What do you associate memes with? The first few words that come to my mind are comedy and satire. But 24-year-old Santhosh, an agriculturalist, uses them to inform farmers about various techniques and tips that will benefit their practice. This meme-crusader comes from a farming family, and is armed with a B.SC in agriculture from Annamalai University, Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. Santosh is capitalising on the popularity of memes, by using them to educate people.
Santosh is capitalising on the cultural currency of memes, and using it to make a difference in society.
The meme-crusader
While studying, he was frequently asked on Facebook about certain agricultural practices, and that is when he understood the utility of social media. While he was able to help a small community, he and his peers realised that larger sections of society would benefit from the dissemination of such information. Seeing the e-popularity and reach of memes, Santhosh and two of his friends, Prakash Thangavel and Mahim Antony, created ‘Learn Agriculture’, a page on Facebook dedicated to promoting sustainable farming. In a month the page had more than 70,000 subscribers and is an active forum for queries related to agriculture.
“People forward memes much more than just plain text posts. But it was frustrating to see so many memes just mocking society; that prompted me to use them better. Why not use this powerful medium to send socially relevant, and useful messages,” he says.
A meme featuring a popular Tamil actor about how pesticide usage is rampant while cultivating grapes. Photo Source: Learn Agriculture
‘Learn Agriculture’ is perhaps the first page where memes guide farmers on sustainable agriculture, providing better cropping techniques, dispelling myths, and all of this while entertaining their audience too. “More than the likes we get, we get a lot more questions on the page. People keep asking us for solutions to their problems, and we reach out to them offline too,” he adds.
Santosh also runs another popular Facebook group called Azhvar Memes, which encourages organic and traditional farming techniques.“It is the way our forefathers tilled the land, achieving good yields and maintaining the soil’s quality without chemicals,” he says.
Santosh’s aim is to start an organic farm, more than just the commercial viability, he wants to prove the effectiveness of the method too. “I come from an agricultural family. My grandfather and uncles still farm, but even they follow chemical methods. I have told them about the benefits of organic farming, but they will not change their methods as they are used to chemical inputs. Until I am able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods, things won’t change. Which is why we are scouting for land now to start the farm,” Santosh elaborates.
To connect with Santhosh and stay updated you can join his Facebook pages ‘Learn Agriculture’ and ‘Azhvar’.
While coming back to India after staying in Canada for four years, Deepak Gupta, a banker for 16 years, thought of something that would change the course of his life forever. Deepak and his wife Smita, who was a marketing professional for over 15 years, were tired of the rat race in the corporate world. They decided to change theirs as well as the lives of others, who were stuck with a not-so-healthy modern lifestyle.
Deepak was working as a deputy general manager in a reputed bank, and had been living in South Africa for a year and Canada for another four years for an assignment.
Deepak Gupta
When he came to India in 2011, he found that the entire community wasn’t very aware when it came to health, which was directly affected by the food they were consuming. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides were rampantly used, and people had no other option but to eat the poisonous fruits and vegetables. This was leading to dangerous diseases like cancer. More diseases spread due to lack of nutritious food as it meant lack of immunity. A resident of Gurgaon, Deepak then decided to visit the farms in and around Delhi and Gurgaon.
“In my journey towards figuring out the whole ecosystem of organic foods around Delhi, I was fortunate to meet several aware consumers and entrepreneurs, who were standing against all odds, in a community that was still broadly short-sighted on matters of health and well-being,” says Deepak.
Thus, in 2012, Deepak laid the foundation of his firm Organic Maati, which focussed on procuring organic fruits and vegetables from local farmers and selling it to interested consumers.
While this was going well as a part-time venture, Deepak also realised that the ill effects of modernisation were not limited to food. The deterioration of our health and environment was also caused by the clothes we wear and the poisonous dyes used on them; the cosmetics and hygiene products used by us, and of course, the air pollution.
“People were popping pills like never before as their threshold of pain was much lesser, and they developed issues like stress and anxiety. There seemed to be no getting away from it for the average city dweller,” he says.
Deepak’s wife Smita pitched in and added organic cotton herbal dyed apparel and natural wellness products to the list of the Organic Maati products.
The couple was running their brand successfully and could see the difference in the awareness level of the consumer as well. However, something was still missing.
“I could not help but notice the sharp deterioration in the quality of life all around me, in the name of advancement, but had no idea how to do something about it. I noticed children who were very social in their virtual life but introverts in the real world. Their physical agility and cognitive skills were quite low as they did not go out to the playground every evening, which we did as kids. Instant gratification and fidgety temperament were pervasive. The gap in health awareness and well-being between my community and the ‘advanced’ communities that I was fortunately exposed to, was too wide for me to ignore. I had to do something to change this,” says Deepak.
Deepak and Smita realised that only providing organic products was not enough. There had to be a holistic lifestyle change in the community.
Deepak quit his well-paying job in May 2016 and got involved full-time into farming.
He realised that a lot of landless farmers, who had a rich knowledge of natural farming passed on to them by their ancestors, were forced to use chemicals and work as labourers in others’ farms at very low wages. He hired those farmers as permanent employees of Organic Maati. After being sure about taking up natural farming, which he believes is the best therapy for all the environmental issues, Deepak and Smita started Organic Maati 2 – a rented natural farm not too far from the city, which can be a definite panacea for the city dwellers.
Organic Maati 2 offers natural farming of vegetables on rent, wherein people can choose an acre (or more) of land in the vicinity of Delhi and ask Organic Maati to farm for them.
Costing less than a US air ticket, one can have a one-acre personal farm for a full year, which is within an hour’s drive from Delhi. This includes unlimited visits with the family and learning natural farming, picking up their own vegetables and fruits and being a part of nature.
“These farms are located at the small villages near Delhi and Gurgaon. Not only will it serve the purpose of connecting the urban dwellers to their roots and lead them to a healthy and sustainable living, but also, as we are using only natural farming methods, these farms will prove as a model for other farmers,” he explains.
OM2 offers three models to own a farm. If you own a farm, you can just hire OM2 to farm for you in your existing land. If you want to rent a farm, then the firm will help you with one and grow your veggies. If you want to purchase a land of your choice and grow on it, even that can be done.
Though one can earn by selling the produce too, Deepak encourages people to take up this model for personal consumption and not for commercial use.
A farmer working on a rented farm
The team signs a one-year contract with the consumer, in which they help them harvest at least three yields. If one wants to continue, they can still renew the contract or continue farming on their own. The entire responsibility of resources, logistic, labour, farming and even harvesting and delivering the veggies is taken care by the OM2 team.
So far 15 families from Delhi and NCR have taken up farming on an acre land through OM2. This has helped the youth from villages in getting a permanent job, and has stopped them from migrating from their homeland.
They also get to continue with their family profession, which is farming. As these families visit the farms with their friends too, it has encouraged eco-tourism and the villagers get to showcase their skills as well.
“I am so happy my distant dream of passing on my childhood farm experience to my son has come true. And that too conveniently and affordably,” says Chiranjib Dhar from Gurgaon.
OM2 aims to scale up the natural rental farms in Gurgaon and add 100 acres of green natural farms within ayear. According to Deepak, this will help reduce the carbon footprint for the entire community too.
Organic Maati also conducts workshops on their demo farm at sector-92, Gurgaon, for those interested in natural farming (cow-centric farming, producing food with no chemicals, preservatives or GMO seeds) and building their own organic kitchen garden.
“Avoid looking at your farm as a financial investment instrument with assured rate of return. Look at it as a social enterprise instead, where you get safe healthy food and a farm experience, both of which are invaluable. Unlike conventional farming, which only focuses on productivity and yields, natural farming focuses on enriching the soil first. You benefit your own health, uplift the local farmers, better the environment, and fulfil your farm dream – all without having to give up your comforts of the city and your busy life,” Deepak concludes.
or you can call Deepak and Smita on +91 8010229404.
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The Better India is partnering with An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (2017), a film that documents former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s quest to find out how human ingenuity and passion can tackle climate change. This article is part of a 4-part series on climate change heroes.
The consequences of modern-day agricultural practices on the environment are devastating.
Industries seem to be in a mad race to grow profits and meet the demand of a growing population. From fertilisers and pesticides infiltrating groundwater to encroachment of forestland, most practices have left the environment in a precarious state for human and animal existence.
In fact, according to reports at least 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come directly from the agricultural sector, playing a significant role in the climate change.
Realising just how grave the problem is, many agriculturists and farmers have switched to organic practices over the years, which have not only resulted in the production of chemical-free harvests, but also ensured less damage to the ecosystem.
Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese farmer and philosopher who spearheaded natural farming, and began what is widely acknowledged as a revolution in the history of conventional agricultural practices.
He is considered to be one of the five giant personalities who inspired the organic farming movement along with Rudolf Steiner from Austria, Lady Eve Balfour from the United Kingdom and J.I. Rodale from the United States.
Fukuoka is celebrated for pioneering shizen nōhō, which translates to natural farming, where you give up conventional practices like tilling, weeding, pruning and the use of fertilisers or pesticides.
This ecological farming method involves a “do-nothing” approach. The term does not refer to a lack of effort, but to the complete evasion of manufactured inputs and equipment.
A Ramon Magsaysay award winner, Fukuoka also played an elemental role in reintroducing the ancient Japanese technique of seed bombs.
Born in the early 20th century to an aristocratic family in Ehime, Japan, Fukuoka started out as a research scientist specialising in plant pathology, after training as a microbiologist and agricultural scientist.
While he worked as an agricultural customs inspector in Yokohama, an incident changed his life.
After being hospitalised with pneumonia in 1937, ‘a spiritual experience’ during his recovery prompted the young man to look at the world differently.
Disillusioned by Western agricultural sciences and practices, Fukuoka gave up his post as a research scientist and returned to his family’s farm on the island of Shikoku in southern Japan.
A file picture of Fukuoka at the Marina Berkeley in 1979 at San Francisco. Source: Facebook.
However, his farming was interrupted with the onset of World War 2. Following the war, much of the land owned by Fukuoka’s family was seized by U.S. troops., leaving the farmer with only three-eighths of an acre of rice land and a hillside citrus orchard.
Like they say, setbacks only make the determined surer. Taking up natural farming once again in 1947, he managed to successfully harvest rice and barley using the no-till farming method.
To raise awareness and help others reap benefit from his methods of farming, Fukuoka started penning down his philosophy in the same year and wrote his first book Mu 1: The God Revolution.
However, his most celebrated book, which found worldwide recognition, was The One-Straw Revolution, which was published in 1975 and later translated into English in 1978.
Translated into over 20 languages and selling more than one million copies, Fukuoka’s book ended up inspiring an international movement where scores of individuals began applying his principles. It is believed that the practice of permaculture in the West found its major influence from his philosophy.
Starting from 1979, Fukuoka started travelling across the world extensively to give lectures and worked directly in different countries to plant seeds and re-vegetate areas like deserts and barren lands.
