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Tulsi cure for poverty Even migration has slowed down and those husbands who work outside the district often come back to their farms during the harvest to help out.

Tarannum

This story dates back to 1998, when some women of the impoverished district of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, decided to change the way farming was done in their villages and in the process build better lives for themselves and their families.

Most of these women were wives of migrant labourers, who had left their land and families behind in search of more sustainable employment elsewhere. Understandably, they were initially apprehensive about the risks they were about to take. It meant that they had to move out of their homes and become farmers. It also meant that they had to learn how to use lesser-known organic farming methods instead of the traditional way of cultivation, and to do it in a way that conformed to the ‘ethical farming' principles proposed by the corporate body that had approached them. Incidentally, the company had also pledged to provide them access to better health facilities as well as buy their produce.

Today, the gamble these women took for the sake of their families has paid off handsomely. After a decade, they have not only managed to become successful farmers by profitably growing organic tulsi for Organic India, a Lucknow-based multinational company, but have also secured the promised medical facilities and even managed to send their children to school. Organic India chose Azamgarh because they found the soil here was perfect for tulsi cultivation and also because the district was behind on all development indicators.

Setting aside inhibitions

Vimla Maurya, 40, of Bijoura village in Azamgarh, switched to organic tulsi farming about 10 years ago for the company that prepares blends for organic teas and health supplements. The mother of three recalls how she and some other women who had decided to take up Organic India's offer were sceptical at first. “We had heard stories of how big companies talk farmers into cultivating for them and then run away without buying the produce. But our experience, fortunately, was different. We had a lot to prove, not just to ourselves but even to the entire village,” she says.