Some myths about farmers in India

There are many misconceptions and myths regarding the farmers in India. Here I will try to bust some of them.

Myth#1. Farmers don't pay any tax.

Reality: Farmers, like anybody else, pay all the taxes (like GST for the items they buy, including the things used for farming), except Income Tax. However, 99% of the farmers (I mean the farmers who don't have any other source of income) don't make enough profit to pay income tax. There still are a few farmers who earn more. They fall in the following three categories:

1) Farmers who make large profit occasionally - like during the spike in the price of tomato/onion etc. In this case we don't hear about the losses they incurred in many previous years from the same crops (when the tomato was sold on the streets at one rupee a kilo). Most of the times farmers themselves are unwilling to disclose this bitter truth so that they can bask in the current glory!

2) Farmers who make honorable profit through cash crops (like arecanut, etc). Such farmers also go through the cycle of price crash once in a while but nevertheless they are mostly in the pink. But most of these crops take at least 10 years to reach this stage and they would have suffered significant losses till then and the later profits offset the losses carried forward. (Caveat: This is not applicable to those who simply inherited old farms where cash crops are already doing well). In any case, these profits don't turn out to be too significant to attract income tax.

3) Politicians who are in the guise of farmers and parked their money (black or white) in farm land. We have already heard about some famous politicians (one from Maharashtra and a few from Karnataka) who have disclosed crores of profits from agriculture. These politicians also run other businesses and have other sources of income and this income is routed through agriculture to avoid income tax. 

Myth#2: Farming is highly subsidized and there are many monetarily beneficial schemes for them.

Reality: Partially true. Many farming tools, fartilizers, seeds and other farm inputs are available to farmers at subsidized prices. But there are three problems with this.

1) There is not unlimited fund for subsidies. I have had many instance where when I approached in April, I was told that the funds were not yet released, and when I approached again in June I was told that the funds were exhausted.

2) Most of the subsidies are meant to be "loopback system" for the politicians (in the guise of farmers) to take the money from the government. It is the politician who parks the money in farm land, announces the schemes for farmers and takes the money from the govt departments through these schemes using their connections. The really deserving farmer is left with taking loans from unscrupulous entities and suffer for years.

3) Corruption in the system is so high that  even those who benefit from the schemes will get less than 25% of the actual amount they were supposed to get even after too much of running around.

Myth#3: Farmers get free electricity.

Reality: In most of the country, farmers get free electricity for pumpsets only. Otherwise for their domestic purpose they still pay for their usage. Even the free electricity for pumpsets comes with a lot of trouble, making it useless and sometimes dangerous. For example, there will not be any power during the entire day when the farmer is working and looking to water the plants. Many times this free power is given past midnight and the farmer has to be awake and get into the fields at these ghostly hours, exposing them to dangers like snakes, etc. Many farmers have found a workaround for this. They leave the pumpsets always open so that the fields get watered whenever there is power. This is leading to too much wastage of water and sometimes overwatering too. Many sensible farmers have started demanding "paid power" for their pumpsets so that they can get power when required and use it wisely.

Myth#4: Farmer is "Annadata" (Giver of Food) and therefore he/she should not sell "Anna" (i.e. food).

Reality: This very old and noble concept doesn't hold good in the new age. But still there are many people who are sticking to the same expectation when they visit a farm. They want to take away a varieties of things free of cost. 

Interestingly, there are many farmers who strongly believe in this principle and practice it. Of course, there is nothing right or wrong about this and it is left to themselves as long as they can sustain it.

Myth#5: Farmer has a lot of free time.

Reality: Once again in the current age, farmer, apart from doing farming activities, will also have to take care of keeping the accounts, marketing, selling, processing/value addition, etc. and each of these is time-consuming and also costs money. Still many people simply drop in and expect them to be taken around the farm (and give freebies).

I am sure there could be some more such myths and I will keep on updating this as and when I come across them. 

Self-Appraisal after a decade into farming

#TenYearsOfChiguruFarm @Chiguru Farm

What an incredible journey it has been...

Now it is a full decade since I started farming and 8 years since I quit my job to take up farming as my full-time profession. It is seven years since we ventured into Agri-Tourism. 

Started off with many dreams and fulfilled quite a lot of them.

Converted a chemical farm to organic farm and slowly turned into Natural Farm. (If you are not sure about the differences, you can read my earlier blog about this).

Seen the transformation taking place in front of our own eyes. Improved soil quality, diversification of crops, increased birds and insects population, reduced human intervention, improved ground water, improving yield over the years, to name a few.

Chiguru Farm has now turned out to be a "showcase farm" for many first-generation farmers to start organic farming, without having to do much trial-and-error.

I did write my experience with farming when I had finished six years as full-time farmer.

