In the tribal villages in Rayagada district of southern Odisha, farmers do not use fertiliser or insecticides. They leave the crop residues on the field to decompose and add goat droppings, cow dung and urine to it, to turn it into fertiliser.
Southern Odisha, not so long ago, used to house the poorest and third poorest districts of the country. But some green shoots are now visible in patches, with sensible plantation and agriculture taking roots. This is one example.
This concerns a farmers’ club (co-operative) aided by Sparsh, an NGO focused on livelihood interventions and women empowerment, sustainable farming, skill development and community healthcare. It has gifted a solar pump for irrigation under CSR and imparted the requisite training for organic farming in the last 2-2.5 years, to this farm, which is one of its dozen such initiatives. In this there are 53 farmers who have formed the club, of whom only 18 are tapping into the water as of now, the rest have taken only an option for the future but draw minimal water for kitchen gardens. All the farmers belong to Adivasi/ST community.
The total area covered by the club is 20 acres for 18 farmers—an average of 1.1 acres. The farmers’ club has decided Rs 100 per month as membership fees and usage charges at Rs 50 per hour. You would think it is steep for them. But going by the reception (out of 53 only 18 use the facilities currently but the rest are paying the membership as a kind of “option” for future use), it is well worth it for them. And many of the nearby cotton farmers, who have fallen into a debt trap, are actively mobilising money and persuading the NGO to set up similar facilities for them. The solar pump is a community asset, with an estimated life of 25 years.
Some interesting details:
1. The region used to have people who were still using flintstones to light fires about a decade back. None of the three farmers we met have ever been inside a school. They largely cultivated millet for consumption and cotton for cash. Cotton, which is susceptible to failure at both production and marketing ends, used to land them in debt trap, often en masse.
2. The club members don’t use any fertiliser or insecticide. The crop residues are left on the field to decompose, and they add goat droppings, cow dung and urine. It is the fertiliser. Going by the yield, all for the better and it is time to forget about chemical fertilisers, which is a slow poison and dilutes the potency of the soil steadily. The only external thing they are using are the seeds. Water, fertiliser, labour, sunlight, are all from the circular economy. And of course, small hand operated tillers to plough the narrow gulley in between.
3. The creeper growers have taken to trellis farming. They erect “walls” with “pillars” of bamboo or iron and horizontal wires of steel. The vertical is of some jute string or plastic strips. It increases the space (vertical) by multiple times and enhances the yield per acre.
4. The economics: The pointed gourd (parwal in Hindi), ridge, bitter, bottle gourds have given about 4 tonnes yield per acre per crop of four months. With the intervening preparation time, they have taken two crops each year. They have sold their crop initially (when the season starts) at Rs 70 per kilogram and it progresses to Rs 30 per kilogram. (Normally one sees anaemic ratios of farm gate to final consumer price of 10-12%—l Rs 3-4 at farm gate for Rs 40-50 at retail. But in this case, it is almost 30%-40%. May be because it is an organic product. Hope this sustains.)
5. If one generalises, the farmers earn about (2 crops, 4,000 kg at Rs 40 each) Rs 320,000 per annum. They pay Rs 100 per month as club membership fees, and Rs 50 per hour as water charges. During the non-monsoon season (this is a dry area otherwise), the farmers take water two times each week, which costs them about Rs 1,000-1,200 per year. They pay for the seeds. The alternative crops would have at best yielded them Rs 30,000-35,000 in bad years, to Rs 70,000-80,000 in good years as net income per annum.
6. Banana is another crop they are upbeat about. The G-9 variety has aroused interest in them for its high yielding property. For some strange reasons they don’t eat the banana flower or the inner white of the stem after harvest—both of which are delicacies in southern India. I am sure the resourcefulness they have exhibited so far, they will soon learn—the parwal was a new crop to them; so banana byproducts will find their way to the market soon.
7. Government subsidies, in this case, are very well directed and administered. Most farmers have resorted to drip irrigation. 80% cost of drip irrigation systems are subsidised for ST farmers in Odisha. The farmers’ club president confirmed that although they had to spend upfront, they got the money in three months with help from Sparsh for documentation. (Kudos to the host government that they have created the confidence by their predictable action.) For trellis farming, the farmers get Rs 1.25 lakh per acre as capital subsidy. One way the subsidy may be justified is “as compensation for not destroying the environment and the cost of ‘creating’ additional land by trellis farming”.
8. Demonstration effect. The cotton farmers nearby, who fell into some debt trap, and now work for lenders, who take away much of the crop, are now mobilising money to pay them back and reclaim their land so that they can also copy their neighbours. The newfound confidence reflects when one hears that a farmer gifted the 200-250 sq ft land for the farmers’ resource centre and the farmers’ club president getting miffed when we offered money for the 4-5 kg of vegetables he gifted us. The confidence with which Sunduru Himrika, the president of the club went about briefing us, exuding the confidence and flow of a corporate executive making a presentation to his team—this alone is a significant transformation and worth the efforts.
Organic farming received a huge dent to its credibility in Sri Lanka recently. But with little sunlight reaching the ground in a dense plantation, and without any source of replenishment of nutrients without fertilisers which were abruptly stopped, organic farming was bound to fail in Sri Lanka. As one could see, the farmers in Rayagada have taken care of these issues in organic ways.
India needs 100 such demonstrative success stories in various sectors and areas to emerge from its state of morass.
V Kumaraswamy & Biswajeet Dwivedi are Financial Advisor and VP Commercial, respectively, of JK Paper.