Ajayan, a poultry farmer from Palakakd speaks on the main issues in farming | Mannira

ഇറച്ചിക്കോഴി വളര്‍ത്തലിന്റെ വ്യവസായ സാധ്യതകളും പ്രതിസന്ധികളും മേഖലയിലെ സംരംഭകനായ അജയന്‍ 'മണ്ണിര'യോട് വിവരിക്കുന്നു.

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Stephen Cyril shares his experience on lake Karimeen Farming with Mannira

Lake Karimeen Farmer from Munroe Island Stephen Cyril shares his farming experience with Team Mannira. Read more: http://mannira.in/karimeen-farming/

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How to cultivate and utilise Malberry - Malberry farming in Tamilnadu

Malberry farmer from Tamilnadu explains the process of cultivation to Mannira.

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Mannira.in, an online Malayalam agricultural web portal launched to target Malayali readers across the world. The website aiming to feature farmers and various farming practices of India alongside bridging the gap between the diverse farmers and modern-farming.

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Chandra Mishra on agrarian crisis | Mannira Interview

Chandra Mishra, activist and campaigner for right employment policy (No Job No Vote) voice his opinion on various issues connected to India's agriculture sector. Read more: http://mannira.in/interview-chandra-m...

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Krishi Mela 2017 - Bangalore

Organised by University of Agricultural Sciences (Gandhi Krishi Vignan Kendra) in association with Government of Karnataka.

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[Part 1] Nelore: How a Telugu Cattle Breed Transformed Brazil

India is famous as the land of cattle. There are innumerable breeds of cattle to be found in South Asia. Some communities, such as upper caste Hindus and Jains consider the cow sacred (or taboo) and avoid its flesh at all costs. Others, like the Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims and Christians have no such compunctions. South Asian cattle, unlike their European counterparts, are the result of a separate domestication event. The former are known as ‘Indicine Cattle’ (Bos primigenus indicus) and are descendants of the South Asian subspecies of Auroch (Bos primigenus). The latter are called ‘Taurine Cattle’ (Bos primigenus taurus) and are descended from the Eurasian subspecies. The most widely used name for Indicine Cattle is Zebu.
Zebu breeds were imported from South Asia by a number of countries across the world in order to create new varieties, more suited to hot climates, with greater resistance to disease, the ability to survive on low quality fodder, and flourish without round-the-clock human supervision. In short, cattle that were tough and prolific in the tropics. Several breeds were shipped from the subcontinent to South America, Africa and Australia. But none managed the miracle that was achieved by a breed raised by the Telugu farmers of South India. I am talking about the Nelore or Ongole breed which triggered a revolution of sorts in Brazil.
‘Nelore’ is the name given to the breed by foreigners. It is derived from the name of the district (in the erstwhile Madras Presidency of British India) where the cattle were found – Nellore. I too hail from the city of Nellore (the administrative centre of the District). One of the ‘l’s in the name was lost over time, giving rise to the current spelling. In the country of its origin, they go by the name ‘Ongole’, after the Ongole Taluka (around the city of Ongole, 132 km north of Nellore), from where the best specimens were obtained. Like all Zebu breeds,  Ongoles have a hump on their shoulders. This is how a report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) describes the breed:

Like most livestock breeds around the world, the Ongoles take their name from the region of their main breeding area – the Ongole Taluka. Until 1904, this tract was in the Nellore District; hence the breed was called “Nellore” by foreigners. However, the natives always called them Ongole after the region in which they are predominantly bred.
There is no clear picture of the various stages that went into the making of this breed of cattle. Carvings of the Nandhi bull, which adorn Hindu Sivaite temples in India, bear a true resemblance to the Ongole. From this it can be seen that the characteristics of this breed were fairly fixed even at the beginning of recorded history.
The Ongoles are very fine and majestic-looking cattle, huge in size, extremely docile and suitable for steady, heavy draught. Their performance has been admirable under varying conditions and they are one of the most unique triple-purpose cattle of the tropics, serving well as draught, milk and meat animals. By virtue of their adaptability traits and superior productive capacity under harsh tropical conditions, they have been very much sought after and beneficial in tropical cattle production.
The best Ongoles in India have been bred in those parts where there has been no assured irrigation or commercial crops, leaving cattle raising as the only profitable proposition since, under these conditions, the dependence on crops or cultivation has not been economically viable. Instead, the Ongoles have brought income through the sale of young bull calves and ghee (clarified butter) made from their milk.