In recognition to his extraordinary work and achievements, Fukuoka was bestowed with various awards and accolades. In 1988, Fukuoka received Visva-Bharati University’s Desikottam Award.
In 1997, he was presented with the Earth Council Award at the Earth Summit+5 forum in Rio de Janeiro honouring him for his contributions to sustainable development.
One of his famous quotes says,
Many people think that when we practice agriculture, nature is helping us in our efforts to grow food. This is an exclusively human-centred viewpoint. We should instead, realize that we are receiving that which nature decides to give us. A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being. The farmer has very little influence over that process, other than being there and doing his or her small part.
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A promising student from NIIFT, Mohali, Shweta Tomar had her boutique until 2015 and could have been a successful fashion designer today. But she chose a different path and started goat rearing in a remote village instead. Here is her journey.
It all began when Shweta shifted from Dehradun to Bengaluru after getting married in 2015. Until then, she was a successful fashion designer. After moving to Bengaluru, she would often think of restarting her business.
“I was sure that I couldn’t just sit at home. I had to do something,” says Shweta while speaking to The Better India.
However, her interests took a U-turn when she visited a nearby farm over a weekend with her husband.
Shweta Tomar
“It was a goat farm, and I loved spending time with them. I felt that I would enjoy taking care of them if I too started a goat farm,” she says.
After this visit, Shweta continued to visit the farm every day. She took formal training in goat farming and also gained hands-on experience for over a year in this farm. Once she was confident enough to start her own goat farm, she discussed the idea with her husband, Robin Smith, and had his full support for it.
However, Shweta, who was born and brought up in a small village, did not want to start her farm in a city. Instead, she decided to set up her farm in a village – hoping that she could prove that youths need not leave villages to find employment.
With that in mind, she left her comfortable life in Bengaluru and shifted to her ancestral land in a small village called Listrapur, in Ranipokhri area of Dehradun.
“Initially everyone was shocked with my decision. But looking at my determination, they agreed to let me follow my heart,” she says.
The initial challenges were many. The village had no goat farms so far, and so there was little optimism or enthusiasm for Shweta’s venture. The plot was bordered by jungle, and elephants and deer would pass-by often, which made it difficult to maintain a farm. This was why the area had remained barren for all these years.
However, nothing could stop Shweta. She took a loan and began her farm with some 250 goats.
“Looking at our urban attire, even bank authorities were shocked when we applied for a loan for animal husbandry. I had taken almost ₹ 30 lakh as a loan. It was a huge amount. I couldn’t have afforded a loss. I promised myself that I am going to make it successful – come what may,” says Shweta.
In September 2016, Shweta and Robin laid the foundation of ‘Prem Agro Farm’ in Listrapur village.
The farm is spread over 3000 sq. Ft with all modern amenities like 24×7 online surveillance through CCTV and an elevated platform, so that dung and urine can pass below and the platform remains dry and clean.
“Though this model required double the amount of building a traditional goat farm needs, we still preferred doing this so that the goats can stay in a clean environment. With this model, we have to clean the place just once a day,” informs Robin.
Shweta’s farm has only desi breeds of goats. The goats are of high quality, which breeds only two kids per year. The farm does not indulge in the artificial breeding method.
The animals are kept with utmost care. A water tank and a fodder tank are always filled, and the goats can eat or drink whenever they want.
Pregnant goats are kept separately from the herd and fed nutritious food. The newborns are also kept warm and clean. The goats have a very small mortality rate due to these favourable conditions.
Shweta has also started training sessions at her farm for anyone who wishes to start a goat farm. She believes that such businesses will encourage youth to remain in their villages and develop them, rather than migrating to crowded cities for work.
For anyone who wants to start a goat farm, Shweta advice is, to begin with just 10 – 20 goats – which would cost them around ₹ 8-10 lakh. Each goat requires ten sqft. to stay comfortably, hence it is advisable to use one’s own land rather than taking land on lease.
The most important aspect of starting an animal farm, according to Shweta, is that you must have interest and love for animals.
“These animals can’t speak – just like a baby. You have to become their mother and understand their gestures, their signals and their wordless language. This is possible only if you love them like a mother loves her baby. My most memorable moment was when the first two kids were born on our farm. It was December, and I would make bedding for them in my own room. I would also keep a hydrogen light near them to keep them warm. It was as if I had become a mother,” she says.
Shweta sells these goats to small farmers in her village. She doesn’t like to sell them to slaughter houses. She has also reared hens and plans to expand her business in the coming years. Right now her yearly turnover is ₹ 3- 4 lakh and she is happy with the same.
Shweta has also started farming in half a bigha of land. She uses fertiliser made of only goat dung. The vegetables grown by her are more than enough for their consumption. Hence, she also earns extra from selling surplus veggies.
“No work is big or small. Nothing can be achieved easily. If you work hard and dedicate yourself to a cause, you are definitely going to succeed,” she concludes.
You can contact Shweta on 9035699161 or 9720250290.
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Is engineering the only solution in India? Meet Pramod Gautam – a former automobile engineer who switched to farming (of all things) in 2006 and after implementing a radically different method of cultivation, now earns upwards of a crore yearly, while also helping other farmers grow as well.
Although born and raised in Nagpur, he spent a considerable amount of time in the family’s ancestral village – Wadhona. As a child, Pramod helped his father on their farm in Wadhona and as a result, grew to love the activity.
But, he never imagined farming as a viable career option.
Like most Indian parents, Pramod’s father wanted him to become either a doctor or an engineer, but definitely not a farmer.
So, he went ahead and got a degree in automobile engineering from Yashwantrao Chavan College in Nagpur.
Pramod Gautam
This helped him land a good job with a salary to match. But soon enough the job began to frustrate Pramod, who eventually decided to open his own business that dealt with spare parts of vehicles.
But the itch to farm did not let the business last.
In 2006, Pramod abandoned the thought of trying to do anything with engineering and decided to give farming an earnest shot on his 26-acre ancestral land.
“I tried a lot but engineering was not something that interested me. On the other hand, I loved to be on the farm even though it required double the work,” says Pramod while talking to The Better India.
Initially, Pramod faced his share of challenges. He planted white groundnuts and turmeric all over the land but reaped no benefits. Availability of labour was another big issue as workers preferred to migrate to cities and work in factories.
Pramod also became the proverbial butt of all jokes – an automobile engineer who left a good job and became a farmer.
The losses made Pramod realise his method of farming was wrong. He decided to switch to other crops, which were also less labour intensive.
In 2007-08, Pramod stopped traditional farming and switched to horticulture. He planted oranges, guavas, lemons, mosambis (sweet lime), raw bananas and toor dal.
Pramod’s farm
“In horticulture, you don’t have to depend on labour as you have to plant it just once and the plants and trees do not require as much care as the traditional crops like cotton or soyabean. Moreover, there is a government scheme wherein farmers who are doing horticulture are repaid the entire investment amount and even more every three years,” says Pramod.
Once harvested, Pramod would market the fruits in the Kalmana market of Nagpur.
It was when he started growing and selling pulses that a new idea struck him, Pramod noticed that while the farmers sold their pulses to mills for very low prices, the mill owners would process the pulses and sell the polished product back to the farmers for nearly double the original price.
These mills were also far away from the farms, making the cost of transport very high. All of these factors gave lentil-growing farmers a paper thin profit margin. It was then that Pramod decided to start his own mill.
After consulting several experts, he realised the mill he had to make would cost him around Rs. 25 lakh, but all he had was a lakh and a half. Pramod was not going to let the lack of funds deter him, so he took a loan from the bank to make up for the rest of the amount.
Farmers growing lentils now don’t have to travel far. Pramod processes the dals at the rate of Rs. 4.5 per kg and gives 65 kgs of processed dal per quintal to each farmer too.This helps the farmers get a free supply of dal for the entire year and also a good income from selling the processed dal to the consumer.
“The farmers now sell their dal directly to their relatives and friends in Nagpur, which is earning them double the profit they were getting by selling the raw material,” says Pramod.
Pramod sells the processed and unpolished pulses with the brand name of ‘Vandana’. He has an annual turnover of about Rs. 1 crore from his dal mill and an additional 10- 12 lakh from horticulture, which is much more than what he was earning as an engineer.
About 2500 farmers from 35 neighbouring villages, which include Borgaon, Wadhona, and Madasawangi, come to Pramod’s mill to get their pulses processed daily.
When asked how Pramod has managed to build such a huge circle of his customers he says, “I have never treated them like customers but like my brothers. Their raw material is treated in the same way like mine. We don’t polish the dals but make sure the covers are removed properly. It has been nine years since I have started the mill, but till date there was never a delay to deliver the processed product to the farmers. Each one of them is also free to get back the product if they are not satisfied with it and we immediately replace it,” says Pramod.
Around 2500 quintals of pulses are processed in Pramod’s mill every year. The mill has also given employment to 8 youths of the village. After spending on the initial investment, electricity charges and the salaries, Pramod still manages to get 40% profit from the mill. His mill is also open for any farmer who wishes to start a mini mill in the area. According to Pramod, a mini mill starts from Rs. two lakh.
Pramod, who is very content with farming, wants our education system to stress on skill development rather than focus only on theoretical teaching. He strongly believes that agriculture can be a great career option for the future generation and can solve the environmental and behavioural issues our children are facing these days.
“Our society needs to understand that farming is the most important profession and a farmer should be respected for the same. Only if we add some basic knowledge of farming, farmers can grow like anything and can make our country a golden bird once again,” he says.
You can contact Pramod on 9422805257
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An event aimed at helping farmers increase their income by 2022 through a seven-point development plan was held at Kochi last week.
Bringing together scientists and farmers at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), a major focus was placed on online trading through which farmers could avoid being cheated by middlemen and trade their produce for a price worthy of their hard work.
By the way, did you know that there is a pan-India electronic trading portal launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare that connects farmers, traders, buyers, exporters, and processors under a single platform?
The ‘National Agriculture Market’ or NAM scheme was launched as a portal last year with the goal of formulating a unified national market for agricultural commodities by integrating Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees or APMCs across states in India.
Agriculture marketing in each state is administered as per state-wise agri-marketing regulations, under which the region is bifurcated into several market areas that are subject to further market fragmentation.
Along the way come multiple additions of handling charges and taxes that only end up raising the price for consumers without commensurate monetary returns to the farmer.
The portal was established by the government as a measure to address all of these challenges and provide a transparent and seamless system for every person in the agriculture sector.
e-NAM is managed by the Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), which is a registered society of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare (DACFW).
Here are salient provisions that can be availed through the portal:
1. The facility will allow states to have their own agri-marketing platforms that can be linked with NAM. For this, willing states will have to accordingly enact suitable provisions in their APMC Act for promotion of e-trading by their State Agricultural Marketing Board/APMC.
2. The highlight of the scheme is the single point levy of market fees, i.e. on the first wholesale purchase from the farmer.
