IDH launches project to provide mint farmers alternative sources of income

Netherlands-based global sustainable trade initiative IDH has launched a project for mint farmers in Uttar Pradesh and another for small tea growers in Assam to provide alternative sources of incomes through intercropping and animal husbandry. 

The organisation’s Chief Executive Office and Chair of the Executive Board, Daan Wensing, told businessline in an online interaction that it is working to reduce the impact of textile waste on the environment and economy. It has come up with the “India for India” programme as an investment opportunity for domestic companies to work closely with small holder farmers.  

The programme to provide alternative sources of income for mint farmers has been launched in Uttar Pradesh’s Barbanki, 30 km from Lucknow, with funding from Mars Inc. 

“Our approach involves providing diversified income opportunities beyond traditional crop cultivation. With core funding from Mars Inc, the programme aims to support living income for over 26,500 farmers in the next five years,” he said.

Closing living income gaps

The programme goes beyond the basic level of income that someone needs to survive. “IDH’s goal is not only to bring those companies together, so that in a pre-competitive setting, they can share and learn. We have also developed a global roadmap of how to actually close the living income gaps. In our collaboration with Mars, we have selected the mint sector India as a testing ground to see how we can work on closing those living income gaps,” Wensing said.

Jagajit Sing Kandal, Country Director, India, IDH said the mint programme with Mars has helped women gain confidence. “Women  have been able to take loans and are creating businesses within their own household to be able to become financially secure and confident. Some great impact has been seen in this programme,” he said.  

IDH is partnering  with Syngenta foundation and Agri-Entrepreneur Growth Fund to work with small tea growers in Assam. The programme aims to reach 35,000 farmers by 2025 with the organisation already rope in in around 30,000 under the Small Tea Growers’ Sustainability Programme (STGSP).

Kandal said  IDH is also partnering with Hindustan Unilever in the tea programme. With the tea sector going through a tough phase, farmers are under stress and the organisation is working with them to diversify their incomes. 

Offering multiple sources of income

“It is about giving them multiple sources of income.  We are working with the farmers to help them improve quality, which means that they can then demand better value in the marketplace. It is also about improving yield.  The growers adopt fishery, piggery and mushrooms in different districts of Assam and they get help to market them too,” he said. 

Wensing said the concept of “India for India” is integral to the IDH approach, where the organisation works with Indian companies producing for Indian markets. “The  programme is an investment opportunity for domestic companies to work closely with small holder farmers in their quest for better yields, managing climate change impacts, regenerative and climate smart and resilient agriculture,” he said. 

The “India for India” programme covers food crops, ingredients, spices, tea, coffee, cotton, fruits and vegetables, pulses and legumes, besides other commodities in which IDH has an active body of knowledge and expertise.

Incubating tech firms

IDH has created a “Sutra” event which was held last year and will be held again in October this year to bring together domestic and multinational companies to build this agenda. The initiative, which is to make the full value chain sustainable, will run until 2023 end, Wensing said. 

The IDH CEO said since 2022, the organisation has been working on the issues and challenges around a better environment with a focus to reduce the impact of textile waste on the environment and  economy.

Kandal said IDH was incubating technology firms who are bringing in technology to convert waste textile back into fibre. “This is done specifically separately for cotton waste and polyester waste as the technologies are very different. And we are actually working all together with the Ministry of Textiles to bring those technologies into India,” he said. 

With IDH getting the proof of concept, the next stage will be to bring companies to take the technology forward and scale it up. “This is something which is really a focus point. Today, most of the global brands are manufacturing clothes which actually have labels saying 30 per cent recycled material in them. It is the next frontier within the textile industry to see how they can reduce the carbon footprint,” said the IDH India director.

Engaging value chain

Wensing said IDH had been working in cotton in the country over the past 10 years. “We have a strong record in working with BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) on reaching millions of farmers across India and other markets around the world,” he said. 

IDH is looking at improving the income of cotton farmers and for that it has realised that the full value chain has to be engaged. “And that is why, you see a lot of ideation in the textile sector in India and globally, look at also the next stages when cotton reaches the brands,” said the IDH CEO.

“We can actually decrease demand for the virgin fibre to recycle more. So there are quite a few elements. From this programme in India, this is now being rolled out as a global programme. Based on the lessons learned, similar programmes are run in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam,” he said. 

On the value chain front too, Africa has been roped in for similar movement, Wensing said.

RPL collaborative in MP, Maharashtra

IDH is also working on another project called Regenerative Production Landscape (RPL) Collaborative. In Madhya Pradesh, it is implementing the programme in association with Laudes Foundation and WWF India. There are two units or compacts under the programme in regions such as Chhindwara, western Madhya Pradesh and Kodagu with corporates such as Inditex, H&M, Levis, Pepsico, Neutral, Jayanti, IKEA. The organisation has also received support from the State governments, particularly in Madhya Pradesh.

The programme has been launched in nine districts of Madhya Pradesh and already 75,000 farmers have been covered. “Our target (for enrolling farmers in Madhya Pradesh) remains the 1,20,000 that we will reach by the end of 2026,” said Kandal.

In Karnataka, IDH is adopting a landscape approach and creating multi-stakeholder partnerships addressing low farm incomes, resilience to climate shocks, soil and water resource management, and impact on biodiversity and forests, with market demand and access acting as a catalyst for change.

By 2026, the programme aims to cover 10,000 farmers  with access to advisory, capacity building and services towards resilient farming. It will facilitate bringing over 2,00,000 hectares of cropland where sustainable Land Management Practices are applied.

IDH has completed a project with Walmart Foundation to help spices and coffee growers. “But we’ve actually used that work and have catapulted into a bigger programme, which is now what we’re doing in Karnataka,” said Kandal. 

IDH now has a coffee landscape programme with farmers who have coffee and black pepper as the main crop, besides growers of other spices. The programme will now cover 50,000 farmers. 

“We are partnering with the Coffee Board and two very key private sector partners, Hindustan Unilever Limited and JBE from the Netherlands. So these are the two anchor partners to this programme, and it also involves all major traders who actually buy on the ground and export the coffee,” the IDH India director said.