I visited the Raita Kendra in Chikballapur as part of the reseach on Samudaya Jnana Kendras for Karnataka Jyana Aayoga. This was a special kendra as opposed to the others across the State as it was part of a pilot project of computerising the Kendras.
When I was there, I was lucky to witness a meeting, or training as they called it. There were about 50 farmers from different age groups at this meeting.
At this meeting, the dynamics between the government (represented by the bureaucracy of the area) and the farmers was quite interesting. The government kept stressing to the farmers that they were the most knowledgeable about their own land. They (the government bureaucrats) were positioned only as a support agency. I thought this was a rather interesting strategy as the government is aware that this could be the only way of actually getting the farmers to listen to them.
As my previous experiences have largely been with the education sector and especially with their computer programmes, I am used to seeing centres which are called computer graveyards (where computers are either outdated or not working). It was refreshing to see a government space very neatly maintained and organised. It brings me back to how in the education programme we keep mentioning that once computers are seen to be valuable in teaching-learning processes, they will be well maintained as well. It is obvious that the Raita Kendra is well maintained as it has seeds and fertilisers which are very valuable to the farmers. Farmers no longer keep their own seeds. They always buy new ones from the Kendra. This was a shock to me and it stressed the deep dependence that the farmers were now forced to have with the government as they had to come often to buy seed.
Coming back to the meeting, a lot of questions were asked to the farmers on how much they grew, how much they think would grow with the help of the fertilisers that the government provides at subsidised costs. Different prices, figures of crop growth, ratio of fertilisers, etc. were rattled off. However, none of the farmers were writing this down. It made me think, how do they record these things (if they do at all), what was the non-writing method involved. It made me think about how much emphasis we usually give to formal education while there are livelihoods where it may not be needed.
At the meeting, there were different generations of farmers. The representatives of the government motivated the elders, as well as the young farmers to be part of the scheme. There were slogans shouted suggesting that without the farmer, the country could not progress. The elders also agreed that they are not leaving behind children money but definitely giving them land and there was a lot they could do with it.
I felt that this kind of motivation was rather bleak when one looks at what is happening to the state of agriculture in the country. The fact that even the seed of the farmer does not belong to her/him shows how 'development' has taken away what is rightly theirs. Dependence on pesticides and fertilisers and such strong propaganda from the government towards it also shows how we are moving away from traditional methods of farming towards the ideas of the Green Revolution. And lastly I wonder how many of these farmers families had seen suicides because of the various new age schemes by our Government.
Krittika