3. The provision lets farmers to showcase their produce in nearby markets and facilitate traders from anywhere to quote price.
4. The portal enables harmonisation of quality standards of agricultural produces and provision for assaying (quality testing) infrastructure in every market that will pave way for informed bidding by buyers.
5. There will be liberal licensing of traders or buyers and commission agents enabled by state authorities without any precondition of physical presence or possession of shop /premises in the market yard.
6. One license for a trader will be valid across all markets in the state.
7. Under the scheme, a provision of Soil Testing Laboratories in or near the selected mandi (market) has been set up. This will help visiting farmers access the facility in the mandi itself.
To know more, you can reach out to SFAC at nam@sfac.in or call on 1800 270 0224.
If you visited the Hunagund taluk of Bagalkot in Karnataka a couple of years ago, you would have never imagined that this severely drought-stricken region could one day resuscitate its soil’s fertility to grow crops.
Once a part of the famed Vijayanagara district, Hunagund’s story was quite different in the recent past.
Under a state government initiated project in 2009, over 59,000 acres (24,000 hectares) of barren fields have been transformed into stretches of green, productive pastures.
However, the success behind the Ramthal Drip Irrigation Project has been the collaborative effort of the previous BJP government and current Congress government for over a period of eight long years.
Taking a cue from Israeli agricultural practices, the project has benefitted over 15,000 farmers.
Engineers and agronomists from Netafim India Private Ltd., Jain Irrigation and Krishna Bhagya Jal Nigam Limited (KBJNL) guide the farmers, helping them implement various irrigation methods.
The farmers who had so far only been cultivating maize and jowar have now started to grow vegetables, other grains, and even cash crops like sunflower and cotton. In October, it will see the first harvest of the khariff (monsoon)crop in several years.
“The project area is divided into two parts–west and east side of the NH 13 that cuts through the project area. A total of 28,911 acres (11,700 hectare) in the west is networked with drip irrigation facility,” Umesha MC, who is an agronomist with Netafim told TOI.
She further explained that the water for the project is channelled from Narayanapura dam and pumped at two stages to reach the site, following which it undergoes impurity filtration at 23 primary filter stations.
Each of these stations is managed by a cooperative unit of farmers, who receive information through RadioNet wireless transmitters with terminal units fixed at farmers’ fields.
The best part is that the farmers are alerted about details like water availability timings through SMSs.
“Even when the farmers are not present, water is supplied to plants at the right time,” said Vasanth Ulli, who is an assistant executive engineer of KBJNL.
The interesting aspect of the project is the dedicated effort that both the governments have displayed during their respective periods of governance, setting aside all of their political differences for the greater good.
While the preceding BJP government worked on the project from its conception in 2009 all the way till 2012, the current Congress government had transformed the blueprints of the project into a functional reality.
Aneel Kumar Ambavaram has a masters degree in organic agriculture from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, one of the best schools for agricultural sciences. After working with multinational companies like Dow Agro-Sciences and Dupont for 15 years, he could have had a high profile career with a handsome package. But, during his trips across Andhra Pradesh, and especially his own village, Kadapa, Anil realised that all his work did was make him successful, but not help farmers grow.
“I was selling pesticides! That would have got me a fat salary job and a luxurious life, but it was not useful to farmers. That’s when I felt like I need to do something else,” says Aneel while talking to TBI.
So, he decided to quit his corporate job and dedicate his life to help farmers.
Aneel joined Grameena Vikas Kendram Society for Rural Development (GVK), an NGO working for agriculture, sustainability and rural development, as the President in 2009.
Aneel Kumar Ambavaram
He met Sarat Babu Gidda, a mechanical engineer, who started working with GVK right from the time he was in college. The team also had Vidya Sagar, who has a Masters in Sustainable Agricultural Development from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Project Anvita :
Cotton farmers
The trio started with the mission of uplifting cotton farmers from Kothavalasa, Chinatalapadu and two other villages in Vizianagaram district.
“Anvita is a sanskrit word which means ‘weaving’. Our project brings people together to farm a social fabric. Here, it is about global cotton supply chain wherein farmers in India and global consumers unite for a cause,” explains Aneel.
They ran campaigns in villages and were on the lookout for farmers willing to join them. Around 50 farmers had never seen a non-Bt cotton seed. The team helped them start organic farming.
A firm in the U.S. has already committed itself to purchase the cotton lint produced by these farmers, while some European companies have expressed an interest too. GVK also takes order from a brand that needs organic lint or T-shirts, gets cotton produce from its associated farmers, processes it through the ginning and spinning mill in Tiruppur and distributes the end product. In the Netherlands ‘T for Change’, a local company has sold the T-shirts twice on the eve of their national day.
According to the team, organic farming not only helps farmers get rid of the impact of pesticides and other chemicals but also reduces the amount of water needed. A conventional cotton t-shirt needs about 3,000 litres of water, but the organic t-shirt needs only 300 litres of water.
The immediate benefit for farmers would definitely be lesser expenditure. Usually, they spend Rs. 15,000 – Rs. 20,000 per acre, but now they have to invest only around Rs. 5,000.
The organic seed, when placed in soil that is used to being fed with chemical fertilisers, takes time to have a successful yield. Over the span of three years, the yield is normal. It must be noted, organic farming requires zero investment and hence the farmer gets better returns.
“Anvita is implemented the way it is designed, at the end of 5 years, we see ourselves working with 5000 farmers, helping them increase their annual income by 80 percent,” says Aneel.
Project Hesperidin :
Once project Anvita was working well, Aneel wanted to help the farmers in his own village, Kadapa. Kadapa is a very dry region that suffers from chronic water scarcity. The area is famous for banana and sweet orange cultivation. However, the farmers struggle with heavy investments required to grow these fruits and the inadequate market price at which they are sold at.
“Farmers are very optimistic people. Last year they got Rs.50/kg for the sweet oranges and they always expect and plan their expenses hoping to get the same price every year. However this time the market price was only Rs 20 per kg. Sometimes they can’t even recover what they have invested as these are perishable items,” explains Aneel.
A number of factors cause sweet orange trees to shed fruits prematurely. Aberrations in rain/irrigation, wind, cyclone etc accelerate fruit dropping. About 4 out of 5 fruits are estimated to be dropped at different stages, leaving farmers in a state of drudgery. Also, after planting, farmers have to wait for four years before starting revenue generation. They pinch off the small fruits to allow for the healthy growth of the plant, which is a labour intensive chore.
After much research, the team found out that a bioflavonoid called “Hesperidin” is present in these aborted sweet oranges. This natural compound has a positive effect on the human circulatory system and hence has pharmaceutical value. Collection, processing, quality management and supply of aborted small oranges can fetch additional income to these farmers.
GVK has set up farmers training systems under the project Hesperedin. Beneficiaries can collect and sell both fresh and dried fruits as per the quality standards.
“By enrolling the sweet orange farmers into collecting the aborted sweet oranges, we have increased the annual income of the sweet orange farmers by 50% and created an opportunity for the labour in the region to earn more income. We worked in 40 villages and collected 10 metric tonnes (after drying) in the first year. We have achieved more than 100% growth in the second year (82 villages and 23 MT),” says Aneel.
GVK has signed an agreement with a renowned European pharmaceutical company recently to export sun dried oranges.
Project Future Seed :
We consume about 14 grams of pesticide in a day. Organic food costs less to produce and hence increases the farmer’s profit. There is a need for a consistent and robust organic retail chain in India that is market driven so more farmers are ready to produce organic food. Future Seed works with tribal and marginal organic farmers to establish Value Chains that continuously produce affordable organic food. The data is used to predict the fluctuation of price of food products and stabilise this as much a possible.
“Farmers are our business partners. We encourage community ownership, peer learning and attitude shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’,” says Aneel.
Project Suraksha
The team also believes that social and mindset changes are as important as improving income. Suraksha endeavours to tackle the issues of gender norms, power, entitlement and sexism in the society by working with boys and men through a project called “gender-transformative work”. It focuses on educating men and empowering women.
Tip4change
Technology is another aspect that the team wants to introduce to agriculture. Tip4change connects small farmers and rural artisans with global consumers by using Smartphone technology to achieve improved transparency, accountability and engagement in supply chains to drive sustainable and bottom-up development. It is a combination of 3 proven model viz., Fair Trade, Mobile Technology and Micro Philanthropy.
The team is continuously working towards the betterment of farmers, one cause at a time.
“Innovation is in our heart. Making true difference on the ground really matters. Even if I am just one person and has my own limitations. I know what just one person can do. I can attract more people, I can create an ecosystem around the causes. I want to invite people who want to make this difference. Though we can’t change the situation of 100% farmers, we can move forward by changing just 10% at a time,” appeals Aneel to our readers.
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Prateek Sharma was born to a family of farmers in a village close to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. He started farming at the age of 10 along with his family but moved to Bhopal after class 8 for higher education. A few years later, Prateek – the boy from a small village, was appointed as a chief manager of Kotak Mahindra Bank.
After 10 years of banking, he earned a good pay and had a comfortable life. He even married Prateeksha, who also worked at Kotak.
But, Prateek could not continue the corporate life with ease, as his heart was always in farming.
Prateek and Prateeksha
“When I visited my village after 20 years, I realised that everyone was moving out of the village but no one was going back. While the cities were developing at a high pace, the village remained where it was 20 years ago,” says Prateek.
He worked as a banker on weekdays and fulfilled his passion to farm on weekends, travelling a 100 km to get to his 5 acre farm in Dhaba Khurd.
Prateek Sharma
By the end of 2015, Prateek had set up a poly house on his farm to grow exotic and off season vegetables. Prateek thought he would quit his as a banker once he was able to earn enough from farming, but this was not an easy decision to make as the income from sustainable farming was not much.
He realised that this was because input costs to grow these vegetables were very high, coupled with the fact that farmers were not a part of the value chain and hence could not decide the price of their own vegetables.
“If something was being sold at Rs 10, the input cost was close to Rs 6, which is too high. The quantity of chemical used was very high too. In the first cycle of growing tomatoes, I spent Rs 26,000 alone on chemical fertilisers. And then there are chemical insecticides and pesticides. ” said Prateek.
According to Prateek, farmers also have to pay for the transportation of their vegetables and grains to the Mandi. And when he reaches the merchant, who sells the produce, he is not allowed to decide the price. It has to be sold on the basis of the market price and not according to his input cost, which was higher most of the time. On the other hand the merchant sells the produce at a price he decides and thus bagging the profit.
“The first time I took my tomatoes to the Mandi, I had to pay Rs 900 from my pocket, including the transportation and the best high-quality tomatoes was sold for Rs 1.25 per kg. That is where I realised that this model is not sustainable for farmers at all and that we have to go organic and create our own value chain,” says Prateek while talking to TBI.
As luck would favour, Prateek met Vinay Yadav, another educated farmer, who held similar views. The duo then decided to start their own value chain and sell their vegetables and grains, while skipping the middlemen. The variety of vegetables they grew were not enough, so the duo decided to form a group of farmers.
