TIMBAKTU COLLECTIVE (SOUTH CENTRAL INDIA)
An IPEN Case Study
Lush Spring Prize 2017: Established Project
Project Summary
The Timbaktu Collective works
for sustainable development in
the drought prone Anantapur
district of Andhra Pradesh(A.P.) in India. They work withsome of those most affected bychronic drought, unproductive
land, unemployment and poor
infrastructural facilities in theregion. Among them are landlesspeople and small and marginal
farmers, with an emphasis
on women, children, youthand dalits.
‘Timbaktu’ means ‘where theearth meets the sky’Community participation and ownership is theunderlying theme

Permaculture & Agroecology Lessons

The Collective’s story is long and rich

Timbaktu Collective’s work has high importance for:Over 25 years, a few key milestones were:• Seeding and growing effective systems of organisation (i.e. • February, 1990: 32 acres of barren, degraded land wascooperatives) that address the food, economic and social
purchased by the founders of Timbaktu Collective.
needs of specific disadvantaged groups.
• December, 1991: Masanobu Fukuoka’s “One Straw• Linking action-oriented education and demonstrationRevolution” translated into Telugu. This created a core
projects that build connections between organic
text so that Fukuoka’s approach and permaculture wereagriculture, effective systems of organization and thethe basis of much of the regeneration work. A percentage
development of rural enterpriseof the book’s sale price helped to start a fund to plant andcare for trees.
• Long term education systems that enable personal,
community and environmental change, founded on specifictechniques that enable the regeneration of degraded land.

• Building social capital amongst and with some of the mostmarginalized communities in Southern India.

The Changes Achieved
The Timbaktu Collective have achieved wide-ranging
impacts, including:• Serving over 21,000 marginalised families, enhancing
the livelihoods of landless labourers, the rural poor, andmarginal farmers, particularly women, children, youth,dalits and the disabled;• Working in over 172 villages of the Anantapur district;• Regenerating more than 9,000 acres of community
common lands into biodiverse savanna grasslands andtropical thorn forest.

• January, 1998: Adisakthi Mutually Aided Thrift Cooperative
Society (Adisakthi), the first women’s cooperative of
the collective, with 1,466 members - a key point forunderstanding the need for organic farming training.
• November, 1998: Organic farming experiments wereinitiated on a demo plot at Eetavanam, through which theylearnt and understood what works and what doesn’t in thelocal ecosystem and what efforts are really needed.
• November, 2005: Organic farming groups were initiated in
8 villages with 300 farmers.
Throughout the project, working with and helping to establish
and grow women’s groups, and working with children andschools, has been critical to the Collective’s growth, successand effectiveness.

Golla’s Story, a Beneficiary“In the beginning when I had just sown my field everyone who saw my farm
mocked me, they were all dismissive. But as my crops neared harvest and my land
appeared lush and green, passers-by wanted to know what I was growing! We
were among the first farmers to start growing millets. We began with half an acreand expanded gradually each year.” The Collective “informed and shared with us
techniques of organic farming. We chart a seasonal crop plan and go to farmers’
field school where we are told about friendly and unfriendly pests and come up
with the right organic manure for each crop.”
Golla uses Neem leaves for its antibacterial properties, and Thorn Apple andSwallow Wort leaves for their pest and insect repellent attributes.

The Militha (“inclusion”)
programme advances the rights ofPersons with Disabilities

Timbaktu Collective
Goals, Strategy andValues
Vision: Rural communities take controlof their own lives, govern themselves
and live in social, gender andecological harmony while maintaining
a sustainable lifestyle.
Mission: Enable marginalised ruralpeople, landless labourers, and small
and marginal farmers particularly
women, children, youth, dalits and thepeople with disabilities, to enhancetheir livelihood resources, getorganised and work towards social
justice and gender equity and lead life
in a meaningful and joyous manner.
Strategy: With local self-governanceas the underlying theme, the Collective
develops models that address therights of the most disadvantaged ruralpeople. The models include: ecologicalrestoration of waste lands; organic
farming and marketing; alternativebanking, credit creation, legal aid
and counselling for women; childfriendly education and spaces;
livelihood through animal husbandry;
and disability support. As part of its
strategy, the Collective has formed
numerous village-based organisations
for the rural poor, promoted
producer owned mutually aided
business enterprises and revived theCooperative movement.
Values: Celebration of Life; Faith inpeople and their wisdom; Cooperation;
Excellence.

Siddarth Rao’s story, a project team member“I am an ecologist and I have worked with the collective in various capacities forthe past six years. I am humbled and amazed with the quality, impact and reach
the Timbaktu Collective has achieved to date. As someone who cares for theland and nature I am always joyful to see how we have collectively managed toget some of the most disadvantageous communities to regenerate, protect andconserve nature in spite of all odds.”

