It takes a village: Transforming the fate of unproductive land

Devi Singh is a very happy man today—but he never predicted that he would be. A farmer from Rajasthan’s Karauli district, Singh lives in a remote corner of the Rawatpura village with his wife and children; he enjoys very few amenities. Still, he is content: until very recently, nearly half of his total farmland remained uncultivated. But today, rows of green crops dot almost all of his land. Most fortunately, he’s also able to cultivate two crops a year.

His joy is shared by many other farmers in this village, who have experienced progress of a similar, exponential kind. Subabai, a fellow resident of Rawatpura, says, “Though I have generally eaten wheat rotis, I had never seen wheat growing in a field. Now, I can see—and harvest—so much of the crop.”

A journey across dozens of such widely scattered villages and hamlets across the Karauli district revealed why farmlands had lain barren for so long: these are dusty, dry and remote areas, where the absence of irrigation had made it impossible for farmers to cultivate a significant part of their land. 

This is when Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (SRIJAN), a voluntary organisation, stepped in. To find a solution, the organisation sought the traditional wisdom of local residents. This led them to set up ponds in several villages. In Rawatpura village alone, nearly 13 ponds were built, while 13 existing ones were repaired and renovated. As a result, around 200 acres of new land gradually started being cultivated, thereby boosting productivity from existing cultivated land.

In the Makanpur Swami village of the Karauli district, farmers are bound by another constraint over and above land being in short supply: a lot of the land that they do have access to, is rocky and uneven. Additionally, mining has also degraded some portion of the land. To address these specific problems, SRIJAN–in consultation with the local residents–embarked on a three-dimensional approach. First, the available irrigation source was de-silted and cleaned, which helped enhance its water retention capacity. Then, the fertile silt obtained from the irrigation source was spread on the land to make it fertile. Finally, land levelling and bund-creation activities were taken up, both to make the land cultivable and to conserve rainwater on it.

Slowly but surely, this meant that a lot of land that absolutely could not be cultivated earlier was now fertile. Ballabh, a middle-aged farmer and father and local to this village, points proudly to a field full of flourishing crops, along with a few trees and flower plants—the same rocky land that had earlier been given up as uncultivable.

In addition, natural farming–the practice of growing crops with low-inputs and naturally available resources–has also been promoted here. This has helped increase the quality of the farm produce, as well as improved soil. Farmers like Ballabh are able to get better prices for their healthier farm produce. The result of these efforts is felt in several other villages in Karauli, such as Teen Pokhar, where farming conditions were adverse up until the recent past.

‘This land is your land’

While the transformation of previously degraded or abandoned land certainly benefits from the nourishing and rejuvenating initiatives that have been undertaken in these villages, another factor is central to this issue: land rights. When it comes to land rights, it’s the most marginalised sections of the farming communities that suffer. And this is evident from the ground reality in the Manikpur block of Chitrakoot district, Uttar Pradesh. 

Here, a large number of the Dalit and Kol tribe community households had been allotted land by the government in the 1950s–but under the feudal dominance of powerful landlords, they could not occupy it for several years. While some of this land was illegally encroached upon and cultivated by those in power, a lot of the other lands simply remained uncultivated. The people who had been awarded allotments were either not aware of the exact location of their plot, or were simply prevented from cultivating it. It’s also possible that the absence of proper irrigation systems had posed a hurdle, even if they wished to farm the land. Resultantly, a lot of land remained uncultivated.

While the transformation of previously degraded or abandoned land certainly benefits from the nourishing and rejuvenating initiatives that have been undertaken in these villages, another factor is central to this issue: land rights. When it comes to land rights, it’s the most marginalised sections of the farming communities that suffer.

It was only in the 1980s that Akhil Bharatiya Samaj Sewa Sansthan (ABSSS), a Chitrakoot-based voluntary organisation, came in. It mobilised the affected and took up advocacy with the government to demarcate and allocate land very clearly to the marginalised households. They followed up with several water conservation and minor irrigation efforts, creating check dams, tanks and other structures to make land available to these households, largely from Dalit and Kol tribal communities.

In this manner, not only did a lot of land become cultivable–adding to food production of the country– but this was also achieved on the farms of the poorest of the community; those most vulnerable to hunger. Their food security was also assured.

Also read: The fall of the Mathania Mirch in a thirsty desert

Co-operation and community

This change is also afoot at the household level. When this writer visited several such households in the Dalit and tribal community hamlets of villages like Harijanpur, Sukhrampur, Mangavaa and Tikariya in Uttar Pradesh, first-generation farmers spoke of how their food security had improved significantly after they started cultivating their own land. 

In the Talbehat block of Uttar Pradesh’s Lalitpur district, a stretch of nearly 150 acres had been left uncultivated due to lack of irrigation. It was abandoned with such little care that people were afraid to venture into this land after dark. However, owing to the efforts of village residents, the administration and a voluntary organisation named Parmarth, well-constructed check dams could provide much-needed irrigation—a boon for local farmers. 

Sarkunwar, an activist and mother local to the village, contributed significantly to this success by ensuring that the check dams built were of durable quality. In the Bamauri village of this block, a similar cooperative effort created enough irrigation potential that several farmers devoted themselves to cultivating their neglected land.

Efforts like these reveal the potential of reviving lands which had once been abandoned for any number of reasons. They also prove that there is no one-size-fits-all approach: different kinds of intervention may be needed to bring different lands under cultivation. 

It may seem more difficult to extend this outreach to the most affected and impoverished households, but this challenge should be taken up, because ultimately, when the goal is food security, it is the needs of the most vulnerable households that take precedence. Further, when voluntary organisations and local administrations have been able to work together, better results have been achieved.

Also read: India’s mushroom moment: Rural and urban farmers are betting on fungiculture

Impact at the margins

Stories of successful interventions aside, it is important to understand that not all land is suitable for crop cultivation. In such cases, the plot can still be made optimal for sustainable livelihoods by developing it as pasture and grazing land. 

In some places, including hilly areas, there is greater scope for promoting the growth of several indigenous species of trees. This can be carried out in cooperation with the marginalised and landless households; this makes it possible to then provide them with rights over the minor forest produce. Initially, they can be paid for the planting and protection work; soon enough, when the trees have grown, they can earn from collection of various minor farm produce. Additionally, they can also carry out some animal husbandry, dairy farming and intercropping activities.