“You need to complete the basket to approach a customer and growing all the vegetables was not possible for just two people. So we took 5-6 months to build a team of 12 organic farmers,” says Prateek.
For the next few months they studied all the successful farming models across the country and even trained at Abhinav farmers’ club, Pune.
Once the plan was ready, the group was registered by the name of ‘Kalpavalli Greens Producer Company Ltd.’ as a farmer producer organisation (FPO).
The members committed at least one acre of land each to the FPO and a cow each. The FPO was financed by banks A vendor was approached to build net houses in all the 12 farms.
However, the venture failed in the first year as most of the farmers were grain growers and had limited knowledge of growing vegetables. However, the largest reason for the venture’s failure was the switch to organic from chemical.
“When you switch from chemical to organic farming, it is like getting someone out of the ICU, you have to feed them and wait till they get back up on their own,” says Prateek.
The duo took up all the losses and made sure that the other farmers, who were not as well off, were paid fairly. Once the soil was used to organic methods of fertilization, the next round of crops were successful and the FPO had a good amount of produce.
The team was much more confident with their second crop.
At the end of 2016, Prateek decided to finally quit his job and dedicate all his time to farming.
His wife continued to work with Kotak, and fully supported Prateek’s decision to quit.
With a lot of experience in marketing and management, Prateek took charge of marketing their produce.
Their model was low cost – Prateek visited each of the farms in his car and collects the vegetables, he brings them back to his house in Bhopal and cleans them, grades them and packs them accordingly. The packed vegetables are then supplied to the consumers.
With the help of many handy whatsapp groups, the orders started pouring in from family, friends and colleagues. The tremendous response led to a loyal set of customers.
“I got the first lot of veggies to Bhopal on 16th November 2016. I collect the veggies in my car and deliver them personally in my car till date. This also keeps the customer connected to what is happening in the farms,” says Prateek.
As the produce has increased now, Prateek takes the veggies to the Mandi twice a week!
“While people stay away from organic because they cost more, our motive is to keep the prices low so that more and more people can have access to healthy food,” Prateek says.
The team has more than 300 customers now and more farmers are ready to join the FPO now.
There were farmers who were not getting a good price for their organic produce, but are now being helped by this FPO. The team also gets offers from their customers who own land to use it to farm. The team has now started supplying grains and pulses along with exotic vegetables. Soon they are also planning to supply milk from desi cows. Prateeksha, who has been a constant support, has also quit her job now and will soon join the FPO.
Recently the team has started two Farmer resource centres at Dhaba Khurd and Nathrula Ganj where anyone who is interested to switch to organic farming can take free training and sign an agreement with Kalpavalli Greens to sell their produce. The centre also provides all the resources required for organic farming at this centre.
“I came back to my village because farming was my first love. When I moved to my village, I had never thought that I would do community farming. But eventually, I realised that it was the need of the hour for the farmers. The USP of our model is that input cost is zero as we make all the organic manure and pesticides locally, there are no middle men and so the farmers earn double than what he was earning before.” says Prateek.
When asked if he misses anything about his corporate life Prateek says no, but leading a team and marketing definitely helped him in his new venture. He says that even if he is not making as much money as he did when he was a banker, the satisfaction of selling healthy food to the society is unmatchable. Nothing is more satisfying than agriculture.
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Rahibai Soma Popere hails from Kombhalne village, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra. She is highly knowledgeable about agrobiodiversity, animal breeding and innovative techniques in paddy cultivation. Her insights are based on experience. So when she speaks in her earthy Mahadeo Koli tribal dialect, even experts listen carefully.
The 54-year-old farmer has the distinction of conserving and multiplying 48 indigenous breeds of 17 different crops – including paddy, hyacinth bean, millets, pulses and oil seeds.
“Tribal households traditionally had a backyard garden that had multi purpose indigenous trees, plants, herbs, and shrubs. The produce from this small garden was sufficient to meet the food and nutritional needs of a family for an entire year,” Sanjay Patil of BAIF Development Research Foundation, a Pune-based NGO working among tribes in 16 states of India, told VillageSquare.in.
Wide variety
Tribes in Maharashtra cultivated 300 rice varieties. Each one of them was eaten for a specific reason – from nutrition to medicinal purposes. These native varieties were the result of years of dedicated efforts to develop and conserve crops suitable for the local conditions.
The green revolution had a profound effect on rice in the region. Originally, the high-yielding rice varieties failed to have a significant effect in the western regions. But over three decades, varieties such as Ratna and Jaya replaced the native ones.
Unfortunately, these ‘high-yielding’ varieties failed to increase crops significantly, as the resource-poor tribal farmers were unable to afford ‘recommended inputs’ – like chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The tribal farmers soon reverted back to native seeds and organic methods of cultivation, thus reducing their dependency on external inputs like seeds, growth promoters, fertilizers, and pesticides.
Moreover, after cultivating them for many years, the farmers realised that hybrid seeds lost their vitality after a generation or two. Also, the dwarf varieties of rice caused a shortage of hay as fodder for livestock – crucial to the tribals.
Seed savers
To help the farmers go back to their native crops, Rahibai prepared 5,000 seedlings of hyacinth beans and shared them with members of self-help groups in 25 villages. 89 acres were farmed with these seedlings.
Rahibai’s inventory of crops includes Kolbhat – a scented, long fine rice with good fodder quality, Dhavul – a short variety rice consumed as gruel for instant energy, Rajbhog – another long fine rice that can withstand high rainfall and Godval – a hyacinth bean, which grows both in rabi and kharif seasons and is drought tolerant.
She played a key role in forming the Kalsubai Parisar Biyanee Savardhan Samiti in Akole in Ahmednagar district. The Samiti works towards the conservation and propagation of traditional varieties of crops. Indigenous seed melas or fairs were organised in different parts of Ahmednagar district to raise awareness about the diversity of seeds and the need to conserve them.
Conserving crop diversity
Rahibai in her farm of landrace hyacinth bean that she has helped conserve among other traditional crop varieties. (Photo by BAIF)
In nearby Jawhar taluk, an effort similar to Rahibai’s for conserving traditional varieties of paddy was initiated by Sunil Kamadi of Kamadipada village and Mavanji Pawar of Chouk village.
An active member of a seed saver farmers’ group, Kamadi helps farmers in conserving crop diversity in the locality and is considered an expert in seed selection for crops such as paddy and finger millets.
Kamadi and Pawar are recipients of the Plant Genome Saviour Farmer Recognition Award for 2011-12, conferred by the Ministry of Agriculture.
Kamadi received the award for his paddy variety Ashwini, developed through selection methods and Pawar for his three paddy varieties- Kamal, Kirti and Sadhana.
Rahibai, Kamadi and Pawar are associated with BAIF in their participatory seed production, with the active involvement of the local farming community.
Seed banks
Through seed exhibitions and personal interactions with growers, the BAIF team has collected data on the likely reasons behind the extinction of varieties, existing crop landraces and their specific properties, besides factors affecting crop diversity.
Data indicates that Dhadgaon and Jawhar districts have a number of breeds of food crops that are resistant to pests, grow in poor soil, flourish under changed climatic conditions and offer high nutritive value.
Presently farmers are involved in the conservation and revival of indigenous crops in 56 villages of five tribal blocks, with a focus on paddy, finger millet, proso-millet, hyacinth bean, cowpea, sorghum, maize, barnyard millet and foxtail millet.
The revival of such breeds is facilitated through community seed banks. Farmers assigned the task of producing seeds are offered choice samples – collected after four or five generations of purification and upgradation. The seeds, sold at a price decided by the seed saver group, offer a new avenue of income to the farmers.
Presently, 15 villages in Gadchiroli, 12 in Nandurbar, 10 each in Palghar and Ahmednagar, and five in Pune are involved in producing seeds and in operating community seed banks towards preserving traditional crop varieties.
Hiren Kumar Bose is a journalist based in Thane, Maharashtra. He doubles up as a weekend farmer.
Adapted from an article originally published on VillageSquare.in. Subscribe to VillageSquare’s weekly update on the website for more stories from rural India.
Agriculture has always played an important role in the Indian economy. A report put out by the Indian Brand Equity Foundation states that over 58 per cent of rural households depends on agriculture for their livelihood.
Agriculture, along with fisheries and forestry, is one of the largest contributors to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, jobs seem to have started shifting away from agriculture. Recent annual surveys suggest a sharp drop in agricultural employment: From 52.2 per cent of total workers in 2012 to 45.7 per cent in 2015. Two successive monsoon failures are a likely explanation.
To address the problems that arise from declining numbers in agricultural employment, A.D. Mohan Kumar, a native of North Kodagu, Karnataka, who is a second-generation farmer, and a graduate of Commerce, decided to find a solution.
According to a report in The New Indian Express, five years ago Mohan developed a machine for dressing chickens. It was a reasonable success. He then invented a spraying machine to be used in coffee, pepper and areca estates. This machine runs on a 100 cc bike engine, which can also be used to lift water.
It was this background and his interest in innovating new technology to better aid farming that led him to design a small ploughing machine for small farmers.
Mohan said that a male labourer is paid Rs 400-450 daily in the district. Small and marginal farmers cannot afford this, and neither can they afford to have bullocks and maintain them. But they can pool resources and buy his machine.
The new machine runs on a TVS 50 moped engine and consumes 850 to 1000 ml petrol per hour. The invention will certainly be useful for small farmers who cannot afford to buy tillers or tractors.
It solves both problems – the expense of labour and the need for small machinery in small farms.
Currently, the machine costs Rs 30,000. But Mohan hopes that the state government will extend a subsidy, which would make it cheaper.
Technology has made inroads into almost all spheres of life, but sadly, India’s vast agricultural sector has a severe lack of it. Despite rural India being predominantly agrarian, less than 30% of our farmers use the necessary equipment that facilitates productive and profitable work.
Farmringg, an equipment rental and demand aggregation company, was created by three energetic youngsters – Mithil Gandhi, Dashmanth Reddy and Nitin Razdan.
Their vision? To make agriculture profitable for vulnerable farmers.
Dasmanth, Nitin and Jhansi Rani (first employee) at AgriTex Expo in Hyderabad
India primarily consists of small and medium landholding farmers who look to rent equipment, usually on an hourly basis.
“By leasing out agricultural equipment from the owners, we increase its utilisation and often pay higher rentals than they would get just by serving their existing pool of customers. At the same time, we provide small and marginal farmers with the equipment they require at a 20-30 percent discount from the prevailing market rates,” says Razdan.
How does their model work?
Connecting with the help of technology to create a win-win situation
Equipment owners get a fixed rental for a monthly, three-month or a six-month contract that ranges from 30-40k per month depending on the kind of implements. The vehicles and tools are subsequently rented out to farmers on an hourly basis. By himself, the tractor owner makes around 25-30k since he/she has no way to aggregate/source/route orders from a bigger area. The average usage per day of a tractor, while it’s with the tractor owner, is 3-4 hours/day in season. When they lease it to Farmringg, it gets utilised for 5.5 hours/day. Therefore, utilisation is increased by 40 percent and costs are down by 20-30 percent.
