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| Ownership/Use Rights and Community Involvement in Wastelands Development: Experience from Gujarat - Cooperative Dairy Union of Mehsana, Case of common Grazing land |
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Reference |
| Shah, Tushaar; Ballabh, V:1986 "Ownership/Use Rights and Community Involvement in Wastelands Development: Experience from Gujarat " Institute of Rural Management: Anand |
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Introduction to the Institution |
| Mehsana is a semi-arid region in north-Gujarat with a highly advanced dairy industry, constrained by the scarcity of fodder.In late 1978, the Coop dairy union of Mehsana took over about 25 acres of the common grazing land in Charada village and developed into a productive fodder farm to which all members especially the landless, marginal and small farmers had access.Since then a total of 15 community fodder farms have been started in Mehsana.Generally most farms take three fodder crops a year, when demand for green fodder is not high available surpluses are converted into dry fodder
Such type of arrangements in cooperative farming needs initially a high capital cost of development, the bulk of which is cost of establishing irrigation facilities and civil structures |
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Rules for Management
of the Institution |
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(a) Boundary Rules |
| Spatial:Not reported in the text
Social: In case a member steals fodder from others' plots, he is forbidden entry to the farm
* The Brul are not stated clearly in the text |
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(b) Governance
rules |
| The farm is managed jointly by the village cooperative and the district union.The union has an Asstt Fodder Development Officer, aided by three Supervisors, who provide technical support and help in deciding cropping pattern, selling price etc. The village cooperative's board of directors has a committee of 2-3 members provide general management and supervision. Two permanent labourers stationed on the farm carry out all farming operations and guard the farm's property |
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(c) Resource Allocation |
| The fodder produced on the farm is sold to any member of the community at a price which covers the recurring costs.Usually 70-80 percent of buyurs of fodder are landless, marginal and small holders. Fodder is sold in three ways a:by weight b) sale of a plot for one cutting c) sale of a plot for the entire season. The sale by weight, however, is discarded in favour of the other two methods
Fodder prices are determined so as to just cover recurring costs. Prices are much lower in monsoon than in other parts of the year. The productivity of the farm is extremely high in comparison to the common grazing land of the village of which the farm was a part earlier ?? |
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Conflict Resolution Mechanism |
| In case of any disputes, the Management Committee acts as the sole arbitrator |
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Other Features of Institution |
| The key advantage of the Mehsana Gauchar land model is that while it can directly benefit all sections of community, its effectiveness is insulated from the group's internal dynamics.ach member has only a buyer-seller relationship with the farm's management and his influence and control on farm's management is indirect through his membership of the cooperative.Thus there is no scope of "free-riding" within the members except in rare cases, where a member encroaches upon the fodder plot bought by someone else for which strong sanctions are necessary.More or less success depends largely on the management capacity of the dairy cooperative and the union |
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Purpose |
| Development of common Gauchar land |
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Country |
| India (Gujarat) |
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Region |
| Mehsana |
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Date Of Publication |
| RS-12/04/96 |
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