PHOTOGRAPHS BY SOUMYA SANKAR BOSE

TEXT BY UTKARSH

GT Sujatha and her husband M Jagadish run a four-acre farm that is ten years old, just shy of the Tamil Nadu border in Karnataka’s Gottigehalli village. A decade ago, pushed by fear of the health hazards associated with chemical pesticides and fertilisers, Sujatha adopted natural farming, an approach that works with the natural biodiversity of a region, without using any external inputs.

The photographer Soumya Sankar Bose visited Sujatha’s farm in early 2020 to document the role of agroecology, or natural farming, in organising and empowering independent women farmers to gain control over land rights in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Bose primarily looked at three organisations—the Amrita Bhoomi Agroecology School and Nisarga Nisargaka Savayava Krushikara Sangha, both in Karnataka, and the Rural Environment and Development Society in Andhra Pradesh.

“Ours is a mini world,” Jagadish told Soumya. “There are maybe more than two hundred varieties [of crops] growing on our plot.” The abundance of bananas, coconuts, guavas, jackfruit, sweet potatoes, pulses, lemons and experimentally planted coffee is immediately visible. Chickens and goats roam freely amid the thickets. Like other women farmers, Sujatha manages a majority of the work on the farm alongside household work. Ever since she attended a skill-based workshop organised by the state government she now also makes and sells finger millet malt, which is marketed on WhatsApp, alongside other farm produce and livestock such as sheep and goat.

The move to market over WhatsApp has helped, particularly during the pandemic and during a strike of transportation workers in Karnataka in April 2021. Physical markets were closed and WhatsApp allowed Jagadish and Sujatha to reach out to potential customers. These customers were mostly friends, relatives or admirers of their agricultural practices, who visited their farm to buy fresh produce.

“You won’t believe, many of them came on their own interest, from Bangalore,” Jagadish told Soumya. “They come across, buy things, share things, some of them give other varieties of seeds which we have not come across, some give plants, some they give us literature—books which are interesting for us and which help in making our agriculture more productive and colourful. The pandemic has taught us to be more self-reliant.”

Sujatha and Jagadish are part of a generation of farmers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh who have joined a global farming movement that rejects chemical fertilisers and pesticides in lieu of natural farming. Their rejection was caused by, and helped overcome, challenges posed to small and marginal farmers by the chemical commercialisation of agriculture, heralded by the Green Revolution in India and similar pressures abroad. The Green Revolution’s farming techniques were heavily dependent on purchased external inputs such as hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Relying largely on the inputs they have on hand; these women farmers have seen their yield and incomes increase.

The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha is among a wave of farmers’ movements that emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s in India as a response to the Green Revolution. From its early days, the KRRS recognised the international causes of local struggles. An essay by the scholar Niloshree Bhattacharya, an assistant professor at Presidency University in Kolkata, describes how in the early 1990s, KRRS’s charismatic leader M D Nanjundaswamy led the organisation in several anti-globalisation protests.

In 1992, for example, the KRRS led the nationwide Beej Satyagraha or Seed Freedom movement, and attacked the Bengaluru office of Cargill Seeds India Ltd., an agribusiness multinational corporation. They also tied themselves to farmers’ groups in both the West and in Asia, Africa and Latin America during these struggles. In 1998, for example, the KRRS launched a global campaign called Operation Cremate Monsanto and farmers’ movements from France and Indonesia joined it in burning Monsanto’s GM seeds in field trials. The KRRS’s struggle was quick to catch the public eye. In 1999, the KRRS organised an event called the Intercontinental Caravan, involving 400 farmers from India, along with representatives from other movements, who travelled across Europe and staged protests at different sites, with slogans such as “our resistance is as transnational as capital.”

The 1990s saw fervent farmers’ agitations across the globe, most emblematically defined by the La Via Campesina movement. In an essay on the movement, the scholar Annette Aurélie Desmarais, and Paul Nicholson, a founding member of Via Campesina, recount how the movement was formally constituted in April 1993, mere months before the finalisation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that reduced tariffs of food and agricultural products. Organisations representing peasants, small famers, indigenous peoples and farm workers from the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa understood that the GATT, along with the creation of the World Trade Organization, represented a profound shift away from more controlled national economies to an almost exclusively market-driven global economy.

The farmers’ organisations that formed Via Campesina argued that the further entrenchment of neoliberalism would spur national governments to continue to dismantle agrarian structures and programmes that peasants and farmers had won after years of struggle—the very ones that helped ensure the viability of small-scale farming, promote production for domestic consumption and contribute to national food security. In 1996, KRRS joined Via Campesina.