Foundation of Farmringg:
Gandhi, Reddy and Razdan met while doing their MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. The trio was keen to do work that had a strong social impact.
“Agriculture, an unorganised sector, was an attractive option since it had a broad base across India. Also, after much thought, equipment rentals struck as a reasonable proposition to start with. Uber and Ola were gaining traction in the cab space at the time and to marry such a model with social impact was too attractive to pass on,” they reminisce.
After talking to several incubators, ICRISAT (Hyderabad) agreed to provide introductions on the ground to carry out a survey and have a pilot operation.
The results of the study were promising, and the founders decided to hire tractors to serve farmers for the November 2016 -January 2017 land preparation season.
Farmringg leased tractors for their pilot project
Even though demonetization happened during the time, they chose to go ahead and start with the pilot. “Contrary to our fears, not a single farmer defaulted on their payment, and we got an excellent response, making the pilot a success,” says Razdhan.
The motivation for expansion, however, came from the people on the ground. “We got invited to attend local weddings. People offered to buy tractors specifically to give us on rent. We have even been paid in advance to get some work done for the next season. All of this gave us the confidence to carry on with the journey and prepare for the coming season,” he adds.
At present, the company rents out tractors with levellers, rotavators, cultivators, trolleys, harvesters across 30 villages (including).
They operate in the Siddipet district of Telangana.
The organisation has completed the previous sowing season(June-August 2017) in Telangana in 30 villages in the Siddipet district. Prominent ones include Pulluru, Imambadh and Machapur. Farmringg plans to cover 150-200 villages by November 2017.
The Great Equaliser:
FaaS (Farming as a service) is not a new concept, and several companies in India implement it in different ways. Some buy their equipment, which is capital intensive, or by tying up with CHC’s (custom hiring centres) and others by using technology/apps.
“We believe that the landscape for the Indian farming sector will need a mix of an on-ground presence. We have trackers installed in tractors which we take on a long-term lease so we can trace diesel consumption as well as work done. This lowers our cost of operations, and our field staff can concentrate on marketing and getting new orders,” says Razdhan
In the course of conducting the initial survey, several discrepancies in agri-equipment rental pricing across areas came to light, which is a sign of ill-organisation.
Dashmanth, whose family is actively engaged in agriculture, validated the results. Thus, the vision for the organisation ensures everyone, irrespective of scale, get the necessary machinery at affordable prices.
“This venture is entirely funded with our savings. Our greatest joy has come from hearing farmers’ feedback and knowing that we have made a difference. We are looking forward to scaling up and reaching out to more farmers,” Razdhan concludes.
Reach out to Farmringg via their website: www.farmringg.com or call them: 9676266399, 8142893959
Rajaram Tripathi could have kept his job as a banker, given the financially and politically unstable area he grew up in – Dantewada in the district of Bastar, Madhya Pradesh. The village was notorious for its Naxalite tension. Instead, he chose to quit the job and follow his family’s footsteps. Rajaram turned to farming. Today his company helps more than 22,000 farmers across the country and is a pioneer in the export of medicinal herbs.
Rajaram and his six brothers grew up learning about farming from their father. His family, although successful, were no strangers to the hardships farmers faced.
“We bought a tractor to till our farm, but every year my father had to take a loan from his PPF to pay the EMIs for the tractor. I would often wonder how as wealthy farmers we do not make enough to pay our loans back”, says Rajaram.
After he finished college, Rajaram joined a government bank in Bastar as a banking officer.The job helped him understand the nuances of the farming economy.
Rajaram Tripathi
“When I looked at agriculture from the eyes of a banker, I realised that if a farmer adds his input and labour costs and compares it with his earnings, he is always at a loss. Our villages, which are sustained on farming, bear the loss, whereas our cities are enjoying the profit,” he explains.
After this realisation, Rajaram wrote a letter to NABARD regarding the misplaced economics in farming. He was also called at the NABARD head office to do a presentation on the same. However, the panel agreed that what Rajaram only broached the problems, but no the solutions. So, they asked him to return with a solution.
He took on the challenge. In 1998, Rajaram quit his job and started farming to find a solution to some of the problems farmers face.
Black pepper rising on Australian teak trees
As Rajaram was the eldest of the seven brothers, his parents did not want him to leave a government job. However, according to Rajaram, he was confident that farming could be a profit making sector.
“If I do a regular job, I only help myself, but in farming, I can create jobs for many and help other farmers too,” says Rajaram.
While farming, Rajaram was always looking to see how the sector could be made more profitable. After much deliberation, he realised marketing was the weakest link in the agricultural industry; one in need of desperate attention.
In the first year, Rajaram failed to make a profit on his vegetables, as they were perishable items that had to be sold as soon as they were harvested. The market rate depended on the amount of vegetables that reached the market on a particular day.
So if the yield were right, the rate would be low, and the rate would be better only when there was a smaller quantity. In both ways, farmers were the ones at a loss. The first lesson that Rajaram took from this is that he needs to find a non-perishable item to grow and something which is highly in demand but not grown by many farmers.
The much-needed break came when he met Dr G.S. Jarial of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, Bhopal, who introduced him to the world of herb farming.
By the end of 1999, Rajaram decided to grow white musli, whose roots are used for medicinal purpose, which had a huge demand in the international market.
“I found out that due to the awareness about herbal products, the demand for herbs was rising day by day. This demand was fulfilled by getting the herbs from our jungles, which was destroying them. Almost 30 herbs have gone extinct as we are just plucking them from the jungle but never growing more. Farming of these herbs was the best solution to stop them from being extinct,” explains Rajaram.
The second reason why Rajaram preferred growing herbs was that most of them required just a one-time investment, yielding long-term profits. Herbs were sold at Rs. 50 and above. Vegetables would never receive more than Rs 50 a kilo, on the other hand. Also, leaves, roots, and the trunk of herbs yielding plants were sold, unlike vegetables or grains. Only 10% of the latter plant could be sold.
He started by planting musli on 2 out of the 25 acres of land he had.
“I wanted to make sure about the market before I started farming. Usually, we grow something and then search for a market to sell our product. That’s not the right way according to me. So I surveyed the international market before planting anything,” he points out.
As he was sure of the market for musli, he had also registered his company, Maa Danteshwari Herbal Group and launched his website to sell his produce simultaneously.
His family practices organic farming, and Rajaram followed the method, knowing all too well that organic produce has a massive demand in international markets.
This was a huge success, and Rajaram earned almost Rs. 5 lakh from an acre of Musli. As the venture took root, Rajaram also started growing Brahmi, Sarpgandha, Stevia, Mulethi and even Lemongrass.
He also conducted training programs and helped tribals of the village to encourage herb farming while his wife started empowering the tribal women by educating them.
Now forest officers too come on Maa Danteshwari Herbal farm for training of medicinal plants
Soon Rajaram made a network of farmers who began to grow herbs organically. To avoid the loss incurred due to the involvement of traders in marketing the small farmers’ produce, Rajaram started farmers’ cooperative company – Central Herbal Agro Marketing Federation of India (CHAMF) in 2002.
“Large companies which import herbs require them in bulk. If we sell our produce separately we cannot find a market for it. They also need grading. Some companies need the best quality products while some require medium quality. Traditionally traders did that and got all the profit. So we replaced these traders and became a group of farmers, who can gather their produce at one place where it can be graded and exported directly to the client,” explains Rajaram
At CHAMF, farmers don’t have to buy seeds and saplings from the market. Instead, he can get the seeds and seedlings from other farmers for free. This way one also knows the source of the seeds that it is genuine. According to Rajaram, they first look for the requirement of the client, fix the prices, finalise the deal and then ask the farmers to grow accordingly.
At the end of every harvest, the total quantity is gathered from all the small farmers and exported to the clients in U.S and Europe. The company does not keep any share, and the farmers get the profit share according to the quantity they supply.
CHAMF which is recognised as a national organisation of organic farmers by the ministry of agriculture, Govt. of India has more than 22000 farmers across the nation.
Any farmer who wishes to be a member of the cooperative is given free training and saplings of the herbs.
With passing years Rajaram also kept buying more land and growing more varieties of medicinal herbs. His family has joined the venture. Today his company grows 70 varieties of herbs on 700 acres of land, giving employment to 300 Adivasi farmers.
“Everyone who works at my farm takes the saplings for free and grow herbs on their land too. Thus their farming income has increased to sustainable levels.The international demand for the herb is about 35,000 tonnes while the availability is only about 5 percent of this. There is so much potential for Indian farmers,” says Rajaram.
Three years ago, he also appealed to all villagers to leave their aged cattle at his farm. He acquired more than 300 cows and bulls which he now rears purely for manure.
To take care of the cows and to make the fertilisers, a women self help group – Samagra Adivasi Medicinal Plant Development association (SAMPADA) was formed headed by his wife, Shipra. The group now consists of 68 registered and 640 non-registered members.
Rajaram is the biggest individual grower of musli in the country today producing herbs and spices worth Rs. 60 crore every year exporting to U.S, U.K and Europe.
A recipient of the prestigious Earth Hero Award 2012, instituted by Royal Bank of Scotland for biological diversity, Rajaram believes that for small and marginal farmers would benefit from growing Stevia, Black Pepper and Australian Teak.
Stevia –
Stevia is widely used as a sweetener in Japan, South America, and parts of Asia. With its extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. It is a low-risk cash crop with assured tax-free returns in 6 months. Scientific cultivation and careful selection of planting material can yield very high returns for three years as compared to traditional crops. Find more info here.
Black Pepper –
Black Pepper (MDB16) – one day’s collection at Bastar’s Chikhalputi village in Maa Danteshwari Herbal farm
Farmers in India believed that black pepper, which has a great demand in the global market, can be grown only in Kerala. However, Rajaram has grown it in Bastar and inspired many other farmers across 17 states to do the same. He claims that growing black pepper can earn a farmer Rs. 5 – 6 lakhs per acre. Moreover, it is just a one-time investment as the plant give returns for almost 30-40 years.
Australian Teak (Bahuguni) –
This plant is a leguminous species, and it absorbs Nitrogen and fixes it by its root nodules to increase the fertility of the soil. Science defines this phenomenon as “Nitrogen fixation”. It also prevents pollution. This teak wood from Australia is widely famous for being primarily used in ship-building, making furnishing products like doors, cabinets or tables etc. for home or offices which provide stronger durability and exotic beauty and craft works. According to Rajaram if every farmer grows Australian teak in the centre of his farm then he would never require nitrogen fertiliser. Moreover, each tree is sold almost at Rs. 50,000, so a farmer can have a long-term investment for his major expenses like building a house or higher education of his kids.
