Land Rights Help Families Grow Roots

For years Ranimma, her husband and three daughters were like leaves blown in the wind.

They followed the promise of agricultural work wherever it took them. Each year, that meant leaving their home village for months at a time.

Schooling for her daughters, ages 16, 11, and 8 was difficult in these circumstances.

This itinerant life and the poor prospects for the daughters changed in 2006 when Ranimma participated in a government subsidized land purchase program designed in part by Landesa.

The program allowed Ranimma and her equally desperate neighbors to pool their money and buy a subsized plot of land. Each family became landowners of a single acre.

The one acre of irrigated land Ranimma now owns helps her family through the lean months, has bolstered her family’s income by one-third, and, equally important, has meant that the family can remain at home all year.

“Before we had land, I had planned to take my second daughter out of school at 15 (to help us in the fields). But now I will let her continue at least until she is 17 years old,” said Ranimma.