This report offers a detailed description of Dharani Farming and Marketing Cooperative, a producer-owned and managed business enterprise of smallholder farmers located in Andhra Pradesh (India) and promoted by Timbaktu Collective, a non-profit organization working towards sustainable development of marginalized people in the region. Based on data collected during a two month long ethnographic fieldwork, it delves into economic organization, democratic governance, and ecological, social, and cultural dimensions of the cooperative. The case of Dharani can offer important lessons on how smallholder dryland rural communities can live in dignity and in harmony with nature if provided with appropriate support, opposing the mainstream discourses around the ‘backwardness’ of peasant farming. Dharani farmers can be seen as agents of change on many different levels – they contribute to the ecological wellbeing of the natural environment through organic farming and reversing land degradation; they control part of their economic activities and increase their autonomy through bottom-up and democratic governance system; they preserve vital traditional and indigenous knowledge about farming as well as important local cultural practices; and work towards social justice and gender empowerment by bringing people together regardless of their caste, religion, gender, or social status. Not without their challenges at stake in an ever-learning process, grounded initiatives like Dharani can be of inspiration in working collectively towards a sustainable development that is more localized and aims to be holistic. The report is a useful read for those aspiring to promote people-owned enterprises, policymakers, and civil society members curious about the functioning of a democratically governed business, highlighting personal testimonials from its members, whose worldviews and values are often absent from dominant narratives.

You can download the full report here.