Another A Rocha project I’ve been involved with during my visit is working with local farmers to inspire and enable them to adopt organic farming principles. For this project we travelled to the A Rocha satellite centre which is based in Lackshmipura, a very rural village surrounded by farmland. Most of the people living in this area are involved in agriculture, growing crops such as rice, millet, maize, tomatoes, marigolds (used for religious garlands) and some fruits. Farmers in this area face many challenges and have few systems in place to safeguard their livelihoods.
These challenges include:
Escaping the clutches of chemicals
In the 1960s the ironically named ‘Green Revolution’ brought an influx of chemical fertilisers, chemical pesticides and engineered high-yield seeds to India which changed the face of agriculture here. Whilst these artificial methods do bring higher crop yields in the short-term, they also have crippling side effects. Chemicals are expensive for farmers to buy – reliance on them has become an inescapable system for farmers, and so they are ultimately at the mercy of huge chemical corporations, paying higher prices each year. The financial pressures faced by farmers is huge, and sadly leads to high suicide rates. Chemical use is also an unsustainable system agriculturally – artificial fertilisers destroy the organic makeup of the soil, making it naturally infertile, and barren unless pumped with fertiliser. Pesticides are very damaging to biodiversity, killing any insect regardless of whether they are a pest to the crop – even those crucial for pollination. As well as wildlife, they are also very damaging to human health, leading to high cancer and infertility rates.
Climate change
Climate change is making farming more unreliable due to unpredictable weather patterns. Naturally India is an incredibly fertile country – I was told that here in the south they can have up to four harvests a year – two in the dry season, and two in the monsoon season. However, climate change is resulting in irregular weather patterns, and as many of the farmers don’t have access to irrigation they completely rely on the rains. This challenge makes them even more reliant on chemicals which at least gives them some short-term stability.
Crop-raiding elephants
Human-elephant conflict is one of the biggest challenges to farmers in the regions surrounding the Bannerghatta National Park. The forest is inhabited by roughly 160 elephants which are prone to leaving the forest in the night and raiding farmers’ crops, especially for fruit such as jackfruit and mangoes. The elephants are extremely intelligent and constantly evolving their behaviour to get through the barriers put in place to stop them, which include rubble walls, trenches, electric fences, bamboo fences, and metal barriers. They can trample or consume whole fields of crops in a single night which is devastating to the farmers’ incomes. In addition, it’s extremely dangerous for the farmers and forest watchers who have to stand guard through the night with torches and firecrackers, and there are many cases of human or elephant deaths each year. Sadly a forest watcher beloved to the local community was killed by an elephant just a month before my visit here. We did a night walk through the fields to experience the atmosphere, and it was very eerie - there was absolute silence apart from the crickets, and the only light was the lonely torch beams from distant farms scouring for elephants across the dark hills. I was told you're safe as long as you see the elephant before they sense you're there - if they smell you there's nothing you can do to outrun them. That's when the firecrackers come in, but even then the elephants have realised they're just a loud noise, so increasingly ignore them. There is little government compensation for the farmers who suffer because of this issue, which is something A Rocha is trying to rectify, as well as experimenting with better elephant tracking methods, and growing crops which elephants aren't interested in. A Rocha have produced a really great 20 minute film about this issue which is also a bit of an insight into local life here if it interests you: Driving Elephants (youtube.com)
One of the events which we ran for farmers during my stay here was an organic farming workshop with ‘Sahaja Seeds’ – the first and largest organic seed bank in India, who now work across the country. The event was in the local language ‘Kannada’ so I had to rely on intermittent translation from colleagues, but it was fascinating just to watch the local farmers and their families interact and share their experiences. A few who are already practicing organic farming came to share their success stories which were amazing to hear – they are doing practices such as making natural fertilisers and pesticides, using mulch to nourish the soil, rotating crops, using cover crops to avoid erosion, and leaving the topsoil intact rather than ploughing it. Part of the workshop was demonstrating how to make an organic fertiliser using cow manure, fish ‘tonic’, neem seeds, aloe vera, jaggery (sugar cane), milkweed and water. This goes a lot further than chemical fertiliser and is a lot cheaper and healthier.
Another inspiring part of the workshop was about how to the farmers can get more profit from marketing their products more creatively. It was suggested that they grow a bigger variety of produce, including uniquely coloured fruits which sell for a higher price. There are also more creative ways they can use their produce than just for food, such as making artwork - drying out and stenciling gourds to make lanterns, or making dolls out of corn heads. These products can sell for ten times the price of the original fruit, and can be a good extra income for women especially.
Farmers are cautious about taking the plunge into organic farming because they’ve been so reliant on chemicals for so long, and they do guarantee some short-term crop security – there is no money to waste on experimentation. This makes it a slow process for A Rocha to convince farmers to trust and work with them.
However, in spite of this challenge, India is currently the biggest grower of organic produce worldwide. The workshop showcased that there are ways to be really creative with it (which I’ve also seen at local farmers markets – they are crazy and amazing), and that there are organisations willing to subsidise farmers to grow organic crops and buy their produce from them rather than having to rely on roadside sales. There are exciting possibilities emerging, but it did seem poignant that organic farming was being broadcasted as a ‘revolutionary’ agricultural concept for farmers to adopt, when it had been the norm for hundreds and hundreds of years here before chemicals arrived. I watched several elderly farmers with weather-beaten faces and gnarled hands sitting patiently through the workshop, and I thought surely this is rudimentary to them - they must remember when everybody did this? They should be the ones doing the teaching! I suppose it demonstrates how much can change in a generation.
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