In the mid 1990s a group of KRRS farmers started a shift away from chemical farming to a system of agriculture called Zero Budget Natural Farming. ZBNF proposes a grassroots peasant agroecological model, by suggesting methods of chemical-free agriculture. These rely on traditional farming practices that involve zero credit, essential because of the deep links between indebtedness and rural suicides. ZBNF was originally promoted by the Maharashtrian agriculturist Subhash Palekar, who in the early 2000s organised workshops for KRRS. Collectives across Karnataka that Bose visited had adopted ZBNF-inspired broader models of natural farming.

In 2013, Chukki Nanjundaswamy, a leader with the KRRS, founded a school called Amrita Bhoomi in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar district, which aims to teach farmers from the region agroecology. Amrita Bhoomi offers training based on the farmer-to-farmer approach, centring agroecology, peasant rights, food sovereignty and social justice. Speaking to the online news platform The Citizen, Chukki argued, “Agroecology is more than a set of farming practices; for it to be adopted on a wide scale, indigenous peoples, women, and youth are integral.”

Ashlesha Khadse, a farmers rights activist, told The Caravan that the debt-driven farmers’ suicide epidemic in Karnataka initially affected landed farmers who often belonged to dominant-caste communities that make up a majority of KRRS’s membership. Amrita Bhoomi has also attempted to offer land to Dalit and Adivasi women’s groups at subsidised rates and is experimenting with collective farming. Khadse said that women are becoming the backbone of the natural-farming movement in India.

Via Campesina stresses this too. The movement emphasises how the fight for food sovereignty is essentially a feminist issue, using the term “Popular Peasant Feminism,” to define its collective response to patriarchy and capitalism. It views agroecology not just as a tool to attain food sovereignty, but also one for social justice and gender parity. In an essay, Elizabeth Mpofu, a Zimbabwean farmer, writer and activist, who is also the general coordinator of Via Campesina, describes how agroecology ensures “equal and equitable access to and control over land, water, seeds and other means of production,” while also allowing women to fully engage in the social and political life of the community. “By sharing ideas and knowledge, women gain the capacity to organize and lobby for favorable agricultural policies and to understand how government structures operate,” Mpofu writes.

The emphasis on the collectivisation of women farmers becomes necessary when most farming practices in India are predominantly based on family farming frameworks that organise landholdings to belong to an entire family, as a single unit, and deny individual ownership to women. The overall gendered understanding of land ownership and inheritance is further aggravated by social factors such as caste and class, with women who are unmarried, divorced or widowed being the most vulnerable amongst all social groups.

In a country where over 70 percent of rural women are engaged in agriculture, women control a mere 13.96 per cent of total operational land holdings, out of which only 1.5 per cent is held by women belonging to Scheduled Castes and 1.1 percent by women from Scheduled Tribes, according to the 2015-2016 Agriculture Census. While there has been an increase in women’s control over landholdings from the estimated 12.79 per cent in the 2010-2011 census, Khadse argues that this is driven by an ongoing agrarian crisis, where “the outmigration of men towards more viable livelihood opportunities results in growing labour contribution by women in agriculture.”

Other organisations in Karnataka, too, have shown the centrality of marginalised women’s collectives to the flourishing of natural farming. Nisarga Nisargaka Savayava Krushikara Sangha is a self-sufficient cooperative group in Honnur, in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar district. NNSKS is made up of landless farmers, tribal farmers, women farmers, and farmers from lower-caste communities. Soumya argues that the adoption of natural farming by such groups and the resultant creation of new economic relations has upturned older stratified social orders such as caste and patriarchy.

Women’s collectives focusing on agroecology in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh have been highly caste-representative too. In 2018, a 22-year-old Anantapuramu-based NGO called Rural Environment and Development Society organised two women’s farmer collectives—Mana Bhoomi and Kudumi Talli. While Mana Bhoomi is composed entirely of single, landless Dalit women, as well as women with physical disabilities, the members of Kudumi Talli belong to different caste backgrounds.

The women REDS supports are often landless women farmers, single mothers and victims of trafficking or domestic violence. Many of them are widows of farmers who had killed themselves. The collectives allow women, through farmer producer organisations, to access farming inputs at subsidised rates with the support of state programmes and also undertake the processing and marketing of their produce.

The collectives also run small shops in Anantapuramu to sell their produce. REDS collaborates with the Andhra Pradesh government’s Community Managed Natural Farming programme, which has facilitated a large-scale transition to agroecology methods, including ZBNF.  The representativeness of other groups that have adopted the ZBNF method in the state is similarly encouraging. The CMNF programme in Andhra Pradesh estimates that of the women it works with, 17 percent are from Dalit communities, while 11 percent are Adivasi and 46 percent belong to communities classified as Other Backward Classes.

