Low
input, high output
“When
I planted ragi, I did not do weeding. I did not water it. I did not
even know people would want it for their consumption. I just put up
some pictures and I had people asking for it,” says Sherpur Kalan’s
Raspinder Singh practising his organic farming in Ludhiana district
in Punjab. In 2017, he had six quintals of millets in a little more
than half acre of his farmland. After preparing his field, he
irrigated it once, did the transplantation and did not water it
again.
This
is vastly different from Punjab’s agrarian reality where rice is
predominant. Punjab farmers are having to dig deeper and deeper for
their submersibles to serve their water intensive crops. Methane
emission from rice fields adds to climate warming, and the crop goes
on depleting the groundwater because rice needs standing water. The
government advises farmers to use water minimally but does not
provide incentives for crops like millets that take little water and
give high nutrition.
The state doesn't incentivise the growing of millets for farmers
Farmers
like Raspinder are the exception but the sale of the millets they
produce has proved that there is a market for them. Close to Punjab
Agricultural University in Ludhiana is a mill where every day 80-90
kg of ragi or finger millet comes to be ground. Raspinder shares the
reason: “CMC
Hospital has recommended ragi to mothers; it has been suggested for
bone issues as well as for obesity; patients who come for bypass
surgery are learning that millets help fight blockage; diabetes
patients are buying it.”
The
planting of the seed
Raspinder
studied engineering and taught the subject for a year. What did it
take for him to develop an interest in millets? “I had an
auto-immune disease and went to Kerala for my treatment. I was asked
to have ragi and eventually I got cured. I went to a conference in
Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad, and got to know of
how millets are used in naturopathy. In Guru Nanak Dev University in
Amritsar, Punjab, I heard Professor Hardeep Singh Gujral talk about
how millets benefit us. The domestic worker at my place also knew
about it.” To
bring back the beneficial, rich millets that everyone seemed to know
of at some point but had forgotten, Raspinder decided to start
growing them himself. He also distributed free seeds to interested
people.
Challenges
and learnings on the journey
Ragi
is not the only healthy millet. Bajra (pearl millet) is high on
energy. Foxtail is easily digestible. Rotis made from browntop millet
do not get spoilt for several days. They are all fibrous and keep
intestines healthy. Since they are slow in releasing carbohydrates
(wheat energises the body quickly), they ward off hunger for a long
time without leading to obesity.
It
is, however, not equally easy to grow all of these, as Raspinder
discovered. Parrots feasted upon all the bajra he grew. Since farmers
around him were not growing it, the birds only had this one farm to
descend on to devour their favoured food. Apart from ragi, all other
millets are also similarly vulnerable to attacks from different
creatures.
The
people who had taken seeds from Raspinder are now growing their own
ragi. This means there is more ragi for consumers, which is a good
thing. But it also means that a bigger market is needed for producers
like Raspinder, who could sell all his output last year but not this
year. In talks with someone who wants to buy ragi in bulk for making
malt, he had a discussion with his fellow farmers. The consensual
decision was that they should at least get as much as a paddy farmer
gets.
Growing
of ragi is labour intensive. The harvesting is primarily a manual
process. On an average, these farmers are growing about eight
quintals per acre and want to be paid a minimum of Rs 65 per kg.
Raspinder says it is completely reasonable: “Two years back the
price of non-organic ragi was Rs 80 per kg. It must have gone higher
by now.”
Millets
are not commonly grown in Punjab, not currently, at least, so there
are no role models and it is all about experimenting and learning.
The worker on his farm advised Raspinder to sow ragi in May. Later
Raspinder saw that the yield was higher the year he had planted it
around July. He then realised that since his worker is from Bihar,
where monsoon arrives early, the right time for ragi in the two
states would be different. He decided on the second half of June as a
good time to start the plantation. Keeping a gap between the plants
also gave them space to grow better and the production was higher.
The
urgent need for state support and incentives
Apart
from its low requirement of water, millets are also a kind of crop
that provide the farmer with a rewarding yield, which chemical
fertilisers and pesticides cannot improve further. So it is also not
adding to the adverse effect of chemicals on Punjab on its water,
soil and people’s bodies. Despite all its advantages, for millets
to really take off and for Punjab to make a shift away from
water-chemical intensive, climate unfriendly agriculture, incentives
and awareness generation by the government is necessary. While the
stated minimum support price for millets
has been increased,
like with any other crop, active procurement and distribution through
government schemes is what would make the crop a popular choice for
producers and consumers alike.