It also provides a clue about the importance of the breed to the local economy. Given below is an early British account of the variety:

The earliest published description of the Ongole cattle available is that in Short (1885). According to Dr John Short: “The breed of cattle from [Nellore] has also been long celebrated, not so much as draught cattle as for the milking qualities of the females, for which purpose Nellore cows are greatly esteemed-and fetch large prices.
A good specimen of the Nellore breed is a huge animal standing from 15 to 17 hands in height, with a noble but heavy look […] their power of draught and spirit of endurance are great, they are generally docile and slow in movements, and from their form and horns, are readily recognized. The horns are short and stumpy, barely 3 to 6 inches in length, and never, unless in exceptional instances, exceeding 12 inches – inclined outwards, tapering to a blunt point. Countenance, dull; eyes, large, prominent and heavy looking; face, short with greater breadth of forehead and muzzle, large lop ears; eyes, hoof and tail tuft, black; head, erect and well carried on a short stout neck rising over the withers into a huge hump which frequently inclines to one side; back, short and straight; tail, high and well set; a fair depth and width of chest; carcass, compact and solid looking, with a large dewlap; legs, clean but massive, straight and fairly apart to support the carcass; skin, fine and covered with soft, short hair; prevailing colour, white. From their docility, the nose string is seldom used. They are noble and handsome looking animals, but there is a tendency in the breed to grow tall and leggy with a spare light carcass. Their powers of draught are great, and when well bred they draw much heavier loads than most other breeds, from 1 500 to 2 000 pounds on a fair road. They are chiefly used for draught in carts and with the plough, their-weight and size being against their use as pack bullocks generally.
The cows, as has been said, are excellent milkers, some of them have been known to yield 18 quarts of good rich milk in 24 hours (a quart being equivalent to 24 ounces), and they rear a calf at the same time. The influence of this breed extends north as far as the Krishna District. The price of a first class cow is about 200 rupees, as much as 300 rupees have been paid for a prize cow. Bulls have been imported into other districts at 300 and 350 rupees each.”

No wonder then that Ongole livestock would soon make their way to other parts of the world. Their toughness, fecundity and productivity were unmatched, and Brazilian breeders were quick to exploit it. Specimens were shipped across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans to Brazil. The first known record of such a shipment dates back to 1868. Soon herds would be established in the states of Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais in the southest. From Brazil, the breed spread to the USA, Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, Paraguay and Argentina. Today, it is estimated that there are as many as 100 million Nelore Cattle in Brazil alone.

Reference:

• FAO
• Department of Animal Science, Oklahoma State University
• The Dairy Site
• The Times of India 

(This article was originally published in Keshav Vivek’s blog “Man Without a Past” on November 18, 2017.)
Also Read: [Part 2] Nelore: How a Telugu Cattle Breed transformed Brazil

[Part 2] Nelore: How a Telugu Cattle Breed Transformed Brazil

The Nelore/Ongole breed accounts for as many as 100 million heads of cattle in Brazil. This is evidence of the wholehearted way in which Brazilian farmers have embraced it. And there is an economic reason to its popularity. The Nelore’s great adaptability (to the country’s tropical climate) and productivity (in terms of beef output) has made it the cattle of choice. This is what the Associação dos Criadores de Nelore do Brasil (Association of Nelore Breeders of Brazil or ACNB), a non-profit organization formed in 1954 to promote Nelore Cattle, has to say about the history of the breed’s introduction and propagation in the Latin American country:

The trajectory that transformed the Indian Ongole in the Brazilian Nelore begins in the first half of the 19th century, when the first records of landings in the country of zebu Indians originating in India date. The story describes that the first appearance of the Nellore in the country would have occurred in 1868 when a ship, destined for England, anchored in Salvador with a couple of animals of the race on board. The animals would have been commercialized, remaining in the country.
Ten years later, in search of exotic animals to bring to Brazil, Manoel Ubelhart Lembgruber had contact with the Ongole breed during a visit to the zoo in Hamburg, Germany, and from there promoted the importation of a couple of animals of the breed in October of 1878. Subsequently, other items originating directly from India contributed in Rio de Janeiro. The Nelore breed was then expanding gradually, first in Rio de Janeiro and then in São Paulo and Minas Gerais. In 1938, with the creation of the Genealogical Record, the racial characteristics of the Nelore began to be defined.
The last two significant imports of Nelore breeding occurred between 1960 and 1962. During this period, large genera such as Kavardi, Goliath, Rastan, Checurupadu, Godhavari, Padu, and Kavardi were landed in Fernando de Noronha, where they were quarantined. Today, Brazil is estimated to have a herd of more than 200 million beef cattle and dairy cattle, of which 80% of beef cattle are Nelore, which is more than 100 million head. This is the portrait of a work that has worked, from the development of its own technological know-how and progressive gains of excellence in quality, naturally, in full harmony with the environment.
Brazilian Nelore, besides being considered today as a legally national heritage, such as carnival, football, caipirinha and barbecue, can be considered as the great victory of Brazilian beef. Healthy and natural meat, exported to more than 146 countries and increasingly demanded by savvy consumers around the world.

