Faceless farmers, who by the dint of their hard work and enterprise, fought against odds to make a difference, were recognised at a quiet ceremony here on Friday, the day Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the budget in Parliament.
Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar took over an hour to distribute the awards and trophies to the small and marginal farmers from all parts of the country in the presence of Union Minister of State K.V. Thomas and Union Agriculture Secretary T. Nanda Kumar. He also released on the occasion a coffee-table book, Harvest of Hope that documented the achievements of the 101 nameless farmers, including several women farmers.
“These are shining examples of farmers who have traversed a different, quite often an uncertain path, to reap rich harvests. They are the unsung heroes [and heroines] of the Indian agriculture,” Mr. Pawar said in his tribute.
“These are farmers who have toiled, adopted new technologies and implemented their own innovations with ingenuity and grit bringing about revolutionary changes in the agriculture production front,” observed Mr. Thomas.
Mr. Pawar singled out for mention Mathura Sabarwas, a tribal woman, who was flown in for the function from a remote village in Kalahandi district in Orissa. Till some years ago she was finding it hard to make both ends meet and feed her four children. But she had indomitable will and the courage to “embrace something new,” in this case, mushroom cultivation through a cooperative.
Bewang Losang from Tirap in Arunachal Pradesh traversed 30 km by foot and then undertook an arduous eight-hour journey to Dibrugarh to reach Delhi. Farmers from Tamil Nadu, Manipur and Lakshadweep who could not make it were connected through video conference.
The book maps more than a hundred success stories of small and marginal farmers who have transformed their lives by adopting new and green technologies in cultivation. Struggling initially against a plethora of problems such as small holdings, increase in the cost of inputs, unproductive land or battling widowhood and natural calamities of Tsunami proportions, the turnaround tales are moving.
Drip irrigation, use of neem based pesticides, organic farming and vermi- composting, are just a few of the cost saving measures that the farmers adopted. Many success stories are about innovative water conservation techniques.
Farmers have taken advantage of the various central and State government initiatives and tailored them to their geographical location. Those with very small holdings have learnt to grow mushrooms or flowers for export. Others explored avenues as diverse as poultry and fish farming, floriculture and fruit orchards, oilseeds and pulses, and cotton and herb cultivation.
Dinanath Sharma of Himachal Pradesh broke new ground with cultivation of freshwater pearls. And till a few years ago he knew nothing about the precious commodity.
Chittoor’s ‘Jhansi Ki Rani,’ K. Rathnamala, changed her family’s fortunes with enviable success in groundnut cultivation in their two-hectare farm.
Abdul Ahad Mir from Jammu and Kashmir had the foresight to look for alternatives and changes his and his fellow villagers’ fortunes by getting into strawberry cultivation. His village Gausa is now christened, “The Strawberry Village.” The book is replete with such success stories that can be emulated.
“These stories are about farmers who found new and sustainable solutions. These are people who innovated at the intersection of traditional wisdom and modern knowledge,” Mr Nanda Kumar said.
