Land and Agriculture

Land Development and Agriculture amongst Indigenous Communities in NBR

Land amongst Adivasi communities in the Nilgiris is a shared asset. Community lands earlier used for shifting cultivation, were extensive and a glimpse of that can only be seen in Aracode region now. Most villages had something called `KuttaPatta’ issued by the then Kamraj government, which `settled’ these villages. All KuttaPattas were given in the name of the village headman. Internally the community divided the land according to which family was doing millet cultivation and how much they could clear. This was based on understating and discussion. Later, when tea and coffee started coming to these Adivasi areas, the family land and boundaries became more solidified, divided by family and passed on from one generation to another.

Shifting cultivation is banned in the Nilgiris since the 1060s and all current Irula and Kurumba villages have verified boundaries. There were 2 `illegal’ settlements which have now got legalised – SengalPudur and Anil Kadu. Some land continues to be under dispute and needs to be legalised.

What were the origins of the project & how did the programme unfold

We were sitting in Semmanarai with the honey gatherers and chatting about different things and the topic of consuming honey came up. “Honey with Keeraipori is our favourite food” said Andi and we dug more into this statement. Keeraipori? Where did that come from?

Simultaneously, we had made some inroads in the honey world – their methods of post harvest had been improved and to give them a higher price we had already started buying honey and bees wax. The meagre profits from the honey sales were used to pay medical bills of seriously ill adivasi people. Soon our office was streaming with `health cases’ and we started a link with the Kotagiri Medical Fellowship hospital. Doctors there used to be shocked at the low blood counts of our people – 3-8 especially amongst women. How are they walking and working?

This was the reason to start probing more with the villages where we worked about their food, diets and traditional ways of eating. Stories of woe and melancholic memories of by-gone days engulfed us – so much had changed in their lives. Kurumba and Irula people all over seasonally grew millets and a mix of many crops. Colloquially called `Tenai Kadu’, this field had atleast 10-15 different varieties of millets, vegetables, spices growing in one season. All the family food needs were met through this and food from the forest – yams and tubers, small game, honey and larvae, fish, greens etc. The fields were cleared together, there were sowing festivals, guarding fields together and eating roasted corn was a norm, harvest rituals and storing grain was all a community activity. Traditional leaders, Mannukarans and elders governed communities for this every season – but all this was lost and so were the seeds, the culture and the younger generation did not even know the taste of this food.

In 1998, we went in the search of seeds with Subramani, now a leader in Hasanur. In the hills of Palamalai, people still grew millets in 7 remote villages. We got seeds from there and then started the revival of millet cultivation. Small experiments in Semmanarai led the way, to large scale growing in Vagapanai. The word spread fast amongst our people and the demand for seeds, land clearing and marking boundaries grew. We started seed banks – so that every grain multiplied into many and people from all over started bringing small number of seeds to revive the old traditions. All land we thought was fallow, suddenly got covered with crops, millets and boundary trees. The village headman, Rangasamy from Banglapadigai used to come to our office every week to invite us to his village to work there. We did go and got introduced to the Aracode area – the most backward, poor and remote region of our district. There was no honey gathering here, but land and agriculture was the mainstay. Large areas were taken up for millet cultivation and seed exchange was profuse, with the bank being at Samaigudal.

These were the days of Veerappan, the Special task Force was everywhere in the forest. We were accused of reviving millet cultivation to grow food for Veerappan! He had local support and it was quite difficult to convince the government and police that our program was for the peoples’ health and nutrition. For some years we had to carry a letter to go toVagapanai.

Keystone was known as `people who oppose tea’ – for us, this was just a green desert – no flowers, no bees, no diversity and an economy governed by the commodity market. Kurumba and Irulas, with whom our work was concentrated – usually had coffee with a large number of trees. The diversity was higher and people still got some food from a coffee area – Jackfruit, vegetables, guava, etc. Though cash incomes were more regular in tea cultivation, it was not improving the situation of the people.

Land was anyway in short supply, 30% adivasi were landless and the rest had been settled with 2-3 acres of land per family, shifting cultivation was banned. The land classification was unclear with often boundary problems, disputes with forest areas and estates. We were deeply involved in each village case – how could we help ensure some tenurial security to these people?

Land dispute and court case – Banglapadigailand was under legal threat from the closeby estate Shajbas. Competing claims to the land were made by the people and estate. It led to some violence and many of the newly planted coffee on their land was uprooted by estate goons. Finally, it went to court and police was involved. We consulted B.J. Krishnan our legal advisor and won the plea. All the families from Banglapadigai appeared in full force.

Crop raiding by elephants was one of the biggest deterrents to millet cultivation. Earlier people lived on their lands in huts made of bamboo and mud. With government aided housing `line housing’ became the new norm with facilities like drinking water, road etc. Guarding the fields at night had become uncommon with the onslaught of tea and coffee. Millet cultivation, or vegetables, banana or anyother food crop had to be guarded at night, with no guarantee that people could ward off the herds of elephants. Several times millet fields were destroyed across the Nilgiri landscape and one year the rid on Banglapadigai farms caused extensive damage. This followed by 3 years of drought and the interest in millet cultivation declined substantially.