“The entire global market is open for Indian farmers. Farmers need not fear to experiment and grow new crops. This is the time to grow produce for the demand of the international market. Even a small farmer having 3-4 acre of land can earn equivalent to a high-grade officer. This is not at all impossible if we all come together to educate them and help them,” concludes Rajaram.
You can become a member of Rajaram’s team by calling at 07712262933
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With temperatures rising, weather patterns changing and climate-related disasters becoming more frequent, food security has become a major challenge across the world, and especially in India. As key players in the country’s agriculture sector (approximately 43% of the farm labour force), rural women are at the centre of this challenge.
According to a FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) report, if women are given equal access to resources as men, agricultural yield could increase by 2-4% in developing countries, enough to feed at least 100 million more undernourished people!
One such inspiring woman was Sangeeta Deol of Punjab. Affectionately known as the ‘Honey Bee Queen’ of Punjab, Sangeeta was polio-stricken as a child, but she didn’t let the affliction stop her from pioneering a diversified farming revolution in the state.
After a sterling farming career (that won her many awards, including ‘Farmer of India’ and ‘Mind of Steel’), the 66-year-old Sangeeta passed away earlier this week. Here is a tribute to the hardworking lady who made a positive difference in Punjab’s farming communities while inspiring others in the process.
Hailing from the Dhanal Kalan village of Punjab’s Jalandhar district, Sangeeta was just four-years-old when she was diagnosed with polio, a highly contagious viral disease that left her with a permanently crippled foot. Despite the difficulties caused by the disability, her parents (who were marginal farmers) ensured that Sangeet received a good education that would stand her in good stead throughout her life.
After her wedding to Inderpal Singh Deol (a former Army soldier who worked as an automobile mechanic), Sangeeta decided to try her hand at farming to contribute to the family’s meagre income. In the 1960s, she set up a small poultry farm and was perhaps the first woman in the state to drive a tractor in her fields.
At that time, the family owned less than 5 acres of land and practised subsistence farming. After much research, Sangeeta decided to grow mushrooms to supplement the farm income. With no savings to back the venture, she sold her gold jewellery to raise money for the same. Next, she took a course in mushroom farming at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) before starting the cultivation of mushrooms on her farm.
In the early 1980s, there was very little public awareness about mushrooms as a food item and consequently, very less demand in the locals market of Jalandhar. Realising this, Sangeeta began visiting several hotels and clubs to give demonstrations on making snacks from mushrooms.
Sangeeta also started taking her mushrooms to the larger markets of Delhi, Every two days, she would catch the 8.45 pm train to Delhi with 150 kg of mushroom stock to reach the market by 5 am the next day. After haggling with the vendors and quickly finishing the sale, she would catch a train back to Jalandhar. On returning home, she would cook food for the family, take care of her two children and prepare for her next trip to the market.
Sangeeta adhered to this taxing schedule for four-five years until there was a greater awareness and demand for mushrooms in Punjab. In 1984, the enterprising farmer decided to diversify into commercial bee keeping. She started with ten boxes, and by 1990, the number of boxes had increased to 3000. At one point in time, she was producing over 200 quintals of honey per annum, all of which she marketed herself!
One of India’s first large-scale bee farmers and honey producers, Sangeeta was honoured by the Punjab Government in 1988 and by the Bee Keepers Federation in 1999. She also introduced a honey extracting machine for small bee keepers that was much appreciated by PAU scientists.
Having ensured a stable income for her family, Sangeeta decided to help others like her. She started training underprivileged women, unemployed youth, retired Army officers and marginal farmers in bee-keeping. Many of these took up commercial bee keeping after attending her course and are earning well today.
In the 2000s, as honey production decreased due to falling quality of pollen, Sangeeta successfully diversified into dairy farming and vermicompost production. Realising that innovative mixed farming could be a solution to rising farmer suicides in Punjab, she began inviting farmers from different parts of the state for lessons in alternative and sustainable farming.
Sangeeta also served as the chairperson of the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) and president of the Bee Keepers Association, Jalandhar. She used these platforms to encouraged women farmers in Punjab to educate themselves, participate in family decision-making and not be afraid of trying out innovative techniques.
Gritty and determined, Sangeeta Deol was one of the brightest flames in Punjab’s farming community. She didn’t just overcome her physical disability but also demolished several social stereotypes that discouraged women from taking the lead in agricultural work.
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“Ask not what the country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
– John F Kennedy.
Kennedy probably didn’t realise that 40 years later a small Indian village called Poi in Maharashtra would take on the challenge.
River Barvi
At the beginning of the century, 825 people from 180 households in Poi decided not to wait for the state to help them overcome an underemployment crisis they were facing.
Farming was the primary occupation in the village. Poi’s farmers were busy only during the monsoon season, but post the harvest, and there was nothing much workwise. Men would wander the streets, while women resorted to household chores. The situation was especially dire during the winter months.
The pattern was worrying, so one of the villagers, Harishchandra Sambre, who worked at the Maharashtra Forest Department chanced upon a solution to facilitate work during winter.
“In other parts of Maharashtra, I saw farmers working on more than one crop a year. This not only brought in extra income but also kept people busy throughout the year,’’ recalls a now-retired Harishchandra.
Poi is located in the Sahyadri mountain range, situated a few kilometres away from a perennial but small river Barvi. Even though small, the river has never dried up.
“This is the Konkan region. There is plenty of water in our rivers, and heavy monsoon rains replenish them sufficiently. We decided to exploit this advantage by bringing water to our village during the winters,” explains Gurunath Sambre, the only postgraduate and B.ED degree holder in the village.
Gurunath Sambre
His education and the support of his uncle, Harishchandra, villagers easily trusted the decision. Everybody backed the idea of laying a two-kilometre pipeline connecting the river to the Poi.
“Every able-bodied man from the village joined hands to dig a long trench; a three-inch-wide pipe passing through thick forest and stony land was laid down. We worked for 30 days to get this task done,’’ said Narayan Guthere, a farmer.
Sunil Sambre, who runs the only farm input and equipment shop supplying says, “Today you will find a car, a jeep or a bike in every house. In the last decade, our village has prospered due to the money earned in lakhs by harvesting two crops in a year.’’
But the pipeline plan would not come to life without money. They decided to collect Rs 2,000 from each farmer which gave them a corpus of Rs 50,000 in the year 2000.
Gurunath, who resigned from the job of a teacher to work as a full-time farmer said that the collected fund wasn’t enough for their plan.
Besides the pipeline, they also needed to install a motor pump on the river bank to pull up the water and construct a small pump house.
They asked villagers for more money. At that time every farmer couldn’t contribute. So they decided that those who couldn’t pay at that particular juncture could pay in instalments.
“We are lucky that the villagers had complete faith in us!’’ recalls Sunil, the younger brother.
Villagers also spoke about what vegetables should be grown and how, so that the entire community benefits from it.
They decided on growing vegetables as it takes a short time, four months, to harvest and after that, the land can be ready for the monsoon to grow their traditional crop of rice.
It was also decided that the entire village would grow only one species. And it would be completely organic. Only one variety would be sown, harvested, transported and marketed at the same time so that the product could be carried in bulk to the nearby wholesale market in Kalyan (20 km away), thereby cutting down the cost of individual transportation.
They hit upon the idea of growing Lady’s finger (Bhindi). For 17 years the village has been successfully doing so.
Initially, the farmers struggled to get the best crop. It took a couple of years, but after that, there was no looking back!
Today’s Poi’s Bhindi as it’s known in the markets of Maharashtra gets a premium price. In the wholesale market, when ordinary bhindi gets Rs 30 per kg, Poi’s bhindi is sure to fetch at least Rs 35 per kg. The extra five rupees when translated into several tons of bhindi add into a lot of money. With this a farmer in Poi makes a minimum of Rs 1.5-Rs 2 lakh per acre in a season of bhindi!
Most of the farmers have a minimum of 5 acres. This is beside the money they get from their paddy fields. The power tariff and maintenance amount needed for the water transportation is charged per acre. The water distribution too is done systematically by allotting a particular day and hours to each farmer as bhindi doesn’t need daily watering.
“In the market, you can easily distinguish our superior quality of bhindi,’’ says a proud Sunita Sambre, the teacher at the beautifully maintained Balwadi of about 30 students, talking about the achievements of her husband Gurunath and other villagers.
With extra money coming in the village, women too came out of the household chores. They formed a Mahila Mahasangh Gath which has about 150 members of young and old women. They contribute Rs 100 per month and have started a business deal with the men of the village.
“We have bought a power tiller and rice harvester by a grant from the Zilla Parishad. We rent it to farmers at Rs 400 an hour. We have a driver whom we pay on an hourly basis. The profit made from these ventures is used when someone needs money urgently in the village. We also give education loans, health loans etc.,’’ explained Sunita Bhutare, the treasurer of the Gath.
It’s nice to see women wearing nine-yard Kasota saris, talking in the Poi dialect of Marathi, discussing business, money and education. They all meet at least once a month to discuss family-related matters and take decisions to solve each other’s’ problems. Every child goes to the village school up to 7th class. After that, they go to a high school in the neighbouring village and then to one of the many colleges in the close by township of Kalyan.
Prosperity and education have brought in awareness. There is no daru ka adda (liquor joint) anywhere near the village. Villagers follow strict prohibition. Its’ WiFi connected and Gurunath who doubles up as manager of a small outlet of Bank of Maharashtra, with more than 1000 accounts and a daily transaction of more than a lakh rupees, works on Net-connected PC.
Next on the agenda of the villagers is to convert the nearby couple hundreds of hectares of virgin forest into an ecotourism forest. They have been looking after the woods for years saving it from poachers, teak wood thieves and other vandals. For the ecotourism venture, they would be taking help from the Adivasis and tribals living in and around the forest which would help them earn a decent a livelihood. They have approached the Government of Maharashtra and are hoping for a positive outcome.
Nearly 60 years after Kennedy, villagers of Poi can proudly declare `Yes, we have done something for our country!”
Khandbara is a village in the Nandurbar district of Maharashtra, close to the Maharashtra – Gujarat border. An agrarian village, the primary product of the village is paddy, and for years, the villagers were selling unprocessed paddy to traders and millers.
This was because there was no rice mill in the Khandbara village. The residents of the village had to travel at least 35 km to get the paddy cleaned. The economics of transporting the paddy to get it cleaned was clearly not attractive, and farmers had little choice but to sell unprocessed paddy at lower rates.
In 2010, an initiative to increase the farmers’ income was being explored by Dr Hegdewar Seva Samithi, an NGO, through its agriculture-focused arm – Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK).
After studying the economies of Khandbara and its surrounding villages, the Kendra advised the farmers to form a Farmers’ Cooperative Society. Avenues to add value to the basic produce were explored, and the KVK undertook studies to evaluate the most cost-effective means to achieve the same.
With an outlay of Rs 1 Lakh, the KVK approached Padgilwar Corporation – a farm equipment manufacturer that has been working with small farmers in Maharashtra for over 60 years.