The shift to agroecology, though, is not easy. The process of adaptation or transition towards agroecology itself, is a trying process that demands time—sometimes as long as two to three years—along with an initial drop in yield. Khadse argues that this makes state support of farmers’ collectives undergoing the transition, like in Andhra Pradesh, necessary. Khadse said that this also necessitates collectivisation, networking with other farmers’ groups and training programmes like the ones in Amrita Bhoomi. “Natural farming requires a deeper understanding of the processes on the farm as well as the ecosystem, and practice,” she said. “Such type of a repertoire is developed over time and depends on networks with other farms for knowledge sharing and problem solving—this is something that natural farming movement has achieved—via its farmer training processes.”

Despite the challenges, women farmers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, with little access to credit, land, or commercial seeds, have often turned out to be the strongest advocates of natural farming. Networks of women’s self-help groups have been instrumental in spreading the principles of agroecological farming from village to village in Andhra Pradesh. Today many of them have formed collectives, leasing land that was previously lying fallow.

At the collective farm Soumya visited in Andhra Pradesh, the women have devised a rota system for farm work that allows them to manage both production and care work at home. They pay each other partial wages during the agricultural season, so that there is some access to cash for household needs before harvest time. They work on small plots to grow healthy, pesticide-free food for their families, and sell the surplus. Without this movement, it would have been impossible to scale these practices up to a situation like that seen today, where nearly 5.8 lakh farmers practise it in Andhra Pradesh. In many ways, these under-served marginalised women in southern India are leading the way to show others what change can look like.

POST BY CARAVAN

Alongside the spread and intensification of globalisation, the margins of this global system vibrate with possibilities. These localised and varied alternatives and small in scale and reflect the knowledge, culture and lives of the people in the respective locality. The global food economy is one such example; on one hand we have global chains of restaurants and agribusiness companies, while on the other, numerous sustainable agriculture and alternative farming methods initiated by local communities and movements that have emerged as a form of resistance.

Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmer’s movement based in India, encourages and promotes agro-ecological methods of farming, particularly zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF), as a solution to climate and agrarian issues, and farmer suicides. KRRS emerged in the 1980s under the leadership of M.D. Nanjundaswamy. The movement emerged following the Green Revolution in India. The Green Revolution concerned the industrialisation of farming practices throughout India, which resulted in significantly greater use of pesticides and herbicides, the consolidation of land into larger farms, and the use of seed varieties developed by industrial agricultural companies. Since the 1990s, when markets were deregulated, millions of Indian farmers have found it difficult to make a living, and, driven into debt, thousands have committed suicide.

KRRS is also a member of La Via Campesina, which is a transnational agrarian movement comprised of more than 200 organisations from over 70 countries. KRRS recently established Amrita Bhoomi, the first agro-ecology school in South Asia, in Chamrajnagar (Southern Karnataka) under the initiative of Chukki Nanjundaswamy. Amrita Bhoomi was formed in collaboration with La Via Campesina, and is a space where agro-ecological methods of farming, such as ZBNF, are practised through horizontal learning methods.

Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha

Initially, KRRS primarily consisted of middle- and higher-income farmers belonging to the dominant castes of Lingayats and Vokkaligas and focused on prices, loans, water and electricity; their campaigns and actions were mainly targeted at state level. Some of the organisations major campaigns have targeted illegal granite mining, the anti-liquor movement and the recovery of loans. The ideological foundations of KRRS are based on Gandhian ideologies of self-reliance, self-respect, satyagraha and non-violence, and Ram Manohar Lohia’s socialist thought. Since the 1990s, changes in political and economic contexts led the movement to participate in anti-globalisation protests. KRRS burnt field trials of genetically modified (GM) seeds, ransacked KFC outlets and Cargill offices, held protests in Delhi along with other farmers’ movements against the Dunkel Draft (which became the foundation document of the World Trade Organisation), and organised the Intercontinental Caravan in Europe, where 400 farmers protested against meetings of the WTO. The Beeja Satyagraha (freedom to save seeds) and the Bandi (Cart) March were other important campaigns. The Beeja Satyagraha campaign, launched in the earlier ‘90s, was not only a critique against the introduction of biotechnology in agriculture through GM, but also posed larger questions about the livelihood of farmers, ecological and health issues, and whether the application of technology was a suitable solution. The movement was also called the second Green Revolution, invoking memories of the adverse effects of the Green Revolution upon India. It was in this period that the movement received acclaim from other groups around the world that were also protesting against globalisation, and new transnational ties were built. KRRS became a member of La Via Campesina in 1996 and People’s Global Action in 1999.

Amrita Bhoomi

Nanjundaswamy had conceived of Amrita Bhoomi, a global centre for sustainable development, but could not complete the project within his lifetime. His daughter Chukki Nanjundaswamy inaugurated the centre in February 2013 in the Chamrajnagar district of Karnataka. The centre is spread across 66 acres, with a seed bank, an auditorium, training centres, dormitories and model farms. The model farms are run by peasant youth interns to help them learn the skills needed to apply the methodologies in their own communities.