Today, Brazil is giving traditional beef-producers like Canada, the United States and Australia a run for their money. Bodies like the Association of Nelore Breeders of Brazil (with its headquarters in Sao Paulo) are working hard to bring together everybody involved in the business around a common goal (in their own words) – ‘to strengthen and defend a breed that represents 80% of the national herd’. The ‘Beef Magazine’ (one of USA’s leading cattle publications) had this to say about the role of Nelore Cattle in Brazil’s economy:

Brazil’s beef production systems and the type of beef it produces are worlds apart from that in the U.S. Nearly all beef in Brazil is grass-finished, and there’s virtually no use of growth hormones or ionophores. About 65% of Brazil’s beef cattle genetics are Nelore-based, and 85% are Nelore-influenced. Nelore is a Bos indicus species closely linked to India’s ancient breed of Ongole cattle, says Sandra Carreiro, Campo Grange, Mato Grosso, Brazil. She’s a genetics veterinarian with Sete Estrelas Embriões, one of Brazil’s leading Nelore genetics producers. “Nelore is the ideal breed in the harsh climatic, nutritional and sanitary conditions we see in the tropics because of their hardiness and rustling ability,” she says. 
There’s little disagreement, too, that Nelore matches the recent shift toward a low-calorie, leaner-meat diet, without compromising taste. This was demonstrated at the 1991 Houston Livestock Show when a purebred Nelore steer won the “Best Overall in Taste” contest while competing against dozens of hybrid and European steers. But, what Nelore beef gains in performance under tropical conditions, and taste and leanness, it sorely lacks in consistency and tenderness.
Pound for pound, Brazil’s beef production costs are a third to a half those of American ranchers, and 15% lower than in Australia, according to USDA’s ERS. Brazil’s second-world, beef productivity surfaces, though, in factors like average age at slaughter, which is 30-36 months, and carcass yields of only about 50-55%. Undoubtedly, Brazil is one of the most competitive countries worldwide in animal protein production. And, with the absence of U.S. and Canadian beef in South Asian markets for what could be all of 2004, those markets could open further to Brazil at the expense of Australia and New Zealand.

That there are Brazilians who see the Nelore as one of the cultural symbols of the country (alongside the likes of the Carnaval celebrations, the Selecao or national football team, the Caipirinha, an extremely popular cocktail, and Churrasco, traditional grilled meat from the south), and Americans who consider it to be a game-changer in the global beef export business speaks volumes about the impact the breed had on the land that adopted it. The irony of the situation is that the Nelore/Ongole is dying out in the land of its birth. While Brazil has as many as 100 million of them, there are only 200,000 of them in India.

The decline has a lot to do with the actions of the Union (based in Delhi, in North India) and State Govt.s and the communities that have dominated them (traditionally conservative, upper caste groups that formed South Asia’s ruling clans, priesthood and mercantile networks). These people have supplied the great majority of India’s ministers (including most of the country’s Prime Ministers and members of their Cabinets), bureaucrats and researchers. This has had a devastating impact on animal husbandry in particular (where people with little knowledge of the country’s agrarian systems and a contemptuous attitude towards lower caste pastoralist, farming and artisanal groups, have directed policies). According to several reports, traditional Zebu breeds like Ongole are declining rapidly due to short-sighted (and mostly, religiously inspired) decisions. More about that later.

Reference:

• Associação dos Criadores de Nelore do Brasil
• The Hans India
• BEEF Magazine
• The Wire

(This article was originally published in Keshav Vivek’s blog “Man Without a Past” on November 18, 2017.)
Also Read: [Part 1] Nelore: How a Telugu Cattle Breed transformed Brazil