With these experiences, some opinions and facts at hand, we applied for a project on sustainable agriculture and land development. The main changes/issues we thought we could address were:

Large landscape is phasing out cultivation of Food grains, pulses, cereals changing towards cultivation of maize for cattle feed companies- which incorporate large scale induction of GM seeds, chemical inputs as fertilizer & pesticides, huge loan debits.
The natural, traditional food diversity, crops and plants are disappearing in fast scale
Tribal traditional lands have cultivable rights or forest settlements, lack of land records and limiting to access to government schemes, therefore traders lending seeds, fertilizers and cash loan to as opportunist.
The crop change practice brings in undesirable developments, loosing cultural and social cohesiveness
Large scale commercial crop pattern put effect their local cattle rearing practices-local livestock breed maintenances, breeding techniques, castration, bullock grain thrashing etc. Also growing cattle fodder and related knowledge
vanishing of traditional craftsmanship-making plough, agriculture implements ,postharvest tools, grain storing techniques, seed preservation techniques, The consumption of grain in their food is decreasing with all age groups has malnutrition effect especially with women and children.
As the grain, pulses, and cereal’s cultivation scares the diversity of traditional seeds become lowering and in contrast the hybrids seed are coming in.
Government policy: Satyamangalam forest division is one of the largest NTFP resource bowl and traditionally the village communities were dependent on this resource as income avenues for six months besides their traditional farming. This resource avenue is denied by the forest officials due to recent conversion of reserve forest into wild life/tiger reserve.

The traditional cattle rearing, grazing rights, fodder collection, cattle pen/camping (patty system) become null and void which one of their prime property.

These above issues/trend are common across the Irula tribal living regions like Sigur, Pillur and Hasanur. These are primarily rain fed agricultural regions in Nilgiri Biosphere.
Status of health and nutrition, especially adivasi women and children
Status of adivasi land – fallow, no clear boundaries and encroachments
Their wage based economy – no self sustenance
Long periods of unemployment-seasonality in NTFP collections

Ms. V. Gandhimati was heading the Inter Cooperation programme in India and came to our villages to review our proposal. She had a vision for agriculture, herself from a farming background and pioneering the organic agriculture movement in Tamil Nadu with the famous, Nammalwar. That started a long and enduring relationship with IC (later it became SDC-IC) which addressed land issues, crop diversity, organic agriculture, soil and moisture conservation, participatory systems and networking. Keystone became a partner of the SDC/IC NGO programme since 2000, and has worked in a total 14 tribal villages of Coonoor and Kotagiri regions, for sustainable land development.

Through the next 11 years, many roleplayers were involved in building up the programme, expanding the area and developing new techniques and ideas in the field. The people had a high motivation and enthusiasm for this work – not only was it impacting their land, incomes, nutrition but was bringing to the fore many land tenure issues and reviving traditions/culture. Kurumba leaders Rasu, Mahalingamand amongst the women, Janaki and Maadi were constantly motivating their people. Vagapanai village leader, Subramani, played a crucial role in this work. Coonoor area villages had traditional lands in PudurKombei and KaavalKombei. Marking these was essential for the people, and later this would be claimed under the FRA.

The work expanded to other areas of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve namely, Sigur, Pillur and Hasanur and there the strategies used were different. The terrain was different and so were the people and their traditions. After the funded SDC-IC project finished, we already had some revolving funds in place and were part of the Using Diversity network. A national network devoted to crop diversity, traditional agriculture and wild and uncultivated foods, membership for us helped to continue the essential things like seed exchanges, documentation, promotion through food/seed festivals and networking with other organisations doing similar work in India. An important research study under the SANFEC project gave new insights into tribal landuse and its environmental, economic, socio-cultural aspects.

There is no comparison to interventions which can last over a period of time, have scale and support to show lasting results. Some elements of these interventions may fade away, but others remain in the internal and external changes it brings. Some of the largest changes could be felt in the culture and tradition domains and the highest importance was given to revival of Tenaikadu.

Millet Revival – traditional agriculture

UnnaveMarandu– Food is medicine. Our land our food – these words captured the need to revive traditional agriculture. 15 villages, 600 acres and 344 families was the count in 2011. Armoured with 3 seed banks and resources deployed for land clearing – the spread of millets took place. The lands abandoned for years were full of primary vegetation, overgrown with seeghai mull and some trees. People usually followed the slash and burn technique and soon after, burning the land was full of ash, tree stumps and some stone bunds. With this revival, and in conjunction with the Culture and People programme there were many food festivals, recipe competitions and introduction of this food to the younger generation of adivasis. Women in several villages started complaining about more work with millet. Along with their wage work, they did not have time to pound the millet to de-husk it. Leo worked hard to see how a simple machine could do this work. We approached TNAU and got some ideas which were then taken to a manufacturer in Coimbatore and the first millet de-husking machine was used successfully. The network partners also benefitted from this innovation and machines were sent to different part of the country.