In Amrita Bhoomi, following the general framework of food sovereignty, KRRS has been encouraging agro-ecological methods of farming, such as ZBNF. Food sovereignty is a broad concept popularised by La Via Campesina, and has become a guiding principle for many such efforts around the world. Food sovereignty is a political discourse, a proposition and, in some ways, an abstract description of a system of agricultural production, distribution, consumption and related social relations. It is allencompassing – it addresses questions of farmers’ livelihoods, food crises, climate change, international trade, food politics, agro-ecology, land reform, bio-fuels, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), land grabs, and so on. The foundational principles of food sovereignty encourage plural alternatives, inclusive of heterogeneous identities and varied forms of resistance.

The cornerstone of food sovereignty is agro-ecology. Agro-ecology is based on a dialogue between diverse and subaltern knowledge systems based on the principles of sustainable agriculture and horizontal learning. Furthermore, agro-ecology is a way of resisting chemical agriculture and agribusiness multinationals. Thus, food sovereignty and agro-ecology go hand in hand. ZBNF facilitates the application of the agro-ecological model achieve food sovereignty. Food sovereignty concepts have existed within the movement for some time, primarily in its conception and during the hebeeja satyagraha (seed sovereignty) campaign in the 1990s. In a way, it is a continuation of the same ideas of non-violent resistance already present within the movement.

Zero Budget Natural Farming

ZBNF is a toolkit of farming techniques, developed by Subhash Palekar, which has taken the form of a grassroots social movement, with massive participation across classes and castes. It is an example of a non-violent form of constructive resistance which creates viable alternatives at the grassroot level. Subhash Palekar and Amrita Bhoomi hold massive training camps across the country, and Palekar has become the farmers’ ‘guru’.

ZBNF is one of the most successful agro-ecology movements because of its massive reach and scale. As the name suggests, ZNFB is a method of farming that is based on minimum- or zero-input farming, which implies no input costs ,and hence no credit. Farmer suicides have been on the rise in India, primarily because of debt; zero-budget natural farming directly addresses this problem. It is based on using inputs that are already available on a farm. It is also called “spiritual farming”, because it is intended to connect farmers with nature, to understand and work with it. While other forms of alternative agriculture are practised in India, based on traditional knowledge systems, organic methods and Masanobu Fukouka’s ‘do-nothing’ farming, ZBNF is unique because of the scale it has reached.

ZBNF is based on four practical principles:

• Jivamrita, meaning ‘life tonic’ in Hindi, is a homemade fermented microbial culture made of water, cow dung and urine, jaggery, legume flour, and a handful of soil as an inoculant of local micro-organisms. Jivamrita acts as a catalytic agent that enlivens the soil, increasing microbial and earthworm activity. Jivamrita also helps to prevent fungus and bacteria.
• Bijamrita is a homemade microbial seed treatment made of similar ingredients to jivamrita and used for the treatment of seeds, seedlings and other planting material. It is effective in protecting young roots from fungus as well as soil and seed-borne diseases.
• Mulching of topsoil; covering it with organic material, rather than tilling the soil.
• Whapasa, or moisture. Palekar maintains that plants do need water as much as they need moisture, thus reducing the need for irrigation.

Through these four pillars of ZBNF, the agricultural techniques introduced during the Green Revolution are completely reversed, countering irrigation, tilling, and the use of fertilisers and pesticides.

ZBNF has been a major success story; farmers who practice it claim that it significantly improves yield, soil conservation, the quality of produce and increases autonomy. Monoculture became the usual way of farming during the Green Revolution, when it replaced multi-cropping system. In a multi-cropping system, farmers have an income throughout the year, as they plant intercrops. Moreover, it is often desirable to plant some crops with others, for example, planting marigolds alongside legumes prevents insects from spoiling the legumes. Not only did monoculture replace traditional methods of farming, it also resulted in soil erosion, seed diversity and traditional knowledge. These adverse effects of the Green Revolution have been extensively discussed in the literature. ZBNF addresses these issues by providing practical techniques which are taught in the camps.

Learning in camps

The ZBNF camp is unique because it is a platform for farmers to not only learn techniques, philosophies and ecology but also to exchange technical knowledge about their farms and get inspiration from the stories of successful farmers. In addtion to with Palekar’s lectures on ZBNF, the farmers also engage in horizontal learning from each other.

These camps are organised in mathas (Hindu monastic institutions, separate from a temple) which are plentiful in Karnataka.Attendance ranges from 1000 to 5000 farmers. Farmers join the camp for a nominal fee, and volunteers do the logistical work;farmers often donate food. Through learning, volunteering and exchanging knowledge, a sense of solidarity and community develops.

