To Survive Drought, Tamil Nadu Farmers Switch to Organic Farming
Drought-hit Tamil Nadu farmers switch to organic farming to earn a livelihood.
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Jayapal Kaliyaperumal, a farmer from Adamangalam village near Sirkazhi in Nagapattinam district, trots down to his six-acre dry paddy land. This year the severe drought took away his entire paddy harvest. However, in this brown patch of land, bright yellow flowers and clusters of green gram stand out.
Kaliyaperumal grew green gram and vegetables like brinjals this year to offset his paddy loss. “Paddy needs water in the flowering stage, and that did not happen due to failure of rains,” he told VillageSquare.in. In the coastal Nagapattinam district, farmers face two issues: Salinity in water and lack of water source for irrigation.
In Adamangalam, many farmers shifted to sugarcane over the years. Though the land area under sugarcane increased, the productivity fell, and the soil quality degraded due to chemical inputs. “Farmers just want one thing today – they want someone to take the produce the day it is harvested. As sugarcane factories guarantee that, many farmers shifted to this,” Kaliyaperumal says.
Growing the right crops
Farmers in the Vedaranyam region believe that crops should be grown according to soil type. Also, farmers must not completely depend on paddy for their survival. Millet cultivation is propagated widely today as it consumes less water and is considered healthy. However, millets cannot grow on all types of soil. “It will not grow in my soil,” says Kaliyaperumal.
For Venupgopal Sundarraj from Kathripuram village, a mix of soil, sand and clay creates a congenial environment for growing millets.
Also, crops like groundnut, coconut are the major crops grown here, other than paddy. Balasubramanian, a farmer, says, “Pearl millets can be grown here. Where one kilogram of paddy consumes 1300 litres of water, pearl millet consumes only 116 litres.”
In loamy soils, sorghum can be grown, whereas in black cotton soil and sandy loam soil, pearl millets can be grown. Finger millets can be best grown in porous, flight red loam and sandy loam soil. Sandy loam, clayey and alluvial soil is best suited for foxtail millets. Barnyard millets can grow in sandy loam to loam soil.
In Alangadu village, Ramu Raja, a farmer, has been guiding other farmers on crops which could be grown in less water. After three failed paddy crops, Raja did not give up farming. He instead resorted to new practices. Here, the soil is a mix of sand and clay. “We grew cotton this year with corn as border crop,” he says.
At his farmland, there is maize-cotton intercropping. For watering the crop, Ramu pours diesel in an oil engine. A hole is dug for 10 feet in the ground. The oil engine pumps groundwater and that is used for growing cotton.
Innovative farming
At Thandavankulam, the last village near the sea, Rajaraman Narayanasamy found new ways to earn income through different means. This year, he was the only farmer who did farming in his village. In one portion of the land, he harvested paddy, and in another portion of land, he grew vegetables. On another patch of land, he raised a vegetable nursery, and he sold these to farmers in the village. In a farm pond, he grew azolla plants for cattle fodder. Recently, he started apiculture to produce honey.
Earlier on, Narayanasamy asked farmers to bring all the seeds they had. All the seeds were pooled together to get different varieties. This was distributed in the village.
Unlike other farmers, he does not depend only on farming for his livelihood. Where other farmers in the region are skeptical about growing sesame and other plants due to grazing problem, Narayanasamy has found ways to tackle this. This year, he harvested paddy worth Rs 45,000.
He adds, “We don’t need to depend on government as a solution. People have to work on their own to survive. If government is not doing anything, people need to step in and work.” He believes farmers can earn just from trees. He says, “It is like a small savings scheme. Growing trees will also increase the water table. We cannot wait till we get water. We need to take care of the farm, use cow dung once in two weeks, neem leaves for pest attack and pheromone traps, and grow border crops. Plants like pulicha keerai can be grown on the border, and if there is a pest attack, these plants can be pulled out at no expense.”
Are Farmer Suicides a Social Issue?
Farmer suicides in Vedaranyam have grabbed media attention. Balakrishnan Marimuthu from Paliyankarai village says, “When the crop fails once, the farmer finds it disheartening and does not have the mental ability to accept that it would be better the next time.”
He believes that if farmers have water sources like farm ponds to store rain water, they could grow other crops like coconut that are suitable to the soil. He advocates organic farming practices as a solution to drought and farmer suicide.
Sundarraj concurs, “There is a saying from Nammalvar, crusader of organic farming in the state — if you eat more salt, you have to drink more water. If you use chemicals, it is 48% nitrogen and 54% salt. If we need to give that extra water for the salt, where is water? Fifty out of 100 people would have survived instead of 10 people out of 100 if fertilisers were not used”.
Why Farmers Face Debts?
The cost of farming inputs has gone up over the years, and this is one of the reasons why farmers face debts. The Project Director from Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems had this to say.
Data from Tamil Nadu government’s agriculture department points out that the price of a 50 kg bag of urea has increased from Rs 276 in 2014-15 to Rs 284 now.
Vedaranyam is a multi cropping region. “Unlike villages in Tiruvarur, which is a complete clay belt, and where people depend on one crop, in Vedaranyam, people can do multicropping. If there is crop loss from paddy, people can do floriculture,” Subhashini told VillageSquare.in. “The farmer suicide in this region is exaggerated. There are social issues too. Though climate change is undeniable, one cannot say that farmer suicide is just due to drought. We need to look into this from various angles.”
Sundar Raj says, “People are only dependent on paddy, and that is where the problem lies. Also, we do not need compensation, but good water harvesting structures like farm ponds. This is what the government needs to focus on.”
(This article was originally published on VillageSquare.in. )
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