In the decades following Independence, even as the country became self-sufficient in food, the lot of the farmer has only deteriorated. And after the initial triumph of the Green Revolution, the spectre of food shortage stared us in the face, even as millions of tonnes of grain rotted in godowns. Be it rising input costs or the introduction of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which has made farm labour more expensive and much more difficult to find, Indian farmers, particularly those with small landholdings, only have tales of woe to relate most of the time.

In Bharatpur to visit a cluster of villages to see the change wrought by Lupin Human Welfare and Research Foundation, I met with scores of farmers who said they can no longer depend on traditional farming methods to eke out a decent living. Sita Ram Gupta, Executive Director of the Foundation, said that today the farmer was in a helpless position because he could not decide the price of what he produced. The helplessness of farmers was eloquently expressed by Chakradhar Singh Jadon, whose family owns 20 hectares in a village about 20 km from Bharatpur. “ Kisan ne maal paida kar diya aur mandi mei ja key patak diya; uska bhav doosra aadmi lagata hei (the farmer grows something and dumps it in the mandi , its price is decided by somebody else).”

Gupta says at the time of Independence, if a farmer produced one rupee worth of goods, he would get 89 paise, only 11 paise went to the middleman. “Today, he gets 36 paise and 64 paise go to the middlemen.” What Dr Verghese Kurien did for dairy farmers through the co-operative movement is the only possible model for the farmer to succeed, he says. In 1988, the Lupin Foundation, a brainchild of company chairman Dr Desh Bandhu Gupta, came to Bharatpur. “We found an acute shortage of drinking water, and the soil had too much salt content to give the farmers any profitable crops.”

Beyond mustard

As mustard is a cash crop, and can to some extent survive the soil salinity, much of the area in Bharatpur district is under mustard. “So, we had to think beyond mustard. We adopted 25 villages and said we would improve rural livelihoods in these villages by adopting suitable strategies.”

Finding water sources and conserving water were identified as the first priorities. The Foundation gave a grant of Rs 11 lakh, which was matched by the district administration, and another Rs 11 lakh was offered by the villagers in the form of labour, material, and even cash. “We identified and constructed open wells, laid pipelines, built boundary walls around catchment areas, carried out de-silting work — and once the Rs 33 lakh was spent, a transformation came about in the area.”

This taught Gupta his first lesson — best results are attained in rural development only when the villagers identify their priorities and take ownership of the programmes. Once the work was completed, the “project planners in the Rajasthan Government were happy, the Collector was happy, and, above all, villagers were happy.”

The main objective was to enhance the income of the rural poor, improve their education, sanitation, and health care; equally, infrastructure was given priority. And what better way to create a convergence point for the entire village than to build a school? “In such an activity, the entire village participates.”

Now, of course, with the Foundation introducing additional income-generating activities for farmers such as beekeeping, poultry, dairy farming, tulasi mala making (the entire consignment is bought by the nearby temple town of Mathura) and the like, “many of the farmers’ children are going to private schools in and around Bharatpur,” says Gupta.

More importantly, with the schools getting proper toilets, more girls are now joining up — and not dropping out. “It is such a pity that we took more than 50 years to solve small problems such as that of decent roads and toilets in schools. Safety is the most important aspect for the girl child; if there are proper roads and good toilets, parents send their daughters to schools.”

He adds that when they came here, many villages in this belt already had electricity, roads and banks, but incomes remained low because of the high degree of soil salinity. The Foundation approached the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute in Karnal — the director himself visited the spot, and chose a 12-acre plot where gypsum was added to make the soil more fertile.

With help from the government — “we asked for 1,000 hectares; they sanctioned 350 hectares” — 150 truck-loads of gypsum was added to the soil. “Now on the same soil, two or three crops, such as wheat, mustard and bajra are being grown. Technology was already available in the lab; all we had to do was transfer it to the farms,” he smiles.

Poultry profits

The Foundation has now put up a modern dairy in Boari village about 20 km from Bharatur, and initiating poultry enterprises has been another huge success. Apart from Sunita’s story (see below), the most inspiring story from Bharatpur was of 30-year-old Shyam Kishore, a scheduled caste farmer from Kanchanpura, 22 km from Bharatpur. The entire population of around 1,500 belongs to the SC category. Kishore is a graduate but “could not get a job and the family farm of one acre was too small to fetch substantial income.”

In 2009, the Foundation contacted him and he began in a small shed with 300 chicks (each chick costs Rs 15-30 depending on the weight and season). Today, he has involved all his brothers in this enterprise — and just built his fifth shed, which is much bigger — and they are now raising over 6,000 chicks. “I supply chicken to both Agra and Bharatpur,” he says with pride.

His wife, Rajwati, heads a self-help group, and Kishore and Rajwati manage to earn about Rs 35,000 a month. The result is better and more nutritional food, a status in the village, and both his children going to an English medium private school.

Bhim Singh, Principal Project Coordinator of the Foundation, adds that they have helped promote 250 poultry farms in the district, and the chicken raised here go to the Agra, and even Delhi, market. “There is a huge potential for further growth. Delhi alone requires 15 lakh chicken and 2.5-3 crore eggs every day. Also, the poultry enterprises here have triggered other income-generating activities related to feed, feed equipment, and transport of chicken. This village was once inhabited by the poorest of the poor, but recently one family gifted the son-in-law a four-wheeler during marriage!”

An interesting fallout from these ventures is the involvement of the banking system. While the self-help groups deposit their money in banks at regular intervals, Kishore’s transactions in buying chicks, feed, cages, and so on, are now done through text messages! “I send the traders an SMS and the vehicle comes here to collect the chicken, and the money comes into my bank account. Once that SMS comes, I go to the bank to withdraw it.” He banks with the Punjab National Bank; the next step will be to get an ATM card so he doesn’t have to go to his bank in Bharatpur to withdraw cash.

Sita Ram Gupta, who has seen the villagers’ incomes improve, their lifestyle change, and a new confidence come into their body language, is amazed at the transformation in the 2000-odd villages the Foundation works in. “Tractors have now come into their farms, and they use them or rent them out even for marriages.”

Driving from the Bharatpur villages to Agra, I see several such tractors — a couple of them have baraatis , while others are carrying devotees to Mathura for a temple festival!

rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in

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