A key ally and supporter of ZBNF, and one of the reasons for its spread and scale, is KRRS. KRRS, being a farmers’ movement and a member of LVC, promotes ZBNF through all of its local, national and global networks. In 2011, KRRS organised a Natural Farm Visit for Asian Farmers and, in 2015, organised ZBNF training for farmers from every continent. KRRS has played a key role in linking global agro-ecology campaigns and the struggle for food sovereignty with very local initiatives such as ZBNF.

The seed bank

Amrita Bhoomi houses an indigenous seed bank containing 100 varieties of rice, 26 varieties of ragi and 14 varieties of millets and other vegetables. The purpose of the seed bank is to conserve biodiversity and resist multinational agribusinesses and seed patents. The promotion of millets, which were wiped out as a result of the Green Revolution, is a key campaign of Amrita Bhoomi. Farmers are trained in millet production at the camps organised by Amrita Bhoomi, and are given seeds for planting. The same farmers are invited to millet fairs, where they sell their produce to urban consumers.

Looking forward

KRRS has come a long way; from being a farmers’ movement holding massive rallies addressing the state, being the strongest voice in India against neoliberal globalisation during the 1990s, and setting up Amrita Bhoomi in 2013. Examining the life of the movement, one can notice the distinct shifts in engaging with politics, organising resistance and creating alternatives. Since the 1990s it has become necessary to stage protests at the global level and to engage in transnational networks and build alliances to create the world that the movement had envisioned.

To achieve sovereignty from the complex inter-linkages of a global food economy dominated by agribusiness giants, to prevent climate crises and to provide solutions to rampant farmer suicides in India, KRRS utilised multi-pronged strategies of protests, negotiations with policymaking bodies and the creation of agri-food networks. The focus on information sharing, engaging with networks of similar groups, exchanging knowledge and building solidarity across local and global spaces, has been a discernible shift within the movement. However, the primary driving force behind such efforts has been the movement’s demand for sovereignty. – Conceptualised initially by its leader Nanjundaswamy as seed sovereignty in their campaign Beeja Satyagraha, the concept of food sovereignty has broaderned in later years via the movement’s links with La Via Campesina. The influence of Gandhian principles on the notion of sovereignty with regard to the freedom to cultivate crops and save seeds has continued through several generations of the movement. Today, it is primarily the youth who are involved in Amrita Bhoomi and its efforts to create a more just, ecologically sustainable and self-reliant society. Herein lies the success of the movement, that its vision has been carried on to the next generation.

“We didn’t want to just come and build something, but actually teach how to do it with locally available materials so that our students can reproduce these models easily,” said Txell. “It’s important that such projects of mutual support and solidarity exist so that people’s movements have the ability to build some practical models for self-reliance in different areas like farming, energy and others. We want no borders, but want to build bridges,” she said.

Solar dryers have a number of uses for farmers and aid in the preservation of produce especially during times of surplus production. Farmers can dry vegetables, fruits, and herbs and turn these into interesting food products like dry fruits, herbal teas, dry ginger/garlic powder, sundried tomatoes, and so many others.

Consumption of dried fruits like papaya, mangoes are becoming popular among consumers, and farmers can tap into new markets where there is demand for such products. Importantly, farmers can also preserve foods for later consumption in their own homes. “I didn’t know it was possible to dry produce using direct sunlight so easily. I am excited to build this on my farm and try this out. It will cut food wastage too,” said Guruswamy, a local farmer from Chamrajnagar.

As there are serious power problems in the countryside- these dryers can help to reduce reliance on grid-based power and provide an autonomous source of energy.

Two workshops have been conducted so far- one for ten days, where a large dryer was constructed on Amrita Bhoomi’s campus, and another smaller two-day workshop where smaller portable dryers were made. The large dryer can dry up to 100 kilos of produce in 3 days’ time, while the portable ones can dry 15 kilos in the same time.

Students have come from across the state- some from as far away as north Karnataka- an overnight train ride away. There is a mix of urban and rural people. Two young women also joined, which was really appreciated and encouraged by Amrita Bhoomi. “We hope that more and more young women start doing such technical work which is considered to be men’s domain,” said Vasantha Kumari of Amrita Bhoomi.

“I am a teacher and came to this workshop so that I can teach my students to build these dryers. My students are young, around 16 years of age, and I want to teach them such constructive work. This workshop has given us seeds that will turn them into saplings in our hometowns,” said Ganesha, a teacher from Mysore. Amrita Bhoomi youth interns have overseen the project and have created a “solar team” at the center. “We feel confident that we can replicate this model elsewhere. We want to continue this work and improve our skills more over time,” said Shambhu of Amrita Bhoomi.