The Collective’s Good Practise: WHAT It Has Done
When the Project Started: The ravaged and ruined soil was as hard andunforgiving as concrete, so degraded that not even a blade of grass could grow.
Robbed of the ability to produce food, the region suffered widespread debt,
poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, resulting in nearly 700 farmers committing
suicide in the space of ten years; a monumental crisis in an already sparsely
populated part of the country.
Now: Timbuktu Collective has made an overwhelming difference to theenvironment and communities of Anantapur, through actions and strategies
described in the sections below, that build on each stage of project development tocreate significant cumulative change over time. These include:•••••••Breaking down social stigmas and barriers to engagement
Widespread restoration of wasteland
Promoting and teaching organic farming techniques
Creating alternative banking and credit creation opportunities
Facilitating legal aid and counselling for women
Supporting the disabled and promoting cultural activities
Creating over 45 child friendly spaces and founding one residential school forunderprivileged children

Timbaktu Collective’s Ways of Achieving Good
Practise: HOW It Is Done
How it is done with people: The social work that Timbaktu has done was
essential to do first, to be able to get the land work off the ground. In particular,breaking down social stigmas (cast, womens’ role and access to finance,representation at meetings, etc) was a key part of the work. Building from thisstarting point, important ways of working which have enabled the Timbaktu
Collective’s approach to be effective are:
• To identify and repeat patterns of economic, social and legal organisation (i.e.
Cooperatives) that are very effective for building participation, breaking downsocial barriers and stigma, and tackling the needs of particular groups (women,people with disabilities, children);• To create cooperatives to tackle particular social and land issues, such as tree
planting, watershed improvement, improving marginalized farmer livelihoods andrural enterprise opportunities;

• To develop education, training, demonstration and support
systems which enable individual and group progression
within those cooperatives and for specific social groups, tocontinue to break down social stigmas;• To create an alternative education system which
focuses on experiential learning while also teaching theconventional Indian syllabus in the Collective’s school(which enables progression in wider society), as well as
additional subjects and activities such as local dance,agriculture, craft, ecology, music etc.
How it is done with the land: ‘if it works for farmers it works
for us’, not aligning to one technique or movement.
• Protection: Protecting the soil and plants temporarily byfencing it with thorn bushes, and explaining their efforts
to trespassers, has stopped grazing to a great extent andtree cutting almost totally. For larger tracts of land, theapproach has been to focus on ‘social fencing’ measures,
where physical barriers are not used.
• Fire Fighting: Deliberately burning 15 to 20 ft wide
fire lines across the hills as a grid, prevents fires fromspreading uncontrollably, coupled with building awarenessamong the villagers about reducing fire risks.

OUTCOMES Achieved
Outcomes for people, with a focus on effective systems oforganisation:• Women’s Cooperatives: Mahasakthi federation ofCooperatives (also a registered Cooperative) with 4
member cooperatives - around 22,600 members and a
total capital base of around 240 million Rupees.
• Tree-growers’ Cooperatives: Kalpavalli treegrowers’cooperative has regenerated 9,000 acres ofbarren community common lands into a community
managed wilderness, home to endangered species suchas the Indian Grey Wolf and providing livelihoods to over
1,000 people.
• Farmer Cooperatives: Dharani, a federation of farmer
cooperatives with over 2,000 members that procures,processes, value adds, markets and sells members’
produce, with revenues around Rs. 30 million.
• Cooperatives of People with Disabilities: Prathibha, aMutually Aided Thrift Cooperative Society of people withdisabilities with 1400 members. It provides loans to its
members at reasonable interest rates along with healthand rehabilitation services.

