For the plant cultivation
and processing, we got our literature and training in
Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic
Plants, Lucknow. We also got a partial supply of
planting material from the Institute initially.
We got our beekeeping knowledge from
Udyan Vibhag ( Uttar Pradesh State
Horticulture Deparment) , which also gave us
initial raw material with 2 boxes to begin
our beekeeping work. We got training in
beekeeping work from Khadi Gram Udyog,
Lucknow.
Question : Could you tell us about
the plants you are growing and what they
are used for ?
Nar Nahar : The plants are dried and
processed and the oil extracted
from them are used for various purposes.
The main aromatic plants that we are
growing are :
|
|
|
| Citrolinella Jawa | Ingredient in Mosquito Repellent |
| Lemon Grass | Used instead of lemon in soap, cosmetics,etc. |
| Khus (Vetiver) | Used in Perfumes |
| Mentha (Pepermint) | Used in Balms and Oils for Cold and Cough |
| Palmorosa | Used in Perfume (esp. to give Paan smell) |
Our efforts are now on to build up a large Citrolinella Jawa cultivation.
From last year (1998) we have started
growing medicinal (mainly ayurvedic)
plants. There are quite a few plant varieties -
here are some.
|
|
|
| Sarpaganda | Cure for Mental disease, Present in Anaesthetics. |
| Ashwaganda | Increases strength |
| Sathavari | For mothers to increase milk secretion after delivery |
With medicinal plants the menace of wild
animals exists and we have to
find a way to deal with it.
Question : What kind of soil is needed to cultivate the aromatic plants ?
Nar Nahar : That's difficulty to say.
For each plant there is an optimal soil type, soil condition,
temperature, rainfall, etc. and this varies from
plant to plant quite a bit.
But, in general, I would say sandy-loam soil is preferrable. The important thing is water-logging should not be there.
Question : Do you sell the plants or extract the oil yourself ?
Nar Nahar : We actually extract the crude oil by distillation ourselves in a processing unit.
Question : You say its crude. Is further processing necessary ?
Nar Nahar : Yes, a further step called reprocessing is necessary. By fractional distillation method, the different ingredients are extracted in pure form. Each has an appropriate use.
Selling reprocessed oil would yield much
larger income but we also need very large production to do that
profitably as the ingredients are each present in small amounts..
We need more land than we have for that.
Question : How much land do you have ? How much are you using now ?
Nar Nahar : We have 12 acres of land. Of
this 4 acres are used by us for plant growth and beekeeping.
Actually of this in 3 acres we have put
Athar(lintel) which is cultivated by unirrigated.
The other eight acres we have leased out to local farmers based on prevailing leasing arrangements.
Question : What is this lease arrangement ?
Nar Nahar : Basically we provide the
land and finance 50% of fertilisers and the farmers provide for the
labor (weeding, tilling,etc.), food for his animals, 50% of fertilisers
and also the seeds. The produce is shared 50 -50.
This is also adding to our family income.
However, we hope to put all 12 acres to
full use in our own activities eventually.
Question : Regarding beekeeping, do you have to terminate the lives of some bees during honey collection ?
Nar Nahar : No. In our method of
beekeeping, we do not need to harm the bees or larvae or the eggs. We
don't even need to destroy the hives in which the bees live.
( The fuller details are
included the section 'About Beekeeping and Honey Bees' )
Question : Regarding the training, is it really necessary to set up a training center ? Couldn't you just make informal arrangements for that ?
Nar Nahar : Actually, thats how we are training people right now. Some Asha Ballia people got trained by us in beekeeping and lemon grass cultivation.
We are also happy to visit a different area to train people there.
But the main difficulty with this kind
of informal way is practical. Accomodation is a problem.
We have place to stay for only one or two people
in our homes.
Also we want the training to be a
systematic one, where both we and the trainees work on things sincerely
and in a planned way. We further want to document our work, produce
training related literature, etc. For all this a
training-cum-documentation center becomes necessary.
The trainees will be given free
accomodation at the center itself. They just have to pay for buying the
food material.
Question : How much time will it take for someone to get trained ?
Nar Nahar :
For Beekeeping:
- a full theory training can be given in
one week's time. The trained person can get started and may need further
guidance on practical issues.
- for full practical training so that the
person can work independently the training should be for about 2 months.
For Aromatic plant cultivation :
- About 15 to 20 days of training is
sufficient.
The training has to take place at the proper season of the year.
Question : Could you give us some details about finances and average yields ?
For the beekeeping :
Our expenses are usually in transportation
of the boxes to and fro the flower or fruit gardens
and maintanence of the boxes.
We have at this time about 37 boxes in full
production of a total of 45 boxes.
The honey is currently sold at Rs. 85 to
Rs. 90 per kg.
The honey from each box can be sold for Rs.
2700 per box of which
about Rs.1800 per box would be our profit.
Last year alone our production was about 11
quintals of honey.
Besides this other products like beeswax is
also sold.
On average one person working full time can
manage upto fifty boxes.