Over the last month, Amrita Bhoomi has received many urban youths from Youth4Swaraj– a national level youth program run by young volunteers of the Swaraj India party.

A radical effort to engage urban youth in agrarian issues and politics, Youth4Swaraj has mobilized hundreds of students to go to the far corners of the country. They are assigned work with local organizations there to learn first-hand about the agrarian crisis from rural families.

This internship program is called Talash Bharat Ki (Hindi for the discovery of India). An earlier avatar was ‘drought duty’ when youth went to drought-hit parts of the country.

Amrita Bhoomi received two batches of students who came from across India- both north and south. It was a truly exciting opportunity. Each batch of youth stayed for a week.

They woke up each morning and did shramdan (Hindi for donating physical work) by working on the farm. The rest of the day consisted of some guest lectures and interactions with activists and academics. The evenings consisted of either watching educational films or field visits to villages close by- one was an Adivasi village, another was a Dalit village. In the villages, detailed surveys were carried out; these were prepared by the students themselves. The surveys went into details about general questions on rural life- land ownership, access to state programs and entitlements, credit situation, caste system, gender divisions among other. Results of the surveys were presented and connections were made to all that they had been learning throughout the week.

On one of the days, the students also participated in a Twitter storm to denounce the governments lies and false promises called #kisansejhoot.

One day was spent in a village with the Karnataka farmers organization KRRS which was planning a protest march. The youth joined the protest and also prepared a memorandum of demands from the District Collector.

For many of the youth, this was their first time learning about these issues. Others were well aware and wanted an opportunity to become connected with grassroots organizations. Many were eager to continue their association with the farmers’ movement and with Swaraj India. It was a truly enriching experience for both Amrita Bhoomi and Youth4Swaraj and we are happy to have been able to grow our political family.

Amrita Bhoomi plans to receive many more batches of such interns in the future.

For more information on Youth4Swaraj, see: https://www.y4s.org/vision-mission.html

Students dancing spontaneously

22 Aug: The Bahujan Vidyarthi Sangh (BVS), a student group with members from the so called bahujan groups conducted a five day camp for students at Amrita Bhoomi. Bahujan means “majority of the people’, which includes Dalits, Adivasis, and many other castes and religions of the subcontinent who are caste-bound and ruled by upper-caste minorities. About hundred students attended from across Karnataka. 

BVS routinely conducts such training camps across Karnataka state. The camps focus on studying Indian history and society from an alternative perspective of that of the upper caste ‘Manuvadi’ versión.  Manuvad roughly translated to Manu-ism, is the rule of law based on the Manusmriti – the principle code of law of Hinduism which lays down the rules for the different castes.  It is the proverbial ‘Bible of the Brahmans’ and promotes a systematic exploitation and slavery of the so-called ‘lower’ castes and all women, keeping them in a permanently subordinate role.

Girls led most of the sessions during the camp

These BVS camps focus on building the pride and self-confidence of youths from such castes, and creates cadre to join the larger social struggle for their rights.

“This is the first time I was able to learn the real history of India,” said Shashikala of Gundelpet district. “I always took for granted what we experienced, but now I know why it is wrong. I will bring more youth from my village to attend this camp next time,” she said.

Students came from all across Karnataka

“I have been attending these camps for the last seventeen years. We have to fight for social justice and equality in our society. We also have to fight against large scale privatization of our economy,” said Narayanswami from Gundalpet.

The entire camp was conducted through volunteer work by the students.

Song and dance encourage self-expression and are at the heart of the camp – students sang revolutionary songs, and both the women and men danced unabashedly.

Students took an oath to not buy products from multinational corporations, but to support locally produced food and other materials. 

Kannaiyan from the farmers’ movement adressing the students

“Amrita Bhoomi is proud to host this camp, and we will continue to do so. The annihilation of caste is at the centre of our educational programmes here, we must build such active solidarity with different social struggles,” said Chukki Nanjundasway of the KRRS, who is also in the coordination of Amrita Bhoomi.

“We have to intensify our struggle against the growing communalism in India today. The upper caste Hindu fundamentalists are misinterpreting history today to spread hatred and violence and increase the polarization of our country. We have to bring everyone together, not divide our country,” said Kannaiyan Subramiam of South Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements.

by- Ashlesha, Amrita Bhoomi

Narendra at his farm

Narendra was a young graphic designer who comes from a small peasant family but had no farming skills and was forced to shift to an urban job in the city. Always fascinated by agriculture, he went to Amrita Bhoomi as a volunteer intern for a year and learned how to work the land. Today, he has restored his one acre farm on the outskirts of Bangalore which was used as a dumping yard by the Bangalore city municipality. Glass shards and syringes still dot the field. Because it was unfit for food cultivation, Narendra is now using waste water from buildings around his farm to grow flowers. His father who thought he was crazy initially, is now inspired by his son and takes care of his field. Narendra considers himself a lifetime volunteer and supporter of Amrita Bhoomi and is thrilled he could start a new life closer to the land. He has many plans for his farm- a root garden is coming up soon.  As a side income he is working as a head gardener at an apartment complex in suburban Bangalore where he has set up an organic garden to sell affordable organic veggies to the residents of the apartments. Narendra is an inspring example for rural youth who with their creativity, diligence, and some support (from peasant schools) can return to the land and live satisfying lives as new farmers.