Winter is Coming, and so are the Hilsa

Europeans and North Americans have their Salmon. South Asians have their Hilsa (as the fish is known to English-speaking Indians), or to be more precise, Ilish (Assamese, Odiya and Bengali), Pulasa (Telugu), Ullam (Tamil), Valava (Malayalam), Polasa (Kannada), Palva (Marathi and Gujarati), and Pallo (Sindhi and Punjabi). Farther afield, the fish is known as Ngathalauk in Myanmar, and Sabur in Iran and Iraq.
This anadromous (fish that migrate upriver, from salt water to fresh water, in order to breed) species is common in the northern half of the Indian Ocean, in a belt stretching from Kuwait in the West to Vietnam in the East. And in many of these countries, it is considered a delicacy on account of its rich, oily flesh. Hilsa were and are harvested in large quantities every winter as they make their way to spawning grounds (in rivers feeding the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Bay of Bengal).
This happens mostly in the aftermath of the Southwest Monsoon (from July to September). The adults are filter-feeders, surviving on a diet of plankton which they capture using their gill rakers. Their scientific name is Tenualosa ilisha and they are members of the genus Tenualosa which has a total of five recognized species (Tenualosa macrura, Tenualosa reevesii, Tenualosa thibaudeaui, and Tenualosa toli apart from the Hilsa). They are called ‘Shad’ or ‘Herring’ and are members of the herring family (Clupeidae).
The Clupeidae are a very important food fish, renowned for their oily flesh that is consumed by humans, fed to livestock (as protein supplements) and turned into fertilizer. The family is distinguished by its appearance (fusiform bodies covered by shiny scales) and habits (shoaling in large numbers to catch plankton and evade larger oceanic predators). Among the Hilsa’s distant cousins are such famous species as the Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii), the Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) and the European Pilchard (Sardina pilchardus).
My people, the Telugus of South India, love their fish as much as any people with a maritime culture. And they too value the Pulasa (the Telugu name for the fish). Telugu fishermen wait for the adult fish to ascend the Krishna and the Godavari (the two great rivers of Telugu country) after the monsoons. The catch (increasingly rare, on account of over-fishing, pollution and the construction of dams across rivers used by the Hilsa for spawning) is sold at exorbitant prices (upto Rs. 4,000 per kg, compared to a kg of silver coming at Rs. 40,000) to star hotels and wealthy buyers.
‘Pulasa Pulusu’ is a Telugu specialty involving slow-cooking the fish with okra, tamarind juice, mango pickle and jaggery into a delectable curry. However, even the Telugus are nothing compared to their northern neighbors, the Bengalis (of West Bengal and Bangladesh) when it comes to elevating its preparation to an art form. Hilsa has become a cultural symbol of the Bengali nation. It is to be found not only in their ritual offerings and festival platters but also in their folktales and news reports. Such is the demand for Ilish among the Bengalis that a sizable amount of the fish caught in Andhra Pradesh are sent to Kolkata.
Given below is an excerpt from The Hindu newspaper’s article on Telugu fishermen preparing for the arrival of the fish (‘As winter sets in, Hilsa begins migration to Krishna’), dated November 6, 2017:

As the winter has just begun, the famed Hilsa Ilisa fish has started migration from Bay of Bengal to river Krishna, leaving the local fishermen to run after it. The Hilsa’s population is abundant in the Godavari during the early monsoon. Sensing that the Hilsa has started the annual migration to the confluence point of river Krishna into Bay of Bengal, the fisherfolk have intensified their search for the prized catch on the engine boats. Eelachetladibba, an island near the Krishna confluence point in Nagayalanka mandal, has become the prime destination to catch the Hilsa. Venturing into the sea, the local fishermen have been celebrating the day’s catch of Hilsa since one week at the river confluence point, despite they were being forced to wait to get it in their nets. The present price of the Hilsa is between Rs. 400 and Rs. 500 per kilogram in Krishna district, from where it is being exported to West Bengal.

Image Attribution: The image above, sourced from Wikimedia Commons, shows an illustration of the Hilsa from the ‘The Fishes of India, Vol 2’ by Francis Day (1829-1889). Day, an army surgeon posted in the Madras Presidency played a pioneering role in South Asian ichthyology, describing more than three hundred fishes in a two volume work – The Fishes of India. The image is dated to 1878.
Reference:

• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
• FishBase
• The Hindu
• The Wall Street Journal
• The Fishes of India Vol 1
• The Fishes of India Vol 2

(This article was originally published in Keshav Vivek’s blog “Man Without a Past” on November 06, 2017.)

