WHY DO WE HAVE A FARM?

Though we can’t make it regularly, but every Diwali in the morning we do not fail to visit our small farm at the outskirts of Lucknow in a place called Bakshi ka Talab. We have had this farm for almost two decades and though we may not know all the villagers in our village by name, but they all know and recognize us and our children. The fact that Neeta, my wife and I are both doctors also helps and we become their nodal persons for any health problem, particularly emergencies. 

Our mango grove

I always wanted to buy land for farming but I distinctly remember the day we decided to buy a patch for the purpose of agriculture. One day I heard one of my sons, then 5 years old, complain that the factory was chopping rice really small and on the last occasion when we purchased rice the individual pieces were much bigger! That is what broke the camel’s back and I could in no way postpone my plan. The purchase and the paperwork was the easiest part of this job. Finding a family to take care of the patch from the surrounding village was far more difficult. Then again, the land was barren unused pasture and we started by planting a cover crop to suppress weeds, and help control pests and plant diseases. A cover crop is a type of plant, usually a grass or a legume, grown primarily to suppress weeds, manage soil erosion, help build and improve soil fertility and quality. Cover crops are also called "green manure" and "living mulches" because they provide nutrients to the soil much like manure does.

We got a borewell put up to meet our irrigation needs. Borewells and tubewells, are very similar. Both are basically vertical drilled wells, bored into an underground aquifer in the earth’s surface, to extract water. The difference in the two lies in the type of casing used, the depth of this casing and the type of soil where they are drilled. Casing to support the external surfaces of the borehole against collapse may be needed at certain depths, and usually is made up of PVC pipes. Electrical pumps are usually used to pump out the water from the borewells and we had to purchase one. This allowed us to irrigate our land and it was a great source of fun for the family, bathing in the luxuriantly flowing water!

Harvest in progress

Then we started planting the cereals wheat and paddy, and I still remember the look of amazement in the eyes of our children when they realized how these crops are planted, irrigated, de-weeded, manured, grown and harvested. The hard labour the farm workers would put in the fields despite the scorching sun or the stormy monsoon was clear for them to see and I could appreciate how they developed respect for those about whom they either never knew or had very little time to think. Befriending them had their own benefits – learning to climb mango trees, getting banana from a neighboring plantation and knowing about strange insects, birds and reptiles made them worldly wise.

Jack fruits hanging from a tree

We have 58 mango trees and 2 jack fruit (kathal) trees in our mango grove. These are massive trees, all more than 40 years old, and offer an excellent canopy for family picnic and summer mango feast. We also have a massive Banyan tree on one side, 10 Eucalyptus trees and a skirting of 50 Poplar trees, which we have planted and which have gone up in no time to kiss the sky. Everyone who understands farming advises us to cut these trees and sell the timber and plant new ones, but we simply love these trees and they were never meant for earning money, and so they stay.

We also have a pond, and initially had fishes in it. We purchased tiny carps in hundreds from Kolkata, got them delivered in Lucknow by train and set them free in the pond. We enjoyed seeing them grow in size for some time and also sold them in the market, but three years of successive drought caused the pond to dry up and this adventure of fish farming had a sorry ending.

In all the hustle and bustle of daily life, we may not regularly visit the farm but it remains an ideal stress buster in our life. It is certainly not a profit making venture, but it sustains itself and the people who work in it. Farming is not my first profession and so I can afford this no profit – no loss status, but for small farmers in India life is difficult. Small and fragmented land-holdings, getting good quality seeds, manures, fertilizers and insecticides, irrigation in the face of repeated inadequate monsoon, lack of mechanization as it is not cost effective to purchase many agricultural machines, soil erosion and a corrupt agricultural marketing are all conspiring together to smother the small farmer out of business.

Amla or Indian gooseberry hangs in bunches

Multiple crops, creating special agricultural zones, clubbing small farms for cooperative farming, and a meaningful crop insurance policy are absolutely necessary for our small farmers. Our farmers need to be educated and familiar with the research that is going on in the laboratories to improve their yield and quality of produce. We need to modernize farming and for that we will have to inject new blood. The youth should fancy their chances of succeeding as a farmer by understanding the entire demand supply system. Water and sunlight are two inputs that need to be wisely utilized and right now we are wasting the former and ignoring the latter. And lastly, the small farmers must have an alternate source of income like bee keeping, mushroom cultivation, poultry farming, fisheries, timber production and dairy farming. These activities complement each other and ensure an alternate source of income for farmers.

Neeta with the farm workers on Diwali morning

We have purposely refrained from constructing a farm house in our farm because the purpose of this project as not to have a holiday home. We wanted our children to understand the journey their food takes from the farm to their dinner plate and to appreciate the effort that goes into this process. We were not planning to bring up an enviable property, nor were we planning to grow crops and trees. We were planning to bring up two children and let them grow into sensible and compassionate human beings, deeply rooted in the realities of life and yet aiming for the sky. This farm, I must say, has served this purpose admirably and so every Diwali we go there in the morning to offer puja and distribute sweets and gifts to all those who work there and toil it out. This is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to all these guys.