For Aromatic Plants :
Both the production and the market price
varies. So I can give you only
approximate values.
Currently C-Jawa has a good market. We can
produce 100 to 120 kg/acre and sell
it at Rs.250/kg
Palmarosa production is at 45 kg / acre and
can sell at Rs. 500 / kg
Lemon grass production is at 75 kg / acre
and can sell at Rs.500 / kg
About Beekeeping and the Honey Bees :
Honey is manufactured by bees to feed
their larvae and for subsistence in winter. The nectar
of flowers is ingested by worker bees and
converted to honey. It is stored and aged in combs
in their hives.
Honey bee survives only in a community or colony. The honey bee community consists of three structurally different forms-the queen (reproductive female), the drone (male), and the worker (nonreproductive female).
The queen is the only sexually productive female in the colony and thus is the mother of all drones, workers, and future queens. It can lay upto 1000 eggs on a single day.
Worker bees are the most numerous members(upto 80000) of the colony. Workers do all the work of the colony including building and maintaining the nest and caring for the brood. Workers gather nectar, convert the nectar to honey, clean the comb, and feed the larvae, drones, and the queen.
Drones are male honey bees. Their function is to mate with new queens. After mating, a drone dies immediately. They are stingless, defenseless, and unable to feed themselves - they are fed by worker bees.
The modern beekeeping does not require killing of the colonies inhabiting the hives. In1851, American apiarist Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth found a way to keep different combs in a hive unattached with one another by keeping them at a minimum distance from each other.
Each hive is a wooden box with about eight to ten wood-bound comb frames. The hive has an sieve-like inner cover and a wooden outer cover. In each hive only one queen lives. If a new queen is born it is either killed or a tussle ensues at the end of which some of the drones and workers loyal to a queen fly away with it.
A skillfull apiarist can retrieve a colony, as has been done in Kaithi in the past, that has flown away.
The hives in Kaithi have a double-chamber structure wherein the queen and the drones live exclusively in the lower chamber.
There is a sieve-like structure that separates the chambers and only the workers, because of their small size, can reach the upper chamber. Thus the workers develop the honeycomb, wax and store honey in both the chambers. But the eggs are laid only in the lower chamber by the queen.
Hence the apiarist can harvest the honeycombs in the upper chamber, after carefully moving any workers in it to the lower chamber; leaving the entire colony undisturbed in the lower chamber. The combs are then placed in a centrifuge to remove all the wax and honey. Further processing is done to separate the wax and purify the honey.
This is a true mutualism between man and
honeybee. In return for honey, the apiarist maintain
the hives.
The hives have to be transported to the appropriate forage, say flower or fruit orchard, for the bees to collect the nectar and pollen. This is actually an important service to the orchards in pollination.
The bees should also be protected from bacterial diseases, mites and larger predators like bee eater( birds) and bee wolves (wasps).
The sting of the honeybee, though not lethal or paralysing when received in small numbers, can be quite painful, as Ajit experienced during our visit. The presence of pain allevating medication is essential.
An experienced apiarist like Nar Nahar is however quite adept in handling the bees and their hives.
Vallabhacharya at the Lucknow Conference :
Organization: Pragatisheel Madhumakhi Palan Kendra
Vallabhacharya : In 1993 I left my job as
Medical Representative and
started working on bee-keeping for my
self-reliance. At present I am
settled in my own village and comfortably support
my family through my
business in producing honey and some medicinal
plants. Asha is planning
to develop a training center for bee-keeping at
our premises.
Sandeep : Vallabhacharya's effort is
commendable. Though he is not directly
working on education, he has been able to achieve
self-reliance for himself
and his family in 2-3 years after starting from
scratch. His bee-keeping and
honey-making processes are completely nature and
environment friendly.
Under Asha we will identify such individual who
have achieved self-reliance
while living in the market system, and develop
real world training centers at
their premises. This will be an important part of
Asha's self-reliance programme.
Self-reliance is an important part of Asha's
education programme.
( At the conference, there was visible
excitement and interest from NGO
representatives, particularly village-based ones,
in knowing more about Vallabh's
work. Vallabh was offering a working solution to
the question looming large in most
conference attendees minds - 'What do our
children do after schooling is over ?' )
Discussion:
The work at Kaithi has to be seen at three levels.
As a way of life :
Vallabh and Nar Nahar are setting
personal examples by leading a self-supporting, sustainable,
non-violent,
eco-friendly way of life for others to follow.
For this reason alone, given the
environmentally destructive way of life that is the norm, it is worth
knowing
about the Kaithi Center.
As a training center :
The problem of unemployment and
joblessness has driven many youngster in our nation to suicide and
crime.
It menaces the lives of millions of youth
in India today. Many of the jobs even when available are not only of
of the lifeless, mindless, uncreative and
repetitive type.
For enterprising youth the Kaithi Center
offers a way to become self-employed and self-reliant
in a way closely associated with creative power
of nature.
