A SEED TELLS A
FARMER’S STORY
ENVIRONMENTAL
STUDIES
CBSE-V
I
am a small seed!
I
am a small bajra seed. I have stayed in this beautiful wooden box since 1940. I
want to tell you my story. This is a long story but not mine alone. It is also
the story of my farmer Damjibhai and his family. If I do not tell my story now,
it might be too late!
I
was born in Vangaam in Gujarat. That year there was a good bajra (millet) crop.
There was a festive mood in the village. Our area was famous for its grain and
vegetables.
Each
year Damjibhai kept aside some seeds from a good crop. This way
our
bajra family went on from one generation to another. Good seeds were stored in
dried gourd (lauki ) which was coated with mud.
But
that year Damjibhai himself made a strong wooden box to store us. He put in
neem leaves to protect us from insects. He put different seeds in different
compartments of the box. That was our beautiful home!
In
those days Damjibhai and his cousins lived together. It was a large family.
Everyone in the village helped each other, even in farming. When
the
crop was ready and harvested, everyone celebrated together.
Oh!
Those wonderful days! With big feasts and lots to eat! In the winter, it would
be time to enjoy the undhiya (a kind of stew). All the vegetables were put into
a clay pot, along with fresh spices. The pot was sealed and kept between hot
coals. The vegetables cooked slowly in this special cooker, on the fields.
Oh,
I forgot, the pot was placed upside down! That is why the dish was called
undhiya or “upside down” in Gujarati. Undhiya would be eaten with bajra rotis,
freshly cooked on the chulha. Oh, what an earthy delicious flavour!
Along
with that, home-made butter, curd and buttermilk was served.
Farmers
would grow many different kinds of crops – grains and vegetables according to
the season. The farmers kept enough for their needs and sold the rest to shopkeepers
from the city.
Some
farmers also grew cotton. At home, family members spun cotton on a charkha
(spinning wheel) to make cloth.
When
times changed:
Over
the years, many changes took place in the village. Some places could get water
from the canal. They said the canal brought water from far away – where a dam
had been built on a big river.
Then
electricity came. Switch on the button and there was light! People found that
only one or two crops, like wheat and cotton, got better prices in the market.
So
most farmers began to grow only these. Soon we – old friends bajra and jowar, and
also vegetables – were forgotten and dismissed, even from
Damjibhai’s
fields! Farmers even began to buy seeds from the market.
People
said they were new kinds of seeds. So farmers did not need to store seeds from
the old crop.
Now
people in the village cooked and ate together only on very special days. As
they ate, they would remember how tasty the food used to be in the past – fresh
from the fields.
When
the seeds have changed, how could food ever taste the same! Damjibhai was
getting old. His son Hasmukh looked after the fields and the family. Hasmukh
was making a lot of money from farming. He rebuilt the old house.
He
brought new machines for farming. He used an electric motor to pump water. He
bought a motorcycle to go to the city easily and also a tractor to plough the
field. The tractor could do in a day, what the bullocks would take many days to
do.
Hasmukh
would say, “Now we are farming wisely. We grow only what we can sell in the
market at a good price. With profits from our fields we can improve our life.
We
can make progress.” Lying forgotten in the wooden box, I and
the
other seeds had our doubts. Is all this really progress? There is no longer any
need for seeds like us, and animals like the bullocks. After the tractor has
come, even people who worked on the fields, are no longer needed. How will they
earn money? What will they live on?
More
and more expenses:
The
next twenty years saw even more changes. Without cows and buffaloes, there was
no cow dung, to be used in the fields as fertilizer. Hasmukh had to buy
expensive fertilizer.
The
new kinds of seeds were such that the crops were easily affected by harmful insects.
Medicines had to be sprayed on the crops to keep away
the
insects.
Oh,
what a bad smell these had, and how expensive they were! The canal water was
not enough for the new crops. All the farmers used pumps to lift
water
from deep under the ground.