I also wrote a self-appraisal before that, six years after I started farming.

Obviously I don't want to repeat whatever I wrote earlier. This blog will only have anything new or that has changed since then. 

Just a reminder (for myself) of the long-term goals we set out for:
   1) Start organic farming in order to grow healthy food for ourselves.
   2) Stay connected to nature
   3) Prove that chemical-free farming can be sustainable, so that more people are encouraged to take it up. Be an example for the farmers in the vicinity.
   4) Spread the knowledge of chemical-free farming among the locals and city-folks, school kids and families and sensitize them about what it takes to grow healthy food.
   5) Generate some local employment and trigger a "reverse-migration" from cities.
   6) Get integrated with the local village community and carry out activities that shall help them.

Here we go on the status/progress/achievements...

1) Our efforts with rain water harvesting are showing results now with improved groundwater level and one of the dried up borewells started functioning three years back. Even our rain water harvesting ponds are now turning into Natural Ponds with water staying almost through the year and we have started seeing guppies/fishes and turtles too, which have emerged in them naturally.

2) We can notice the change in the soil as it looks more carbon-rich now. We started with a carbon content of 0.8% and improved to 1.3% in seven years. Another soil test is pending now to confirm that it has further improved in last three years.

3) #GrowWhatYouEat has been our focus. We are reaching 85-90% self-sustenance in terms of food in the farm, as Paddy got added this year. When I say self-sustenance in food, it is not only for ourselves, but includes all our guests which is a significant number. Having Desi cows has helped us in this to a large extent.

4) Self sustenance in farming is one of the key things in Natural Farming. We bring only a few things like neem cake, traps, etc from outside. Other than that, there are no external inputs for farming. No external inputs like cowfeed too. We grow our own green grass and dry hay is from ragi and paddy. Our cows graze out in the field (controlled grazing) and therefore they are healthy too, without needing much attention to their health.

5) Further move towards sustainable living with domestic power completely on solar, hot water through solar geyser. Grey water filtering and recycling this water is also fully functional since four years.
6) Food-forest is functional and thriving with more than 40 varieties of fruit trees and many other forest trees. We have created a more bio-diverse farm now through multi-cropping which are mostly cultivated as inter-crops between the trees.
7) Local employment... we have 12 locals working in the farm full time and another 5 almost full time. Another 5-10 people work in our farm for at least 150 days in a year. These numbers exclude the indirect employment generated through our Agri-Tourism.
8) Agri-tourism and direct-selling are helping us achieve self-sufficiency in farming. With these, we are able to break-even consistently, which is a big achievement for any farmer.
9) We have touched close to 12000 people in these seven years including school kids, through our niche initiatives like experiential farm outings and stay, fruit picking, nature camps and star-gazing events. Schools have started noticing the value add from our educational farm tours and nature camps and they keep coming back, while new ones get added although it is difficult to make them understand in a crowded market of Resorts masked as Farms.

We have consciously kept Agri-Tourism low-key so that it doesn't result in straining the natural resources and divert our focus from farming.

10) Sailed through the CoVID crisis which threw in big challenges of selling our produce apart from closing it for guests for extended period. It was difficult to survive. Thoughts had crossed our minds to quit farming and agri-tourism activities. There were attempts to sabotage us and pull us down, but our own passion kept us floating.

This also worked as a blessing for us as we were able to spend almost two years in the farm and get ourselves convinced that what we are doing is right and we really want to take this forward. We were also convinced that we can definitely settle down in the farm whenever we want without any hesitation.

11) Where alcoholism is rampant and ruining families in the surrounding villages, our "no-alcohol" policy has been driving home the ill-effects of alcoholism, without any preaching.
12) Many city folks have started farming (part-time or full-time) after visiting Chiguru Farm and these new farms are modeled after Chiguru Farm and they, together with us, form #ChiguruFarmCommunity. 

13) Started Farm Consultancy to help first-generation farmers to setup their own organic farms, starting with the design of the farm, based on our own experience of ten years.

14) Taken a bigger step in the past one year towards helping larger sections of the society. This includes active participation in the community initiative of setting up Kanakapura Organic Producer Company to encourage more farmers to take up organic farming and help them get direct access to the market at fair price. (Note: I have no intention of hijacking the enormous efforts put in by the youngsters who are driving this initiative. I would rather appreciate and support their efforts in whatever way I can). Also started participating in workshops across the state to help farmers to start their own Agri-Tourism projects.

Everything looks rosy? Why not? As long as it brings a lot of joy and satisfaction, everything IS rosy!!! Of course it takes a lot of commitment and determination, paired with passion. Added to that is the support from family, friends, well-wishers and many like-minded strangers. 

Continuing the journey of self-sustenance... #AtmaNirbhar #VocalForLocal