The changing face of farming
By: K S S Pillai
When I recently visited my wife’s village, I was taken aback by the changes that had taken place there.
Her house was on the edge of a paddy field. A narrow canal used to flow fast through the middle of the field. Its water was clear, and there were several small fishes in it chasing one another in a frolicking mood.
The water was used for irrigating the crops–paddy twice and black sesame once a year. The air was filled with fragrance when the crops were in bloom. It was pleasant to walk through the field when the yellow paddy crop, ready for harvest, swayed in the gentle breeze.
The farmers were not very rich. They never got their soil tested or used chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They followed natural farming. Most households had cows and some even bullocks for ploughing the field. There was a cowshed near the main house for keeping these animals.
As food was cooked on hearths, the ashes left after that used for cleaning utensils were stored separately. The dung mixed with ashes and the green leaves of pruned trees were the main fertilizers used. All the farm work was done manually by the labourers. When the field was ploughed, flocks of storks followed the ploughman to devour worms exposed in the upturned soil.
At the end of every day, bundles of straw with paddy at the end were carried to the compound of the farmer and kept separately. When the entire field was harvested, labourers would thresh the bundles with their feet by holding on to a horizontal bamboo tied about four feet from the ground. Straw would be spread in the sun for drying. A part of the harvested paddy was given to them as wages.
Straw, the chief food of cows and bullocks, was stacked in the compound in haystacks that did not allow rainwater to enter them. Traditional houses, built with carved wood and thatched roofs, had a separate room called ‘nilavara’ for storing paddy.
Most compounds had several coconut trees. Their nuts were harvested every alternate month by the traditional climbers of the village. The children would ask them to get some tender coconuts for them. Their sweet water would be drunk with relish, and the tender kernel eaten with jaggery.
All dry leaves would also be plucked for use as fuel in the hearth. The tree-climber was also given a percentage of the harvested nuts as wages.
Every compound had cashew trees and several mango trees of local varieties. Their flowering season would coincide with the summer vacation in schools and colleges. Mangoes of some trees would be kept in large Chinese jars in salt water for use throughout the year.
Tender mangoes from certain trees would be pickled. The womenfolk would prepare tasty dishes using the kernels of unripe cashew nuts. When the fruits ripened, the trees would be full of reddish cashew apples with grey nuts at the end. Crows and squirrels had their fill of cashew apples during the day.
Bats, who would suck the apples dry before dropping them to the ground along with the nuts, had the monopoly on the trees at night. Children would get up early in the morning and pick up the nuts in the light of kerosene lamps. These nuts would be sold to vendors visiting each house.
Everything has changed now. Modern houses have replaced the old ones. Cowsheds and the livestock have disappeared. Compounds are bereft of trees. With the daily wages of even unskilled labour hovering around a thousand rupees, farming has become a money-losing proposition, forcing many to leave their farmland uncultivated. At many places the field has been divided into small plots and sold to homeless people for constructing houses. The canal, encroached upon at many places, has no water.
Most tree climbers have abandoned their trade. Their place has now been taken over by the ‘guest workers’ mainly from West Bengal and Bihar, who charge for climbing each tree irrespective of the number of nuts harvested. As a result, those with few trees have stopped availing of their services, preferring the nuts to fall when they are dry.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have appeared in several Indian and overseas publications)
KV News