How Kudumbashree Redeemed the Fallen Agrarian Angels as Agripreneurs

All was serene and good in Eden until Lilith, the first woman of the human race, according to Jewish folklore, made by god along with Adam, the first man from clay, ceased to be subservient to her male partner and claimed equal rights over the resourceful haven of Eden. Eventually, she was evicted from Eden as a punishment for her insolence and she became an ally of the angel of sin. The folklore, which hints at the paradise loss of the first woman, also points at the deep-rooted connection between gender equality, land ownership and corresponding socio-economic inclusion. Over thousands of years, after the human race started sowing seeds and reaping the harvest, agriculture has drawn a gender-based timeline that tells the story of how the womenfolk got rid of their control and ownership over land and the overall agrarian cultural process. Even though the story runs with different wavelengths in various parts of the world, it shares a common characteristic of gender based exclusion of women from ownership of land and the agency of agrarian entrepreneurship.
On the majority of the nations where the rural and national economy depends on a great deal of agriculture, women as labour force form the backbone of the agrarian institution. Despite the important roles they are playing as a cheap and dependable labour force, small-scale farmers and sellers, their access and control over all land and productive resources are shackled and minimal.
In societies like Kerala, this disparity widened the already existed gender gap and restricted women within the confinements of gender roles predefined by patriarchal society. This disastrous social development caused an overarching threat to food security, poverty and gender inequality. Kerala’s system of matrilineal kinship indeed provided certain social status and control for women in certain communities over their land, but a majority of women from other backward communities were excluded from this privilege, and their potential was channelized as a cheap labour force. The fall of the matrilineal system in the early twentieth century and historic twists and turns that followed, women were restricted as the mere labourers who didn’t have any control or agency over the economic institution formed around agriculture.
Kerala has been hailed for its womenfolk’s social status and comparatively high standard of living, nevertheless, these factors didn’t assure women’s control over land and access to critical agricultural resources, which is crucial when it comes to the entrepreneurial aspects of agriculture in the corporatised world. The alarming gap in control and ownership of land is the decisive factor of gender gap evident in the socio-economic lives of women, and in turn retards the empowerment potential of the womenfolk. Owing to the socio-economic and political forces, women as independent farmers are yet to consider as a common state of entrepreneurship, both in Kerala and other Indian states.
Kudumbashree, a poverty alleviation program initiated by the Government of Kerala in 1998 has significantly changed the scenario and prompted a paradigm shift in the complex, unbalanced, socio-economic, gender equations prevailed in the state of Kerala.

Kudumbashree have been started addressing this socioeconomic disparity at the core through its collective farming initiatives and “Samagra” projects from 2004. The formation of Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) according to the guidelines of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and availing agricultural credit from various banking institutions became the key strategic moves that solved the problem of exclusion from economic institution to a certain level. These radical changes were implemented with the help of Panchayath Raj Institutions (PRIs) and strengthened from the roots with the farming subsidy from the government. The result was a visible increase in agricultural production, retrieval of uncultivated fertile land and, more importantly, incorporation of women with the economic institution which was generally patriarchal in nature.
The collective farming initiatives that turned women as farmers instead of the cheap labour force for agriculture was not just confined to paddy fields. The movement gathered momentum and self-help groups ventured into cultivation of various items like pineapple, bananas, amaranthus, snake gourd, bitter gourd, cowpea, bottle gourd, watermelon, ginger, lady’s finger, brinjal, tapioca, ridge gourd, chilli, coconut, and cashew. The initiative encouraged groups of women to take uncultivated land for lease and employ their own labour force and other resources, a bold move that brought in considerable self-sufficiency within the groups and increased the potential entrepreneurial capacity of the members. The groups have also been liaising with private firms to found buyback arrangements of the harvest and deal directly with the consumer end without the interference of middlemen.
Many of the groups are working in a professional manner by making use of advanced training in farming equipment and machinery, conducting soil surveys and applying advanced pest management practices.

Kudumbashree’s collective farming initiatives and women’s self-help groups are transgressing the scopes and limits of the often used word “woman empowerment,” and these women are carving out their own space in the economic institution of the state, which is increasingly becoming consumeristic in the agrarian sector. Kudumbashree’s emphasis on the term “women farmers” has far-reaching implications in the socioeconomic strata. The strategic move enables women from backward classes of the society to upgrade their position from farm labourers to farmers and reap the benefits on the first hand. The trend also contributes a great deal to the food security of the state and its much-disputed disparities in land reforms. Along with the support of labour force provided by National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Kudumbashree units reclaimed the agency of decision making for women in the male-dominated areas like farming sector, a giant leap considering historic imbalances and the gender gap.
While the Jewish folklore of Lilith can reread as a story of a woman’s struggle to retain her identity and dignity at the cost of the Eden, the Kudumbashree success story can be read as the women’s collective struggle to recoup control over land and decision-making power over cultivation, which eventually incorporates them with the agrarian economic sphere of God’s own country.