Loreni, a door-to-door vegetable seller in Wokha town. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Wokha | March 13
Loreni, 65, is up by 4am in the morning. Mechanically, she splashes her face with the freezing morning water and swiftly gulps down a cup of scalding tea.
She then picks up the bamboo basket laden with assorted green vegetables, which the mother of eight, had sorted out and wrapped in banana leaves the last evening after returning from the field and scurries out in giant strides on a long walk towards Wokha town.
If you are a resident of Wokha town, you will see the kind of Loreni, selling fresh vegetables door-to-door in the morning and afternoon driving on the concept of the farm-to-doorstep vegetable and fruit delivery service- all on foot.
Just like a small convenience store, the bamboo baskets on the back of the women farmers that spread out to the different colonies of Wokha town hold assorted vegetables and fruits depending on the season. The produces are wholly organic and straight out of the fields.
Loreni hails from Wokha Village and there are around 200 women like her in the village - tending to the fields and sustaining their families by selling vegetable produce door-to-door in Wokha town.
The salary of her husband who is a peon at a government office is not enough to sustain the large family.
For Loreni, no job or opportunity is low or too little. “I would rather slog and earn than go for begging,” is the nonchalant remark from this 65-year old woman, who does not look at all frail, considering her age.
Earn, she does. On a typical day, Loreni earns a profit of at least Rs 400-500. Out of this, 10% amount goes to the church as tithes and the rest is utilized to meet the expenses of her children’s education.
Kimongi is another door-to-door vegetable seller hailing from New Wokha Village.
Whatever Kimongi earns, all goes to the education of her children and of course home maintenance. After her husband, an employee of education department, passed away in 2012, Kimongi has been donning the role of a father and mother and sustaining the family by selling vegetable produce along with the small family pension from the government.
Kimongi informed that during peak season, she earns up to Rs 1000 in a day. Peak season begins from the month of June where there are more varieties of vegetables and fruits- maize, cucumber, tomato, cabbage, pumpkins and jungle herbs to name a few.
Like Loreni and Kimongi, every day, women farmers from Elumyo village, Longsa village, Humtso village steadfastly march to Wokha town to sell their local vegetable produce in an effort to improve the quality of their lives.
The farm-doorsteps service has turned out to be a win-win for both the sellers and the buyers. Although there is a local market in the town, most of the households in Wokha town depend on these women farmers to provide them with fresh supplies of vegetables at their doorsteps, which is more convenient.
“They are fresh, cheap and straight out of the fields. And we don’t need to go all the way to the market to buy the vegetables,” Abeni, a homemaker from PWD colony said. Besides, the buyers can also ask for a specific produce since they are directly interacting with the farmers themselves.
What is an attestation that as long as one is resourceful and hardworking, there is no dearth of opportunities to earn a livelihood, the farm-doorsteps delivery service has now turned into a “tradition” of sorts for most Wokha women, ages notwithstanding, to eke out a living- as long as one can carry a basket of vegetables on the back.