Today, millet cultivation is done by farmers themselves when they get a good season and when the land has revived after 2-3 years of cultivation. Leaving land fallow for a few years is common in these areas.

Coffee and high value spices

All lands in the Coonoor and Kotagiri areas could not have been converted for millet cultivation, there was already coffee plantations done in Konnavakari, Aracode and the small land holdings of Coonoor. Here the farmers took up a mixed cropping of coffee, fruit and spices with the only timber silver oak. Silver Oak was introduced by the British as part of tea plantations and till today it is the only tree that can be sold as timber, after taking permission from the Forest Department. Adivasi communities often used these trees like `fixed deposit’ that could be cut when in need. Usually trees came handy for marriages, education fees for higher studies, etc.

Over the 11 years of the project by SDC-IC we raised more an average of 100,000 plants per year. Identifying lands, water sources and setting up nurseries was an important and done by the people themselves. Training on nursery raising, making the right pepper cuttings, lime, areca, silver oak were all grown in the village and planted on individual lands. After a few years we started including more NTFP species too – Dhupa, Nellikai need special mention here.

Soil and Moisture Conservation

All the lands we worked with were covered with trenches and bunds. A way to bind moisture, prevent erosion on high slopes, build mulch in the trenches. Over time, soil depth and quality improved in these farms drastically.

Organic agriculture

Another element of the project, which opposed the current trends in Nilgiris – one of the highest chemical fertilisers and pesticide users in the state. Organic practices were learnt through a network of organisations supported by IC. Kudumbam was the leader, with their Koulinji farm in Puddukottai. All our staff learnt from Nammalvar and other practitioners. Many farmer visits, and exchange learnings were organised. Panchakavya, Dasakavya and Poochiveratti were household names. P.Chandran, Nagaraj, Shivaraj, MC all learnt these and taught a large number of farmers. Later after the IC project was over, The Nilgiri District authorities also recognised the importance of organic agriculture and Aracode got schemes from them.

Kitchen Gardens

This was an important element of the programme. Leo always had seeds in his pocket. Women were specially involved in building these small vegetable patches behind the house. Some Irula women were especially interested and maintained seeds. Important intervention for health and nutrition of the family.

Revolving funds

As the funded programme was closing, each area had a revolving fund account. Some contribution from the farmers and some from the project together made this fund. One signatory from the community and one from the project staff were signatories. This was done to ensure continuity of the work post funding. Later, the 3 year consecutive drought and bad debts from the farmers saw these funds dwindle. Some of them are still lying unused.

Technologies

Several technologies were tried during these years in the project. Grass and leaf cutting machine to make compost was set up in Banglapadigai. However, dehusking machine for millets was our success story. There were no examples of this machine in India then. TNAU Agriculture Engineering and Leo worked to develop a prototype, which became successful. Many models were developed after that and when millets became more popular and mainstream markets started selling them, these machines became sophisticated. Keystone passed on this technology to many other tribal areas and it is still in demand amongst many partners in the UD project.

Later, post funded project, TNAU and ICAR gave some machines to the Hasanur Centre for trials and for collecting data while using it at large scale. Improvements on this will be constantly necessary.

Participatory Methodology

All through the programme PRA methods and exercises were done for communities to document crop diversity, seed varieties, soil varieties, etc. Project Monitoring and Evaluation was also done with the community and Sneh also did a publication of the same.

What went well and What did not

Farming needs sustained inputs and it was difficult to run in project mode after so many long years. Some farmers continue to keep up the work started and some could not sustain. Permanent crops like coffee and spices have bourne good fruit and income to the farmers. Many lands look green and covered with crops today because of this long-standing intervention.

Specifically, millet cultivation had been the richest experience as it had so many dimensions of socio-cultural importance. Its related impact on health and nutrition and revival of wild foods was an added and especially important dimension. We built many special bonds with people and the Hubbas held in office became a common way to popularise dialogue and practice of millets.

The revolving funds could not sustain after the program as designed and did not go well.

Many of the technologies were successful but some were not and got discarded. Some of the technologies got integrated into value addition centres and will be described in the NTFP chapter.

Community ancestral lands, boundaries and village boundaries got finalised through this work on land much earlier than the FRA was implemented. This was very positively received by the community.

What are the questions that still remain

Some of the questions that still remain are related to larger questions of farming being a livelihood to depend on. Seasonal variations, climatic factors and poor soil conditions mean that this is not a dependable livelihood. The play of the market, in terms of mandis and trading in commodities is also an important factor. APPCL has been able to play some role here and infact now there is competition from other Adivasi traders who find this a useful income. After seeing the and learning from the work of Aadhimalai many such efforts are being made by the community members directly. This can be seen as a success or a failure!

There are of course more land and more areas remaining amongst the Adivasi areas to cover and undertake similar initiatives. NABARD project also tried to build on this aspect but it has a program design and in-flexibility issue.

Revolving funds – perhaps done in a better way with local leadership have a possibility of success.

Technology application in agriculture can have potential, especially that related to human-wildlife interactions and crop raiding.