For farmers as well as women from the Juang tribe inhabiting Saptasajya in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district, this Durga Puja brought a green blessing.

Over 600 farmers earned ₹1,500 this month from colocasia and papaya exports to Ireland, bringing them a welcome “bonus” before Durga Puja.

“It’s going great. We started our own farmer-producers’ organisation (FPO), the Saptasajya Agro Producer Company, which is now a symbol of the collective strength of small farmers. We are flooded with export orders. Last week, we exported high-quality colocasia and papaya to Ireland for the first time,” the head of the Saptasajya Agro Producer Company, Sudipta Ranjan Biswal, told The Telegraph.

Agriculture department sources confirmed that these farmers exported 100 kg of colocasia and 320 kg of green papaya from Dhenkanal to Ireland via the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Calcutta.

Biswal said that around 630 farmers were associated with the Saptasajya Agro Producer Company as of now.

“We had started our organisation in 2018, but Covid-19 broke our backbone. After 2023, we resumed our work, and after two years, we began to achieve success. This may be small, but it has a great impact on our farming community,” he said.

He said that they collected the produce from their farmer-members to get them a better price. Sometimes, they even take produce from farmers who are not members because they want farmers to earn well and “not be exploited by local businessmen who offer meagre price”.

“We basically want to protect all farmers from going for distress sale,” Biswal added.

This export to Ireland was their first in the vegetable category. Last year, they exported 32 tonnes of Amrapali mangoes to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, UK, Germany and Italy.

“We earned nearly ₹22 lakh. We have also got an export order from Dubai for jackfruits, wood apples, ice apples and custard apples,”
Biswal said.

Farmer Rama Chandra Rout, 54, said he realised the benefit of exports. “We are getting more than the market price for our produce,” he said.

The Saptasajya Agro Producer Company has also engaged women of the Juang tribe, identified as one of the particularly vulnerable tribal groups, in packaging farm produce for export.

“The community members are very poor. We decided to engage women from the community in the packaging process. After they complete their household chores, around 30 women come to our office and do the packaging. They have become very good at it,” said Biswal.