As a part of Asha center :
The Kaithi Center can also be seen as a
close affiliate of the Asha Center
and an integral part of its vision.
For the asha ashram in Lalpur to reach
further than the immediate community
it needs many affiliated special purpose centers
like the Kaithi Center. The Kaithi
one focuses on providing training in self-reliant
primary production activitiy.
Project Review and Monitoring Process :
For Asha chapters reviewing the project,
an important question
to deal with, is that this project does not have
much to do with
children. This is true.
Our best insurance to keeping us on track is
our focus on children
flowing from love of children with heightened
compassion for
underpriviliged ones. Further, we know that
investing in children
yields highest returns in the future.
However, these should not keep us from
seeing with clarity the
utmost need for training centers in
self-reliance. Whether due to
family compulsion to discontinue studying, poor
quality of schools or
the very philosophy of education that is current,
almost all our children
come out of schools looking for jobs without
adequate skills. And there
aren't enough jobs, in public or private sectors,
for all.
Thus it becomes a prime need to train
the youth in some self-employment
activities so that they can stand on their own
feet. Further, this training should
also be extended to children studying in
interested schools supported by Asha,
thus making it part of the education process
itself.
One other important question has to do
with how to monitor the progress made
at the training center. Since the training center
is functionally different from a
normal Asha project, a school, an appropriate
monitoring procedure should
be developed. It is essentially the
responsibility of the supporting chapters
to devise one. I am indicating some key data that
should figure in it.
- A record of people trained
- How long each trainee was trained.
- How many of the trainees have become
self-employed.
- How many are actually involved in
training others.
- Individual verifiable examples in each.
Suggestions:
Based on the discussion above the following suggestions are made.
1) Chapters are recommended to see to
the full and continued support of the
training center.
2) To make full use of the center and
also to benefit asha project
beneficiaries, volunteers should make
effort to spread awareness about the center
and encourage project personnel to make use of it.
3) A clear procedure for monitoring the
progress of training center needs to developed.
Some key issues are hinted at in the discussion
above.
Asha contacts:
Asha Berkeley Contact
Anand
Raghavan anand@eecs.berkeley.edu
Asha Lucknow Contact
Sandeep
ashain@lw1.vsnl.net.in
You can contact Vallabhacharya and Nar Nahar through Sandeep.
Full Budget for Reference :
SETTING UP OF AN ASHA RESEARCH-DOCUMENTATION-
TRAINING CENTRE IN THE AREA OF BEEKEEPING AND
CULTIVATION AND PROCESSING OF MEDICINAL AND
AROMATIC PLANTS
Project
It is proposed to set up a
Research-Documentation-Training Centre at
Kaithi, Varanasi district (25 k.m. from the
city), in the area of
bee-keeping and cultivation and processing of
medicinal and aromatic
plants. The objectives of the project are:
(1) to create employment opportunities in this
area by encouraging people
to take up these activities,
(2) to provide training to students graduating
out of Asha's education
programmes from various places in India who would
like to pursue
livelihood opportunities in these areas,
(3) to publish documents in simple Hindi which
will help people take up
these activities,
(4) to explore possibility of new agro-based
products which can be source
of livelihood for people.
Agriculture being the primary and largest
occupation of India it will be
quite easy for people to adopt these activities
once they receive proper
training.
Two brothers who have themselves taken the
lead and shown the way in this
area have been chosen for implementation of this
project. The Centre will
be set up on a piece of land which they will
transfer out of their family
property in the name of Asha on Varanasi-Ghazipur
highway and will be
managed by them. Vallabhacharya left a lucrative
Medical Representative
job about six years back to begin his experiments
in farming and
associated activities. He tried his hands at
various things, like mushroom
cultivation, beekeeping, medicinal and aromatic
plants but was most
successful in beekeeping and aromatic plants.
Soon his work grew to such a
level that he had to ask his brother Nar Nahar to
leave his job too in
Allahabad and come and join him at the village.
Today these two brothers
are largest producer of honey in the Varanasi
area. However they are not
entirely commercial in their outlook and have a
helping attitude. They
have helped anybody who has shown interest in
their activities and have
even assisted in getting others started in these
activities. They are
willing to share all their knowledge and
experience. It is with the
purpose of making their knowledge and experience
reach more interested
people in an organized fashion that this project
has been conceived
Budget
1. Construction of a 4 room centre - a room
for documentation and
research, another for training, a third for
laboratory and fourth as guest
house cum kitchen where trainees would stay -
approx. cost Rs. 1,00,000.
2. Computer with printer - approx. cost Rs.
50,000.
3. Honorarium for Vallabhacharya - Rs. 24,000.
4. Honorarium for Nar Nahar - Rs. 12,000.
5. Preliminary publication - Rs. 25,000.
6. Getting beekeeping started at the proposed
Asha centre - Rs. 20,000.
7. Total budget - Rs. 2,31,000.
Rupees Two Lakhs Thirty One Thousand are required for the first year.
For the following years only the honoraria of
Rs.36,000 are required.