Padgilwar Corporation successfully innovated a small-scale rice mill that can be transported easily from village to village, and run on basic electricity.
The company successfully developed the product within Rs 40,000, as against the Rs 1 Lakh it was allotted. The USP of the mill was its small size and ease of use.
Instead of buying the mill outright for itself, the KVK and PagdilwarAgro Industries decided to give the machine on rent to an unemployed villager’s family, and also trained them in its usage.
It has proven itself to be a win-win situation for all the parties concerned. The villagers are now able to clean their paddy without leaving their village cluster, and able to realize Rs 35 per kg, instead of uncleaned paddy at Rs 12 per kg.
The Mobile Rice Mill rental is at Rs 500 per year, and in addition to cleaning charges, the mill renters are also able to sell the husk that the cleaning process generates as waste – thereby providing employment and sustainable income to an erstwhile unemployed family.
Industrial rice mills require acres of land and use technology imported from countries like Japan and China.
Rice coming out of rice micro mill
It is heartening to see such innovative solutions being developed in India that can be used to tackle India specific issues better.
The Padgilwar Corporation is keen to replicate this success across India and has indicated that the product can be customized for different crops like wheat, millets etc.
As you walk into the kitchen garden of Peter Fernandes and Rosie Harding in Assagao, Goa, you realise that it’s no less than a forest, where the land is covered with mulch and the 700 square meters of area is covered with perennial greens. This 4-year-old kitchen garden is the perfect place to understand how you can grow your food without using chemicals and by following the permaculture method for farming.
Peter likes to describe it as an edible garden which provides health and nutrition. A few years ago, his garden was no more than a wasteland. Then, both of them worked on the soil fertility to grow their own food. Now, they grow vegetables and fruits, including a variety of spinach, red and green amaranth, a variety of gourd, herbs and beans among others.
“It’s really important that we produce what is safe and rich in nutrition. For us, growing our own food has led to substantial benefits. Given how easy it is to incorporate edible plants into your garden, there’s no reason why all of us can’t do it,” says Peter.
He adds that now they are focusing on perennial plants that are local and mostly considered as weeds.
Peter and Rosie at their farm. Image source: Hemant Parab
They have a total of around 150 species of plants that are edible. Also, in one small patch of land, he has 11 types of citrus fruits that include oranges, 13 varieties of mangoes and nine varieties of guava – like the rare black guava.
For Peter, this is where people can learn about farming and share the knowledge with others. “We started this because we wanted to eat healthy and nutritious food,” he says. He is on a sabbatical from his job of consultancy.
Another interesting aspect of their garden is that they do not sell their produce. “As our garden grew successfully in the past years, we started getting surplus produce. But, we don’t want to sell it. We give it to our friends, neighbours or just compost it,” says Peter, adding, “Some 30 years ago, most people in Goa had kitchen gardens, where they would grow their food – be it chillies, red amaranths, different types of gourds, cucumber and fruits like coconut, bananas, guavas, etc. But, now this concept is fading with time.”
Growing food organically, however, is catching people’s attention. All it needs is time and dedication. There are a lot people, who, in their own capacity, are building their own kitchen garden. Terency Luis from Verna has a garden with more than 60 vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices and medicinal plants. Terency does all the work on the 1,950 sq m property herself. She has also managed to encourage her neighbours to grow organic vegetables.
She makes compost using a tumbling composter that she has assembled.
Terency Luis at her farm in Verna.
Fish waste is dumped into a 200 litre plastic drum, where she mixes sawdust and uses the fish waste as a fertiliser for the plants. A traditional compost pit is also present, where leaves and other waste sit before they are transferred into the banana circle to fully decompose. Terency has created several raised beds using materials like wood, laterite stones, cement posts, bricks etc. Each of these are filled with soil that she makes on the property, using the various methods of composting that she employs.
If space is a problem for you to start a kitchen garden, then the solution is community farming. Abhay Kesarkar from Ponda is involved in community farming in a housing complex in Ponda – a town 30km from Panaji. They started their kitchen garden on a terrace of the building and four families are involved in this activity. They grow around 30 seasonal varieties of fruits and vegetables.
Yogita Mehra, who regularly conducts organic gardening workshops in Goa and Mumbai, has noticed a trend of growing your own food in Goa. They’re mostly urban dwellers who don’t want to compromise on the quality of the food and at the same time want to experience the satisfaction of growing it themselves.
She conducts workshops with her husband, Karan Manral, where they teach how, even a small verandah can be turned into a kitchen garden, provided that it receives at least five hours of sunlight for the plants to grow well.
People also like the idea of composting. Goa experiences an issue of waste management. So it’s great that there are people who compost at homes. A portable composting unit called Khamba, introduced by a Bangalore-based company Daily Dump, is quite popular in Goa. It not only gives the much required compost to the plants, but also solves the regular issue of wet waste (which is around 70 per cent of our total waste generated at home).
The government is also working on promoting organic farming in the state.
Vegetables that can be easily grown in a kitchen garden. Source: Green Essentials
The agriculture department recently launched a state sector scheme, under which, 50 per cent assistance will be given on the cost of organic inputs limited to ₹10,000 per hectare and maximum up to 2 hectares per beneficiary for all categories of farmers. These organic inputs are organic fertilisers, bio-fertilisers, bio-pesticides and bio-control agents. Farmers possessing a valid Krishi card and cultivating a minimum area of 0.1 hectare in the state are eligible for this scheme.
The Botanical Society of Goa started in 1990. Its annual Home Garden Competition began two years later and focused entirely on ornamental plants. In 1996, a component of Kitchen Gardening was introduced and in 1998, a component of composting of kitchen waste and garden clippings was introduced. In the next year, they introduced a component of waste/grey water reuse for irrigation.
In 2011, the Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI) held its national executive committee meeting in Goa.
The annual Konkan Fruit Fest held in the month of April in Goa.
Taking advantage of the organic farming promoters coming to Goa, the Konkan Fruit Fest was pushed to April end and exhibition and sale of organic produce like fruits and vegetables was organised as part of the event. Now, this event is held every year in Goa focusing on a particular fruit or plant.
Another success story is the Chorao Farmers Club which was initiated in the year 2008 with a group of 22 farmers from the island village of Chorao. It was started by a retired school teacher Premanand Mhambre.
Today, it has around 100 members, 50 per cent of whom are women. They sell various produce like coconut oil, cashew nuts, etc., but their most famous products are the salt-tolerant, traditional variety of rice called Corgut, grown without using chemical fertilisers. It has high fibre content, essential oils, digestible protein as well as high levels of vitamin B complex.
They have other products like Mancurad Mango that sell like hot cakes in the month of April and May. All these initiatives in Goa in the last ten years or so, have helped people become more aware towards what they consume, and also become more environment conscious.
Mulki Devi and Satrughan Mahto, both marginal farmers from Mutlupur, no longer worry about their wetlands remaining unused.
“I never dreamt that this wetland would turn productive in my lifetime,” gushes Mulki Devi. Satrughan Mahto is happy that his wetland, which was put to no use, is now a part of an integrated farm, earning him an income. He is also confident this income will increase in the future.
Mutlupur in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar is flood-prone, as the Gandak River and Bagmati River skirt the village on the northern and southern sides, respectively. The village had 87 acres of low-lying wetland, locally known as chaur, which was considered a blight since they were not productive in any way.
But a group of farmers have turned chaurs productive and turned them into a resource of livelihood.
Derelict wetland to integrated farm
It was Gopalji Trivedi, former vice-chancellor of Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University at Pusa, now a farmer in Mutlupur, who convinced the farmers to use the barren wetland for agricultural purposes.
“I persuaded the farmers to change the face of the low-lying Korlaha Chaur. Despite the initial reluctance, they joined hands and the wetland that was derelict for decades is the village’s centre of attraction now,” the octogenarian told VillageSquare.in.
22 farmers including Trivedi, whose landholdings ranged from small to big, joined hands to develop the wetland. They formed an association and an advisory committee to manage the development process.
The group consulted veterinary, agricultural, fishery and horticultural experts to use the latest technology and developments in integrated farming.
“Our focus is on fisheries, as it is the most suitable for wetland use. We have integrated poultry, a goat farm and a dairy unit into our development plan,” Trivedi said.
Fisheries – The mainstay
A farmer tends to a fishery developed in the wetlands. (Photo by Mohd Imran Khan)
In the Korlaha Chaur, there are 17 big ponds, the largest spread over 14 acres. Nearly 50 local residents, mostly youth, fish in the chaur’s ponds.
“Every day I take fresh fish from the chaur and sell them in villages near Mutlupur. Now I can earn my livelihood, and I have stopped thinking of migrating to other states for work. There are dozens like me here, who are selling fish as it is a profitable business,” Mukesh Kumar, a Dalit youth, told VillageSquare.in.
Ramchander Prasad said that availability of fishes in the big ponds has made it easy for youth like him to make a living locally.
According to officials in Bihar’s fisheries department, the state requires over 600,000 tons of fish annually, whereas the production is less than 500,000 tons. But more than 30,000 tons of fish from Bihar are sold in West Bengal and exported to Nepal. Presently, the per capita annual consumption of fish in Bihar is 7.7 kg compared to the national average of 10 kg per person.
Bihar is not producing adequate fish to fill its own demand despite having plenty of water resources including wetlands. The state government has decided to work towards making Bihar a fish-surplus state by 2020.
“Thousands of hectares of wetlands across the state could be used for aquaculture. This can not only turn Bihar into a fish-surplus state but make it a main supplier of fish across the country,” Shivraj Singh, manager of a fishery, told VillageSquare.in.
Agro-forestry
In a bid to create a green cover, the farmers have planted over 16,000 timber saplings.
Hundreds of fruit-bearing trees such as jamun (Java plum), jackfruit, Indian gooseberry, ber (Indian date), sweet lime, mango, guava and lemon bring them regular income. Vegetables and food grains are also cultivated. “Our goal is to utilise every bit of our natural resources to produce food,” Trivedi pointed out.
Agriculture experts had repeatedly said that dry land agriculture is unsuitable for wetland areas. But the farmers are happy that they have succeeded in their experiment. Mangala Rai, the former agriculture advisor to the chief minister of Bihar and former Director General of Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), has lauded the farmers for being an inspiration to others.
As the benefits of agriculture and horticulture in the chaur are obvious, people envy Korlaha, said Mulki Devi with a light-hearted smile.
Social change
Gopalji Trivedi (right), former vice-chancellor of Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University at Pusa, convinced farmers in Mutlupur to use a barren wetland for agricultural purposes. (Photo by Mohd Imran Khan)
The wetland had been a haven for anti-social activities for five years now. The negative outlook associated with it has changed, and it is now a symbol of prosperity.
The development has created employment opportunities for many of the local youth, besides being a source of income for the farmers.
