Sustainable Agriculture: Case Study of CSR Intervention of XISS and HPCL in Mukunda Village of Jharkhand, India

Sustainable agriculture is the process of production of food, plant and other animal product through farming technique which protect environment, natural resources, public health, human communities and animal welfare. Collaborative Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) has changed the dynamics and perspective of various developmental interventions in backward/underdeveloped areas. CSE has transformed the philanthropic developmental interventions into viable business oriented interventions. CSE focuses on how any developmental intervention can unleash the potential business growth with respect to agriculture and non-agriculture sectors as a chain reaction of that intervention. The present paper aims at analysing the paradigm of CSE initiatives in a backward economy. The paper is based on single CSE intervention in one of the backward villages. Therefore the study relied on the case study method. Information was gathered through focused group discussions, book of records, key informant interviews and the study of few individuals with the help of a structured interview schedule. CSE could be a powerful initiative to break the shackles of the vicious cycle of poverty and rain-fed subsistence agriculture in the plateau region. Rain-fed agriculture, seasonal migration for off season wage employment, low education, and threat of women exploitation during migration and HIV-AIDS were the routine challenges that villagers had to live with. In collaboration with villagers and HPCL, XISS took up watershed based sustainable agriculture development to improve the village economy and to open more self-employment opportunities for the village youth. Check-dam cum reservoir was made with the support of HPCL. This provided partial irrigation facilities to 200 acres of land. XISS encouraged the farmers to grow low water requiring crops so that more land could be irrigated. 153 households benefitted by the initiatives and in two years’ time the entire village was converted into a multiple cropping system by selecting water conserving varieties, green manuring, organic farming and legume based crop rotation. Many youths got engaged in the marketing of agro products. Women Self-Help Group started additional income generating initiatives. As a result, today the village has witnessed nearly 300% income enhancement within a span of three years. The paper offers few vital insights on CSE. These are, how to work out a collaborative partnership under CSE, sustainable operations, how to integrate the different world views into a viable business oriented developmental interventions; and how to create ripple actions to unleash more intended and unintended business opportunities and to sustain a developmental interventions. Key Words: Social entrepreneurship sustainable agriculture, water management, women empowerment.