True state of farming:

I have been trying hard to find time to write to many people who requested for farm visit and training in farming etc. Many customers have questions about organic farming and prices of organic products.

I trained under a few farming gurus in the USA and practiced professional farming herr before i started farming in India. I learned both eastern and western methods of farming in the last 13 years. I learned the hard way that farming is many times more difficult than the engineering job i used to do. I should say i got lucky. I put a lot of personal money at stake. Returns were hard to come by and competition and prices for what i grew were tough to meet. I did break-even in business but got farming wisdom and satisfaction as payment instead of financial profits.

In India the story is very similar. Farming is a much harder job. If the price of land is 5 lakhs an acre, its far far away from cities and price of land is 20 lakhs plus per acre in areas closer to cities such as 60 km from city edge.

You must be crorepathi to own land when located under 60 km away from city. This is sad because, those who want to farm may not have land and those who have land may not want to farm.

Finding Labor, knowledge of farming, operational cash-flow funding, groundwater, vehicle for transport of goods to city, Electricity to operate pumps, are the other challenges.

There is a huge array of brokers who buy from farmers and converted farming to a gambling business. The farmer never knows the end price of his product. Then how can he do farming ?? Please think about it. Farmer can get 5 rs kg or 15 rs kg or rarely 30 rs kg for a vegetable they grow. So how will the farmer survive ??

I advised that cooperatives must be formed to help farmers with fair and stable prices. Mapletree farm is one such cooperative. But we need many. I found some other FPOs doing it. But not enough. The question to ask is this. With so many odds set against the farmer, how will he survive?? Just think about it.

Some farmers, a brave few will survive. These difficult odds are the reason that only 40 percent of population are farmers now and most of them (67%) are women who toil in their own small land. India used to be a nation of farmers with 88 percent farmers.

Pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers are a huge problem. Even universities and government agencies recommend the usage of these toxins and the farmer and farmland will suffer because of chemicals and that suffering is guaranteed. Food farmed with chemicals is compared on prices with food made pure and sure. No comparison should be made at all.

Humus is the source of soil fertlity. Humus which is stable organic matter that will not decay for 250 to 3000 years is clearly what needs to be built in your soil. But chemicals will ruin the health of soil and that is guaranteed to end soil wealth.

Almost all farmers except a small percent of the country are using chemicals for farming. Many have already experienced the consequences of that. lost the fertility of their land and moved away from farming or changed to natural methods.
Those who are eating chemical based food also face health issues.

Those who are needed for farming are warriors. Baahubalis who can defy the odds set against them. Those who already own land have a small advantage. Only operational capital is needed by them. I encourage all to consider farming as a profession after fully understanding the facts and not consider farming as an escape from your current retirement boredom or a dead-end city job. Farming is very hard work and total absolute dedication. Serious knowledge is needed to do it properly. I am sure many are prepared. But we must tread carefully and not take too much risk before we jump in fully.

Training class for organic farming and dates will be announced soon for those interested in an immersion into organic farming.

Shankar, Lead farmer at Mapletree farm.