“For me being a graphic designer was boring. I sat at a desk all day long and worked for someone else. We could be fired any time, our life was uncertain, there was no real future. Now I work for myself and am constantly learning and growing. Going to Amrita Bhoomi and learning the practical skills of farming was one of my greatest life decisions.”

Although most around Narendra’s farm have sold off their lands – Bangalore city seems to swallow up farmland rapidly, Narendra is adament. “I will never sell our farm,” he says.

Narendra’s father stands by their wastewater tank. He is thrilled with the way Narendra revived their farm. He says it gives him enough to live on and enjoy his old age taking care of it.

Mr Prasanna Murthy from Tumkur who is an expert in Zero Budget Natural farming and one of the state level conveners of the movement is conducting a two-day training on ZBNF at Amrita Bhoomi on the 19, 20 April. The training was timed for the upcoming Kharif sowing season.

BY LAVIACAMPESINASOUTHASIA

15 days/3 month Intensive course on agroecology with rural youth at Amrita Bhoomi,

Youth are leaving agriculture. Our agonizing countryside doesn’t exactly paint a rosy picture to build a life upon. Their parents encourage them to go to the city, take up a white-collar job -‘we don’t want our children to suffer like us,’  they say. Yet many rural youth experience that visceral pull to the land. They want, like their forefathers, to live in the countryside. They want to focus on the success stories instead of the misery. The city doesn’t really excite them, some of them have already tried their hand at IT or engineering. They know it’s possible to come back to the land, but they just don’t know how to start.

It is to encourage such rural youth that Amrita Bhoomi along with outstanding Baduku Community College is carrying out an intensive and profound life-changing course on sustainable agriculture. But this is not just a theoretical or technical course on practices. This 15-day course, spread over 3 months, begins with an exploration of the ‘self’ as a farmer – it asks the students to go deep into their hearts and histories to ask who they are in society- What is their position? What caste are they? What is their gender? what are the power relations that lie behind all these relations. Are they privileged? Are they the oppressor or the oppressed? What does it mean to be a farmer? What disasters have their own farming families been hit by? Most of them have never asked such questions of looked at how they form part of the larger society or its structures, and how they themselves can also be the change.

The 25-odd students of the course came from such a diversity of backgrounds, classes, castes that it was an emotional, intensive and a deep bonding experience. Only 1 woman participated, mainly because of the course timings that ran late into the evening and against their families comfort levels. There are plans to bring out a women-only course in the future set to their convenience. About 5 students were of urban origin–they quit their city jobs to move to the countryside for good.

The students lived on the Amrita Bhoomi campus for a week during this first phase of the course. The other sections of the course are called ‘perspectives’ and ‘skills’- the first is a historical Perspective of agriculture in India. It deals with pre-colonial agriculture, the impact of colonialism and advent of cash crops, the changes post independence, green revolution, trade liberalization, and ongoing current agrarian crisis and its facets. The Skills section focuses on practices of agroecology–observation of the land, plants, seed production, water conservation, crop cycles, microbial mixtures with cow dung and local ingredients. They learn to observe nature, they learn these skills as art and passion, not just through the scientific technical lens.

    The day started with some ‘seva’ or service – they had to work in the kitchen, clean the showers and toilets, work on the farm, and dedicate some time daily to keep the machine running. The day ended with movies, song or dance.

Now the students are home for a month. They have been asked to practice at least 3 of the skills acquired on a section of their parents’ lands and come back with the lessons that the earth teaches them. They will use their new found epiphanies to look at their world in a new way, one where they have the power to change their own realities.

     “Our families are against us doing this course, they really don’t want us to come back to the land,” expressed many students. The main struggle for them starts at home, “but we are determined.”

“They are very idealistic and romantic, but we will see over the next three months how they fare,” said Ramesh, the main farmer-trainer from Baduku college.

At least 60 farmers, mostly from the neighboring indigenous Soliga community, as well as other small farmers including some urban origin farmers gathered for a farmer-to-farmer training session on millets at the Amrita Bhoomi agroecology center, on 2nd July 2016.

Amrita Bhoomi is linked to the Karnataka State Farmers’ Movement (KRRS for its initials in Kannada language) and is La Via Campesina’s agroecology school in South Asia.