• Rainwater harvesting and soil conservation: Initially,• Children’s Cooperatives: The Collective runs a small
small earthen bunds and small rock-filled check dams wereresidential school for disadvantaged children and amade all over the land, to plug gullies, reduce the run-off
resource centre for children and youth. It is working in 48
and keep the water on the land. Later bigger check-dams
villages to educate 2,024 children (including 918 girls) andand rock-filled dams were built along the larger streams, totheir parents on children’s ecological rights, helping themsave as much rain and soil as possible.
set up 31 community vegetable gardens.
• Revegetation: Thousands of trees have been planted,• Enabling Rural Enterprise: The collective has establishedwith pits dug, natural manure applied and better soil added
two new enterprises. Bhavani is a livelihood initiative
to the pits, to help small plants establish themselves.
for young rural women who are high-school dropouts,
The survival rate has now reached 85%. Protection anddisabled, widows, abandoned by their husbands or from
non-disturbance has also enabled the existing plants anddifficult backgrounds. It is a vibrant group with nine young
grasses to propagate themselves.
women who are establishing a market for themselves.
• Seed Collection: A seed collection initially stocked about
They spin, dye and weave pure khadi handloom sarees
120 key tree, bush, herb and grass species to distributeand material with a range of natural dyes such as anarand plant during the rainy season in regeneration areas, to(pomegranate rind), alizarin (rose madder), katha (catechu
test their viability for providing green cover for economicallyfrom acacia), rattan jyoti (alkanna tinctoria) and indigo.
productive species. The Collective follows the principle ofPrathiba is a cooperative for people with disabilities andecological succession and has observed its effectivenesshas established a handmade soap enterprise as a modelover the years.
for livelihood generation.
• Kitchen Gardens: Kitchen gardening and bio-intensiveOutcomes for land and nature around Timbaktu:
gardening is a regular activity in Timbaktu especially by the• A large number of trees and other plants create a sharp
children of the residential school, and provides a valuable
contrast to the barren lands and hills nearby - in summer
contribution to the nutrition of the children. Methods ofmuch of Timbaktu and surrounding hills remain green andcomposting that suit the area provide excellent fertiliser forare full of wildlife. Groundwater level in wells has risen fromthe fruit trees and vegetable plots.
50-60 feet below ground to 20-25 feet.
• Farming: The collective has leased land where various• Monitoring shows that soil quality is steadily improving,natural and organic farming practices are being trialed.
trees are healthier and plant types have changed. Species
The Collective aims to and has learnt from the farmers’
diversity increased rapidly initially, and plant diversity has
traditional knowledge, acquired over many generations,now stabilised at about 320 species.
and has developed new approaches with them.
• Bird diversity has increased from about 40 species in1992/93 to about 240 species now. 76 species of reptiles,amphibians and mammals can be found in Timbaktu
and surrounds. These include leopard, sloth bears andendangered black buck antelope.

Permaculture Principles & From Inspiration to Action Summary of the Difference
Design in Action
arising from the Lush
The Timbaktu Collective provides
Spring Prizelessons about linking education toThe Timbaktu Collective is valuable fordemonstrating the following:

effective systems of organization, which
are appropriate to particular socialgroups, and that can be used, repeated
and adapted to address specific needs.

The support has helped give the project
publicity, reach larger audiences, bolster
the project’s credibility and increase
the team’s motivation to continue todo regenerative work, aided by new
What lessons from the Timbaktu
staff members that have brought a new
Collective could help your project,sense of enthusiasm into the working
community or network in relation to:groups. Within 2017/18, it has alsoa) Project development and evolution,
Removal of limiting factors: removal
and scaling-up benefits in valuable ways helped 12 organisations and over 300
of key limiting factors for womenindividuals from across India to learn
at the local level?
(e.g. legal aid, effective organisation
about the cooperative model and about
as cooperatives, finance), childrenb) Permaculture and agroecology
implementing similar work in other areas(education, rights, facilities) and the land education, teacher training andof the country.
(e.g. water; organic material).
demonstration that relates to local
needs?
Growing a local ecosystem ofeffective organisations: to fill specificniches, overcome specific challenges
or limitations and develop opportunities;
they interact to meet needs with eachorganism being multi-functional andmanifesting the principles: observe &interact; multi-supply; small change forbig effects; relative location.
From patterns to details: patterns oforganisation that can be repeated, sothat the detailed needs of particulargroups or issues can be addressed bytheir own cooperatives (as economicorganisms) at the local level.

Legal Status, Structure & Size: Start date: February, 1990 - degraded land waspurchased by the founders
The Collective is a Registered Society, governed by a Board of seven General Body members and five Managing Committee
members who are responsible for all policy decisions. The operations are managed by the Steering Committee, Thematic
Working Groups, and the Timbaktu Panchayati - the full-time functionaries of the Collective.

More Detailed Information on the Collective including its Structure, Funding andFinance
A great deal more information on the Timbaktu Collective as a whole, including financial information, and information on
specific projects that operate under the umbrella of the Collective, is all contained in the extensive and beautifully presented
Timbaktu Collective 2016-17 Annual Report

Contact Information
Website: www.timbaktu.org and www.timbaktu.co
Email: info@timbaktu.org
Address: The Timbaktu Collective, Chintavanam,
Chennekothapalli, Andhra Pradesh, India 515101
International Permaculture Education Network (IPEN)
Increasing the effectiveness and coherence of permaculture education internationally
IPEN Case Studies have been enabled by the Lush Spring Prize