A Day with Dr. GV Ramanjenuyulu
As a part of the Social Entrepreneur Saturday activity at Transforming India Initiative fellowship, our cohort had an opportunity to spend a day with the Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture Mr. GV Ramanjenuyulu.
Dr. Ramanjenuyul is an agricultural scientist with P.hd. in agriculture from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He was selected in Indian Revenue Services,1995 and worked in Agricultural Research Service from 1996–2004. In 2004, he laid the foundation of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. Dr. Ramanjenuyulu has previously appeared on Satyamev Jayate and the three chapters of Ted Talks. He works on public policy issues impacting food systems and farmers' livelihoods and a framework to ensure income security for farmers.
We started off with a quick introduction by the seekers. We had already done little research about the speaker (which is mentioned above). Hearing his story in his words was what we were waiting for. From choosing the agricultural sciences to what bothered him to start his venture we talked about every possible field.
Dr. Ramanjenuyulu belonged to a family who had opted out of agricultural activities for two-three generations. Going for agricultural sciences was not always the plan but neither was going for medicine or engineering. So, he started pursuing his B.Sc (Ag) from Agriculture College, Bapatla, Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (Now Acharya NG Ranga Agriculture University) and subsequently completed the Master's degree from the same college. Starting off the organization was not a flash idea but driven by series of incidents. Famer’s suicide in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh made headlines in 1987–1988 and 1996-1997. Almost 1000 farmers committed suicide and the suicide rate was alarmingly increasing.
In the classroom, the curriculum described the new technologies and inventions to make farmers’ life easier on the other hand the real-life situation was completely different. There was always a contrast between classroom learning and the application of learning in the field and the students were learning to live in dichotomy. When they discussed the current scenario with teachers and among the class, someone blamed farmers for not being smart enough to use technologies, someone pointed out about increasing the price would solve the problem but no one cared about how to make them use the technologies which were invented for them only.
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Again in the summer of 2004 in a short span between May and July more than 400 farmers committed suicide. This time death struck everywhere. It was not limited to areas with less irrigation, to peasants, or to tobacco, cotton, or groundnut farmers exclusively. The story was covered in 2004. Whatever was holding him back could not stay in the picture any longer. CSA was registered as a trust in 2004, currently working with 25,000 farmers directly and support about 75,000 farmers through services. CSA works in the domain of innovation in farming, sustainable livelihoods, community enterprises, and public policies.
CSA Organisational Culture
CSA envisions becoming a national institution to lead the transition of Indian agriculture to become ecologically and economically sustainable. The venture focuses on village-level transformation. The transformation includes using non-pesticidal methods to completely abandon the use of the chemical pesticide.
Farmers are the fundamental unit of the organization as the revolution to go organic starts from there only. Farmers are trained at the farm school, one of the farmers facilitates the training and teaches the NPM methods to fellows. The number of bio villages has reached 16.
Retail stores are playing a big role. In the long term retails stores are the way to spread words about the ongoing farm practices. The business model focuses on selling more quantities at a fair price not selling a few at a higher price. Whatever is produced is sold sometimes at price less than 10–20% of the market price and still, farmers make a profit.
Domains Discussed
Do not ever approach the same problem in different ethnic groups with the same approach. Definition and the factor affecting the problem changes from region to region. How do you approach a problem is the biggest factor that contributes to the sustainability of the organization. As long as you have a hold on the problem and evolve with the problem you sustain. A great example in this context can be how India is using the technologies that were made for big farms in the west on the farms of one-hundredth size. One thing that is to be kept in mind is that your solution should fit into the problem not the problem into the solution.
My Takeaways
Do not start with the solution, start with a problem. Try to reach the crux of the problem and then start building the solution. So, this started with a conversation that on one of the walls of MIT, there is a column of what are the top 100 problems humanity is facing and there is a column about what are the top 100 solutions you will give to world to make it a better place. Ironically, none of the solutions matches the problem. Probably if someone had started with the problem then there could have been a solution to at least one problem.
The second takeaway is, resolve the dichotomy do not live with it. As we learn to live with the dichotomy there is no scope for improvement. We reach an ultimate state of acceptance which in a sense closes the door of critical thinking.
The third takeaway is that cross-application of knowledge is very important. You may belong to the field of Mathematics but there is a way to benefit the community from your core thing. All you need is to figure out how technology and existing knowledge can benefit the overall model.
It was indeed a great learning experience and perhaps the most difficult thing to conclude in words. Thank you Dr. GV Ramanjenuyulu for the time and the admin team, Transforming India Initiative for the opportunity.