To
meet all these expenses, loans had to be taken from the bank. Whatever little
profit was made, was used to repay the loan. But there was little profit!
Everyone
was growing cotton, so the cotton prices were not as high as before. The soil
itself was no longer the same. Growing the same crop
over
and over, and using so many chemicals, had affected the soil so much that now
nothing could grow well there.
It
was becoming difficult to earn a living by farming alone. Hasmukh too changed
with the times. He is often tense and angry most of the time. His educated son
Paresh did not want to do farming. He now started work as a truck driver.
After
all, the bank loans still had to be repaid. Often Paresh doesn’t come home for
days. At times he is away for a week. Two days back when he came home, Paresh
started looking for something.
“Ba”,
he asked his mother, “Where is Dadaji’s wooden seed box? It will be useful to
keep the screws and tools for the truck.” Now do you understand why I told you
my story?
Read
the report from a newspaper and discuss it:
Tuesday,
18 December 2007, Andhra Pradesh Farmers in Andhra Pradesh have been sent to
jail for not being able to pay back their loans.
They
had suffered a big loss in farming. One of these farmers, Nallappa Reddy, had taken
a bank loan of Rs. 24,000. To repay the loan, he had to take another loan from
a private moneylender, at a very high rate of interest.
Even
after repaying Rs. 34,000 Reddy could not repay the entire loan. Reddy says,
“The bank sends farmers to jail for not paying back small loans. But what about
the big businessmen? They take loans of crores of rupees.
Nothing
happens to them when they do not return the money!” Nallappa Reddy’s story is
shared by thousands of farmers in India who are suffering huge losses.
The
situation is so bad that many farmers see no way out of this except to commit
suicide. According to government figures 1,50,000 farmers have died like this
between 1997 and 2005. This number may be much higher...
Bhaskarbhai’s
Farm (Dehri village, Gujarat)
As
we entered his farm, we were surprised. There were dead leaves, wild plants,
and grass everywhere! Some of the tree branches seemed so dry, as if eaten by
insects. At places we saw some plants with colourful leaves.
Why
these? Bhaskarbhai said they were croton plants which gave him a signal when
the soil became dry. We were surprised! How? He explained that the roots of the
croton do not go deep in the ground.
So
when the top layer of the soil becomes dry, the croton leaves bend and become
limp. This signal tells Bhaskarbhai which part of his farm needs to be watered.
We
found the soil soft and crumbly. We could see tall coconut trees, full of fresh
coconuts. We thought he must be using some special fertilisers.
Bhaskarbhai
said he does not buy fertilisers made in factories.
His
soil is fertile because of all the dried leaves which slowly rot and mix with
it. He dug the soil a little and told us to look. We saw thousands of
earthworms! “These are my soil's best friends”, he said.
The
earthworms soften the soil as they keep digging underneath to make tunnels.
This way air and water can easily get into the soil. The earthworms also eat
the dead leaves and plants, and their droppings fertilise the soil.
Pravin
told us about his uncle in the city, who has dug a pit in his garden. He puts
dried leaves in the pit, along with all the kitchen waste – peels of vegetables
and fruits, and leftover food. He also has earthworms in the pit.
They
turn the waste into compost (a natural fertiliser). So his uncle gets good fertiliser
without spending extra money. We all had some fresh coconuts from the farm.
They were really tasty! We also learnt so much about a new way of farming! Group
members : Praful, Hansa, Krutika, Chakki, Praveen, Class–5C
Journey
of a bajra seed–from a field to a plate
What
can you see in each picture on the next page?
In
picture 2 you can see the bajra cobs in the mortar (okhli, usedfor crushing).
The cobs are crushed with a pestle (moosli ) andthe seeds are separated from
the cob.
You
can see the separatedseeds in picture 3. Now this work is also done by big
machines,like threshers. We call both these as different ‘technologies’ –using
our hands or big machines – to crush the seeds.
THAKYOU,
NANDITHA
AKUNURI