Successful millet growers, both young and old came to share their experiences and answer questions. This was followed by millet seed distribution to the trainees. Grameena Kutumba, a group that promotes millets and organizes direct farmer to consumer markets, co-organized this training session. They committed to follow up with a farmer to consumer fair early next year to allow trainees at this session to directly sell their produce to consumers.

Urban origin farmers sponsored and gifted packets of millet seeds to the Soliga indigenous farmers. Some members of a local bakery also came by to present millet cookies made by them and showcase different forms of value added food products from millets.

There are many types of millets- Finger millet, Pearl millet, Foxtail millet, Barnyard millet, Kodo millet etc- all with varying flavors, textures and culinary adaptations. Millets are hailed as a miracle crop. This favorite food of birds, is also one of the world’s healthiest food for humans. It is a crop that can grow naturally without the need for any irrigation, chemicals or fertilizers. Sadly, millets were wiped out of our diets and farms because of the government’s heavy promotion of rice, wheat, sugarcane and other green revolution crops. Millets can resolve not just ecological problems by ending chemical and water use, they also provide income benefits to farmers by greatly reducing their cost of cultivation.

The nutritional profile of millets is by far superior to that of rice or wheat. Millets are high in protein, calcium, fiber, iron, and most vitamins. They can alleviate hunger and malnutrition; a major crisis in India, by simply including them in people’s diets and partially replacing polished white rice and over-processed wheat as much as possible. They also have a very low glycemic index thus improving insulin response and fighting diabetes. Millets improve heart health, are high in anti-oxidants and improve digestive health.

Millet crop residues are an excellent source of fodder too. India’s serious drought crisis has adversely impacted livestock, which are first to die in times of water and fodder scarcity. Millets can grow in drought and also are very nutritious for animals.

Although millets are still a big part of indigenous peoples diets, their consumption among other rural and urban populations has depleted tremendously after polished white rice took over. These days, there is a growing consciousness and demand for millets from consumers due to its great health impacts, but there is not enough production in Karnataka. This is a major reason behind this training session organized by Amrita Bhoomi- to encourage and spread millets among Karnataka’s farmers. Promoting millets is a key campaign for Amrtia Bhoomi and many other activities and fairs are planned through the rest of the year.

Boregowda, a millet grower from Mandya (a region dominated by sugarcane and rice because of the presence of a dam, which is drying up fast) said,

“It was 40 degrees this year, the hottest summer ever, and we had no water or rain. I decided to try to grow millets, and they grew so well, my fields were green without any watering! My neighbors were impressed. So I went to agriculture university scientists to get their opinion and see what they had to say. But I didn’t tell them that I was already growing millets. I asked them if they had any millet seeds and whether I would be able to grow them during this dry spell. The agricultural scientists told me that nothing would grow in this summer, and even if it were to grow, there would be major pest attacks. They advised me to buy various chemicals to spray to fight pests. I later informed them that in fact my millets were already growing and lush and that I didn’t use any water or chemicals! They were surprised.”

There are also challenges in cultivation – birds love millets! If a single farmer grows millets then she would lose most of her crop to birds. This is the reason why millets need to be grown collectively over a large area so the birds have many farms to pick from and not just one. “Millets teach us to come together,” said Yellapa, a farmer teacher from Dharwad, who is part of a millet grower’s collective. The Soliga indigenous farmers said, “we must also share our crops with the birds, our food is not just for humans.” Soliga farmers were the most enthusiastic participants of the training session as they have traditionally grown millets as subsistence crops.

“There is not even a single millet mill in the entire state of Karnataka! The neighboring Tamil Nadu state government on the other hand has set up processing units in their state. Most of the millets from Karnataka go to Tamil Nadu for processing and then come back here. We have to demand from the Karantaka government that they set up at least two processing plants in the state, one in the north and another in the south of the state. This will really encourage farmers to grow millets.”, said Chukki Nanjundaswamy of Amrita Bhoomi.

Traditionally millets were processed by hand and a very labor-intensive and time-consuming method. This would really increase costs for consumers. On the other hand, small millet processing units do exist but they lead to major waste- upto 30-40% waste. The more efficient larger mills are more expensive, which is why Amrita Bhoomi is demanding that the state pay for them as a support to farmers who can then collectively grow and process millets.

The UN celebrated 2013 as the international year of Quinoa, a wonderful grain given to the world by the Andean people. The participants concluded that the time had come to also celebrate millets internationally, especially in its various centers of diversity in Africa and Asia, as a crop that can eradicate malnutrition, hunger and resolve many ecological problems. They also stressed that millets need policy support  – not just for farmers but also for consumers. The government should include this nutritious food in public programs such as in public school meals plans, and primary health centers instead of just focusing on pharmaceutical vitamin pills or chemically fortified foods.

by Ashlesha Khadse