According to Singh, the plan is to generate 200 jobs in the coming years, besides indirect employment opportunities for neighbouring villagers.
Replicating the Mutlupur model
There are 941,000 hectares of chaur in Bihar, which remain submerged for six to seven months a year. Of these, more than 500,000 hectares have been declared suitable for fishing. “Despite the large population of traditional Shahni (caste) fishermen, only 500 acres are being used for fish farming,” an official of the state fisheries department told VillageSquare.in.
Sukhdeo Rai, a farmer, said wetlands are not wastelands; they can pave the way for prosperity in rural areas if developed along such lines.
Impressed by the success of Korlaha Chaur development, another group of farmers is in talks with Singh’s farm to develop their 70 acres of wetland.
According to Mangala Rai, if managed efficiently, wetlands of Bihar can be turned into an agricultural goldmine. He stresses the need to adopt latest scientific and technological practices for better management of wetlands in the state.
“If we can develop wetlands for integrated farming in Mutlupur, people in flood-prone villages in north Bihar, particularly in Seemanchal, Koshi and Mithilanchal regions, can do the same. Use of wetlands for agriculture and fisheries would change the face of rural Bihar. It can also be an example for the country, ending the hopelessness of farmers,” Trivedi told VillageSquare.in.
Mohd Imran Khan is a journalist based in Patna.
Adapted from an article originally published on VillageSquare.in. Subscribe to VillageSquare’s weekly update on the website for more stories from rural India.
Rahibai Soma Popere travels around Maharashtra with a single-minded devotion to conserving indigenous seeds.
“Native crop varieties are not only drought and disease resistant, but are nutritive and retain the soil fertility as they do not need chemical fertilisers and excessive water,” she tells VillageSquare.in with conviction. Her words come from experience.
Besides conserving seeds, she spreads awareness about the importance of organic farming, conserving indigenous seeds, agro-biodiversity and wild food resources.
The conservation of native seeds is important to prevent the exploitation of already distressed farmers. Native crops are likely to become extinct as large seed companies promote and patent hybrid seeds.
Here’s what happens. Native crops are likely to become extinct as large seed companies promote and patent hybrid seeds. Farmers often become dependent on these companies for seeds as these cannot be saved for the next sowing season. In this context, conservation of native crops becomes paramount to
In such a context, the conservation of native crops becomes paramount to ensure genetic diversity and the welfare of farmers and consumers.
Saving native crops
Rahibai being felicitated for her contribution to saving native crops. (Photo by MITTRA)
The selection and conservation of good seeds are central to sustainable agriculture and global food security.
Recognising the need to save landraces, Rahibai has conserved several native crops including 15 varieties of rice, nine varieties of pigeon pea and 60 varieties of vegetables, besides many oilseeds.
Hailing from Kombhalne village in Maharashtra, Rahibai, in her early fifties, also wants the community to keep farm chemicals away – for a good reason.
“Villagers were falling sick frequently after eating food prepared from hybrid crops,” Rahibai told VillageSquare.in. She understood that the nutritive value of traditional seeds was much higher than that of hybrid seeds.
So she started collecting local seeds with the help of other women farmers from Akole taluk in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. She formed a self-help group (SHG) named Kalsubai Parisar Biyanee Samvardhan Samiti to conserve native seeds.
Resolve to transform
Rahibai’s seven-member family farmed when it rained and migrated to Akole the remaining months to work in the sugar factory as labourers. They practised rain-fed agriculture on three acres of land, while four acres remained barren.
True to the Marathi saying ‘One is the pioneer of one’s own life’, Rahibai created her own water harvesting structures such as a farm pond and a traditional jalkund. She made two acres of wasteland productive and started earning income from the vegetables she grew there.
With support from the Maharashtra Institute of Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (MITTRA), she learnt to rear poultry in her backyard and established a nursery.
She is skilled in the four-step paddy cultivation method and her crop yields have increased up to 30% with improved cultivation practices.
After successfully implementing all that she learnt, Rahibai now trains farmers and students on seed selection, techniques to improve soil fertility and pest management among others. She supplies farmers with seedlings of native crops, encouraging them to switch to native varieties.
Rahibai also heads another SHG, Chemdeobaba Mahila Bachat Gat in Kombhalne, through which many social initiatives such as health camps and solar lamp supplies are organised, besides the agricultural initiatives.
Rahibai in her field of native hyacinth bean that she has conserved. (Photo by MITTRA)
Moving forward
Having experienced the benefits of growing native crops, Rahibai wants more farmers to start farming on similar lines.
She has established a seed bank to work towards this goal.
Farmers are given seeds with the condition that they return twice the quantity of seeds they borrowed!
The seed bank distributes 122 varieties of 32 crops. Before the seed bank was established, farmers used to buy hybrid seeds, often on borrowed money. “If we use indigenous seeds and stop using chemical fertilizers, we can save almost Rs 5,000 a year,” the farmers told VillageSquare.in.
Rahibai has applied for registration in Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers’ Rights Authority, India (PPV & FRA) under Farmers’ Varieties. To promote the cause of conservation of landraces, she participates in programs such as the Indo-German Bilateral Co-operation in Seed Sector, organised by PPV &FRA, besides local seed and agriculture fairs.
Rahibai wants to conserve and promote sustainable use of 250 varieties of different crops. To ensure nutritional security of tribal families, Rahibai plans to help 25,000 households establish kitchen gardens.
While Rahibai’s efforts are making a visible impact at the district and state level, it is an immense contribution towards genetic diversity in the country’s agricultural sector.
Ashlesha Deo is a development professional working with the Maharashtra Institute of Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (MITTRA) in Nashik, Maharashtra. Views are personal.
Adapted from an article originally published on VillageSquare.in. Subscribe to VillageSquare’s weekly update on the website for more stories from rural India.
The Dongria Kondhs of Odisha, one of India’s vulnerable tribal groups, have been living in the foothills of Niyamgiri for centuries. Niyamgiri is their supreme God and they call the hills Niyam Raja. The range of hills run across Rayagada and Kalahandi districts and are one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in the Eastern Ghats of India.
The region has witnessed a history of struggle- the Dongria communities have fought to protect Niyamgiri from Vedanta Resources, a London-based company that was awarded a contract to mine bauxite from the area.
From the very beginning, the Dongrias vehemently resisted the proposal as Niyamgiri is their source of livelihood. Thanks to the support and solidarity from community-based organisations, civil societies and international agencies, the Supreme Court of India passed a historic verdict in favour of the Dongrias, disallowing Vedanta’s mining project.
While the Dongrias’ resistance against mining got wide public attention, the other problems they have faced over time have gone unnoticed.
Traditional crops which ensured nutritional security such as millets, pulses and tubers and uncultivated foods are on the verge of extinction. There has been an influx of hybrid crops and chemical inputs to these areas.
The Dongrias’ once self-sufficient agricultural system has also been affected by the introduction of commercially high-yielding paddy. Such varieties have resulted in the loss of numerous landraces with important traits and with the rapid disappearance of indigenous varieties, the community has become dependent on commercial seed suppliers.
Landraces and uncultivated food systems are being revived to ensure food and nutritional security of the Dongrias.
Reviving indigenous crops
Dongria women at a seed festival. (Photo by Susanta Dalai)
Susanta Dalai, a development professional, encouraged the community to revive indigenous crops to ensure their food sovereignty.
As part of this process, open village days were organised to provide a platform to discuss and share knowledge and raise awareness about crop diversity, preservation and multiplication of endangered seed varieties. Farmers from neighbouring villages were invited to observe demonstration plots.
The emphasis was on in-situ conservation of landraces.
The communities were sensitised about preserving and cultivating landraces in their fields which would lead to a continuous use of indigenous crops and subsequently to crop improvement and crop diversity.
According to Ghana Majhi, a Dongria farmer of Sindhbahal village, his family would grow 12 varieties of millets.
Farmers like Ghana were encouraged to revive mixed-cropping and inter-cropping of pulses besides using other millet varieties etc. “Pulses and millets need less maintenance but produce higher yields. We don’t need bio-fortified GM crops like golden rice when we have naturally bio-fortified crops such as pulses and millets,” said Susanta Dalai.
“We usually reserve a part of the harvest as seed bases for the next season. We also exchange varieties of seeds with neighbouring farmers,” Raibari Sisaka informed VillageSquare.in. Thus farmers produce grains and seeds while maintaining landraces that are suited to the local conditions. Eight years after starting their conservation efforts, the Dongrias have revived many indigenous crops.
Security derived from uncultivated foods
Many wild plant species serve as important nutritional sources. Dalai is working on promoting conservation and rational use of wild food plants which were once found abundantly in the region.
Throughout Niyamgiri, uncultivated plants provide a vital source of livelihood for the Dongrias. “Uncultivated plants have multi-functional roles which add diversity to the local food system, reinforce local culture and contribute towards diversity to farming systems,” said Susanta Dalai.
For instance, the leaves of the Mahua tree provide fodder while the flowers are used to make jaggery, liquor or porridge. The fruits are cooked and consumed as a vegetable dish. The seed is crushed to yield cooking oil and the residual cake a is a valuable manure for farm crops.
Over the years, due to unrestrained logging, the forest cover has been decreasing at an alarming rate. After a series of awareness campaigns on forest protection in several Dongria villages, the Dongrias now play a key role in protecting the forest from the timber mafia and poachers.
There was a special focus on sensitising women as they possess knowledge and experience in harvesting forest produce. In addition to this, systematic documentation of uncultivated plants has been taken up to monitor extinction of important species.
Safety net
“It has also been observed that uncultivated food acts as a vital safety net against the increasing trend of crop failure caused by climate change, erratic rainfall, and ecological degradation, including groundwater depletion, degraded soil and decimated biodiversity,” said Susanta Dalai.
Tubers play a crucial role especially in the lean season when availability of food at home is insufficient. Tubers of certain species are used to make curry, while some are boiled. Some others are cut, dried and made into flour.
Varieties of leaves are collected in different seasons, cooked and eaten along with boiled rice. Plant species such as chakor are sun-dried and preserved for use in the off-season.
Way forward
Increasing farmers’ access to a wide variety of traditional seeds and planting materials will help them in becoming more resilient to the ever-increasing climatic hazards.
Additionally, uncultivated wild foods form a major source of food security for the people in Niyamgiri. Yet these are largely neglected in food programs and policies. There is an urgent need to document and develop an inventory of important plant species.
“Policies on climate change, conservation, food security and agriculture need to be integrated to recognise and preserve the importance of uncultivated food,” said Susanta Dalai.
Farmers have a critical understanding of traditional local varieties and their manifold uses honed through generations of farming. The importance of this knowledge and know-how should not be overlooked while developing agricultural policies and schemes.
Abhijit Mohanty is a Delhi-based development professional. He has worked extensively with the indigenous communities in India and Cameroon. Views are personal.
Adapted from an article originally published on VillageSquare.in. Subscribe to VillageSquare’s weekly update on the website for more stories from rural India.
