By LILIANA GIL, 6/22/2016. It took us about two hours to get to Villupuram, one of the villages in Tamil Nadu where the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation is collaborating with SoCCS, the Social Capital Credits System, a program by Asia Initiatives. The idea is relatively simple but it requires some human infrastructure and capital to implement. Aiming at promoting social development in underprivileged communities, SoCCS gives points to individuals and collectives in exchange for tasks such as sending young girls to school or planting a green garden. Those points can then be redeemed for selected products and services such as academic fees or public amenities. With the help of a number of stakeholders, points can also be exchanged for microcredit. As a result, the program involves not only the villagers, but also mediators of different kinds that keep track of points earned and redeemed, serve as local consultants, and report back to the main institutions involved.
According to Nandeesh, the project coordinator in Tamil Nadu, explaining the program to the population wasn’t easy at first. Renaming it Sowbagya – a local term that means “he or she could get all the wealth” – helped a lot. Since then, the initiative has grown steadily. In response to local needs, Sowbagya has focused on milch animals. Through it, small farmers can get credit to buy cows as well as access to dairy units where to sell their animals’ milk at fair prices – about twenty-four rupees per liter. The goal is to protect the population from exploitative contracts while continuing to foster other improvements in the community. To date, three dairy units and a knowledge center have been built and fifty seven animals have been bought, mostly by women.
In order to meet with some of the women involved in Sowbagya, we drove deeper into the marudam. This was my opportunity to see farmers in action, I thought, the reason why I came here after all – to develop a rural sensibility for resourcefulness, since most of my work has been in cities. We stopped by a temple surrounded by agricultural fields. Excitement made me enter with my shoes on – how embarrassing is that for an anthropologist? As I stepped back, took my shoes off, and walked back inside, a small crowd of women had already gathered. The communication was difficult. An MSSRF staff member was doing his best to translate questions and answers, but I could tell we were all a bit dissonant. They showed me their passbooks and I learned that the women are happy – they have cows now, their kids go to school, some even go to college, and they enjoy the knowledge center and its basic computer training and English classes as well as the Farmers’ Field School. But what I really wanted to hear about was the impact of the program, the ways in which its training had changed their daily practice, what traditional knowledges and techniques they had preserved despite all this input from scientific and development institutions. Note to self: that isn’t something you learn in a half-hour visit. Maybe next time. We finished with a round of applause and a series of short, timid bows.
