Post 1: Farming Culture and the Landscape

Five weeks have passed since the departure from Ahmadabad that signaled our trip's closure on March 22nd, 2015.  In the previous week and a half, we had sped through Delhi, Agra, and Vodabad on our way to the town of Dahod, in eastern Gujarat.  There, we linked up with the N. M. Sadguru Water and Development Foundation (website found here) and learned about the vital role this organization plays in improving the well-beings of remote, tribal peoples.  Sadguru provides assistance in water acquisition, floriculture, sanitation, and so much more to some of the least wealthy communities in the state.

The Sadguru Foundation's campus in Chosala, outside of Dahod

Through our reporting, we were invited to the homes of many rural farmers and were graciously given a window through which to look into their lives.  We spoke to people who lived by plowing fields with oxen.  We took tea with them and sat with their families in chairs.  For a week, we were immersed in the culture of agrarian Gujarat, which was an experience unlike anything else for me.  Now that the dust has settled and all that connects me to our journey are photographs, pages of notes, and projects, it seems an apt time to reflect on the differences in culture between our world and theirs.  Or perhaps, rather, to focus on the culture of rural Gujarat as experienced through my own eyes.

Farmland outside of Dahod (photo courtesy of Courtney Stanley).

One of the most important factors in shaping a cultural identity is the landscape from which it springs.  The Thar Desert snakes its way up western India and into Pakistan, making its course directly through Gujarat.  Rain falls often during springtime, but the hot summers and arid winters offer little moisture.  Water is scarce outside of Gujarat's few rivers and away from the coastline, forcing many inhabitants to rely heavily on groundwater.  Against the odds, agriculture is one of the state's largest employers.  This industry has not come to the region easily.  Before groundwater wells were able to be installed cheaply, this meant family members (primarily women) would be responsible for walking several kilometers to the nearest water source multiple times a day to provide for their livestock.  

Rural farming women have just recently gotten access to drinking water at their homesteads (photo courtesy of Courtney Stanley).

It is hard to overstate just how different farming in Gujarat is from our own industrial methods.  There is still grain production and livestock raising, but all of it is done by hand, an acre plot at a time, by individual families who then sell the product themselves.  Families exist crop-to-crop, much like farmers in America, but with no insurance safety net to buffer against poor harvests.

A small crop of wheat growing between two plots of corn near Dahod.

Though there is some use of industrial equipment such as tractors, these machines are beyond the price range of many farmers in Gujarat.  Instead, most tilling, plowing, and harvesting is done either by hand or, more commonly, with assistance of animals.  Buffalo are the main beasts of burden used around the farm and are linked inextricably to rural culture.  In addition to plowing their fields, buffalo provide the farmers with fresh milk and copious quantities of dung, which are used for cooking fuel, building material, and fertilizer.  Farming would not be possible in Gujarat without them and a family's socioeconomic can be interpreted from the number it possesses.

Buffalo feed at the trough while a calf lounges in the morning sun.  It is customary for families to house their cattle next to their villas, so farmyards are often bustling with animals (photo courtesy of Courtney Stanley).

The uncertain and laborious nature of the farming communities' existence combined with their dependence on their animals and the land was noticeable in the mindsets of the people we met.  An extended family my particular team spent much time with, the Rathod family, made this particularly clear through their discussions with us.  They spoke of they ways in which their lives had been made worse by harmful things they had done to their land and how the land had retaliated.  The clear-cutting of trees, for example, kept the soil from holding water and in turn, their crops had gone thirsty.  When they would relieve themselves out in the open on their property, they were more likely to contract fecal-borne illnesses.  A grandfather we spoke with by the name of Premsingbhai Rathod echoed a common sentiment among the farmers, "More people should know about good sanitation and living in a clean environment."  I had never expected to hear this outside of America, much less from someone who probably had little knowledge of the Western "environmental movements."

A cow stands in the shade beside a pile of drying dung cakes, which will be used either for cooking fuel or building material (photo courtesy of Courtney Stanley).

Although I was surprised at the time, I see now how much sense this makes.  While we may be isolated from our actions towards the environment by layers of urban and societal insulation, everything the Rathod family does to impact their environment has very immediate and noticeable consequences to them.  Our food may come from someone's land several states away, having stopped first at a processing plant and then at a grocer, but for Gujarat's farmers, you reap what you sow, literally.  If a tribal farmer mismanages his wheat and feed crops, then not only does he lose money, but his family and buffalo go hungry.  With this knowledge present in every family's mind, the environment and their land become grounded, tangible things that they must work with and care for as a matter of survival.

Members of the Rathod family outside their villa (photo courtesy of Courtney Stanley).

In wrapping up blog post 1, it seems suitable to look at our own divorce from nature.  Families still own farms in America, but they do so at the behest of large-scale food production corporations.  A large contingent of my family farms corn and raises hogs in central Ohio and their existence is very separate from their land.  They are not allowed to eat any product they produce and chemical fertilizers and genetically engineered corn seeds have saved them from having to care for the soil.  Ultimately, this has raised our status of living, but for how long and at what cost?  Is it really even worthwhile?  I will attempt to weigh in on these questions during my next two installments.