A popular story that has been
going around the rural governance circles in Vidarbha over the past few years
is that there are a few families of immigrant farmers originating from southern
Andhra Pradesh, now settled in and around Mouda and able to extract crop
harvest far better than the local farmers.
On 30th October 2011 Dr. Srihari Chava and I went to Tarsa
village is about 45 kms from Nagpur in the Mouda Tehsil. We reached Tarsa at
about 4 pm and enquired about the Sarpanch. Unfortunately he was at Nagpur and
so we met his brother Shri Sridhar Lohabare. Sridhar is a full time farmer
looking after all the family land, we asked him about his activities, earnings,
as well as about the yield extracted by the Andhra farmers. He said that while
he was able to draw a harvest of about 30 bags of Paddy per acre, the Andhra
farmers draw about 40 to 45 bags of Paddy per acre and earned much better. He
explained that the Andhra farmers used more pesticides and fertilizers and get
better results while the local farmers were unsure about the results
considering the higher cost of such inputs.
We then requested him to
introduce us to one such Andhra farmer and therefore he took us to Banor
village to meet one Shri Muppaneni Venkateshwar Rao, a progressive farmer,
owner of significant tracks of land, various agricultural machineries and a
rice mill. His story was very fascinating; his father, uncles and aunts were
five brothers, two sisters when they under their grandfather migrated in the
year 1962 from a place known as Malturu Mandalam in Prakashan District of
Andhra Pradesh. His grandfather sold all their very fertile land of about 3 or
4 acres for Rs. 5,000/- and moved to Pentakampa village in Bodhan Taluka of
Nizamabad District. They stayed there for two years but could not find suitable
place to settle the entire family. During that time some Andhra farmers were
buying land in Maharashtra and his Grandfather visited this place, got in touch
with a broker called Vermaji of Nagpur who showed him some land. The
Grandfather like it and decided to buy about 10 acres in Mouda for the simple
reason that it was near the Khindsi River. The land was not level, covered by
trees and the river was rain fed. The family worked very hard, faced some very
tough times. During draught years there would be no agricultural activity and
his father and uncles worked as labour cutting and carrying stone quarry on
their backs and clearing forests. In those days there were no proper roads and
during rains the whole area got inundated knee deep in water. Going from one
place to another was mainly by foot and took a lot of time. After 1982 when the
Totladoh project got inaugurated and Pench River waters got diverted through
the many irrigation canals which were constructed, the scenario for agriculture
improved. After this many more farmers migrated to this region from places like
Godavari District, Guntur District, etc.
The reasons why the Andhra
farmers were able to get better yield than the local farmers was explained by
him;
a) The
local farmers were imprisoned by traditional thinking like excess fertilizers
should not be used;
b) The
Andhra farmers had migrated from some very strong agricultural regions like the
Godavari basin and had ideas, techniques, and knowledge which not known to the
local farmers;
c) Any
new fertilizer, seeds or other input which came up in the southern states like
Andhra and Karnataka were immediately introduced by the Andhra farmers in this
region and the local farmers had no idea about it;
d) New
machinery like tractor and harvester were first introduced by the Andhra
farmers and not by the local farmers;
e) The
local farmers were comparatively lazy and not so hard working as the Andhra
farmers;
f) The
Andhra farmers worked hard to level the fields which were sloping towards one
side which helped to conserve water;
g) After
irrigation became regular the Andhra farmers worked hard to reduce the height
of the borders thereby more land was made available for farming.
This Muppaneni family has come a
long way since 1964-65 when they purchased about 10 acres. Today the entire
family owns and tills more than 100 acres of agricultural land, operate a 2 ton
capacity rice mill, and run other machinery like trucks, tractors, harvesters,
cars, etc. The Grandfather was the first generation in migration, his five sons
and two daughters were the second generation who were born in Andhra but raised
in Maharashtra. They lived and studied in Maharashtra and have added another 20
children over the years (one of them being Shri Muppaneni Venkateshwar Rao who
has studied up to the 12 STD from Porwal collage) which are the third
generation in this migration success story. The next generation is also born in
Maharashtra but most of whom are studying in schools and colleges in Vijaywada
and Guntur Districts of Andhra.
A couple of disturbing matter
that he shared was one that, NTPC is constructing a Thermal Power Plant on very
fertile and irrigation fed agricultural land very near to his land while there
are rain fed land not very far away at Tiroda village. The effects of the
thermal power plants will be severe on the agricultural activities in the
neighborhood. Second farm labour is migrating to urban areas and there are no
good hands available to work with. They work less hours, are less productive
but expect more pay as per government norms.
Shri Sridhar Lohabare shared that
the Andhra farmers have been living in this region for nearly fifty years now
and have contributed in the growth and development of the region. They do not
dabble in local politics and restrict themselves only to their work. The Andhra
farmers help and support their own people unlike the local who try to pull each
other down. The local farmers have always been playing ‘catching up’ with them
in terms of yield and productivity. However the government agriculture
department is not very useful when it comes to providing fresh techniques and
knowledge. The officials of the department do not involve themselves whole heartedly
in agriculture and their productivity is also less compared to the Andhra
farmers.
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