After he completed Class X, S. Dinesh of Suragondanahalli, about 150 km from Bengaluru, left his village to work in a public telephone booth in the bustling capital. For the next 10 years, he would change many jobs. But his salary grew minimally, from ₹850 to a few thousands. “I worked hard, sometimes from 4 a.m. to late in the night, but at the end of the month, I was left with little money.”
That was when Dinesh noticed a news report on progressive farmers in Karnataka’s Mandya district, who had given up jobs in Bengaluru to take up farming in their village. “I was inspired by their story and decided to return to my village too,” he says.
Today, Dinesh’s business produces some 130 litres of organic milk a day and his bank account is credited with nearly ₹1.2 lakh every month. “Earlier, I remember when I went to a bank to open a savings account, the officials hesitated to even hand me an application form,” he says. Much has changed since: recently, a bank manager, who happened to visit his village, met him to offer a loan.
Against the tide
Dinesh is one of scores of young men in Karnataka who are swimming against a demographic tide, moving back to their villages after a stint in the city. And many of them, especially in the southern taluks of Tiptur, Arasikere, Kaduru and Chikkanayakanahalli, have taken up the production of organic milk.
B.N. Vasanth Kumar has a Mechanical Diploma. He worked for meagre wages in a factory outlet in Bengaluru’s Peenya Industrial Layout. In 2011, Kumar and his wife Poornima, who has a Masters in mathematics, returned to their village Bommalapura in Tumkur district to set up a dairy, where they now earn about ₹90,000 a month.
B.N. Vasanth Kumar at his dairy in Tiptur.
Not only are the young returning, villagers who once wanted to migrate citywards have changed their minds. Like Kumar’s brother Neelakantha Swamy, who once made a living from a coconut farm. Now, he also runs a brick factory with his joint family. Their annual income has grown substantially, boosting the resolve of the younger generation to stay in the village.
Sharan, 24, is Kumar’s nephew and has a post-graduate degree. He got a job as a teacher in a private school not far from home. But he turned it down, joining hands with his uncle instead. The dairy requires just four to six hours of work a day. “I left the village after my studies as I saw agriculture declining,” says Kumar. “My family earned little from the 20 acres of land we had. Now we have set a good example to show young people.”
Of course, moving back was not easy. Families opposed the idea, still attracted to the promise of urban salaries. Many relatives suggested that even a grocery shop in Tiptur town would be a better idea than a dairy farm. “Now, over the years, they have realised that our decision was right. Others are following us,” says Kumar. After their return, Poornima took up a job teaching mathematics in a government college, but also sometimes single-handedly manages the fully automated farm.
Helping hand
One major factor aiding their move — and that of nearly 160 other farmers — is Akshayakalpa Farms and Foods Ltd., a company that was set up by a group of software engineers in 2009 in Kodihalli in Hassan district. The company has created a network of farmers to whom it provides technical inputs for cattle rearing, growing fodder, storage of fodder, installing biogas plant and storing the milk. It then supplies the organic milk primarily to Bengaluru. For every litre of milk, farmers get ₹34. As many as nine farmers in the network earn nearly ₹3 lakh a month. “The significant thing is that many people have returned to their villages. I regard this as a major achievement over the last seven years,” says Shashi Kumar, CEO.
Many youngsters, who worked for meagre wages in Bengaluru till a few years ago, now own dairy farms in their villages and earn close to a lakh a month.
Dayanand and Kumar, two brothers from Kavala Thimmanahalli; Sunil of Alur; Prabhu Kumar and Jagadish of K. Bidare — they have all left Bengaluru jobs and returned. They earn between ₹80,000 and ₹1.5 lakh a month and own two-wheelers and healthy bank balances. “We can afford cars as well, but I don’t want to spend on one at the moment,” says Prabhu Kumar, who worked in a Bengaluru photo studio two years ago. Interestingly, along with his dairy, he also runs a studio in the village. “The dairy does not demand more than six hours. After 9.30 am, I am free and I go to the studio,” he says.
T. Ravi of Maragondanahalli in Chikkamagaluru district was a taxi driver in the capital, bringing home about ₹10,000 a month, barely enough to sustain a family. His farm produces 60 litres of milk a day today and he earns around ₹40,000. “More than the money, though, I am happy to be back home with my people,” he confesses.
Shashi Kumar calls this reverse brain drain. “They returned when they were shown a model that works and increases their income.” This just might be a glimmer of hope for the urban migration problem.
