MTC Bus driver cum farmer driving local innovations — Peri-urban People
Adjoining the Pazhavari lake lies a serene 3 acres farm with palmyra trees on both sides of the mud road forming an archway leading to the farm. Sandwiched by Bamboo, Mahogany and Manjakadambu plantation on the other side acting as a live fence, Shiva anna’s organic farm in Pinayur is quite different from rest of the village. Shiva, a MTC bus driver-cum organic farmer says “We are developing a biodiverse organic farm which needs less labour and less water. Only me and my wife manage the whole farm.” He drives buses in Chennai for 3 days a week and works on their farm for the rest of the days.
The immediate visualisation on hearing less labour will be large tractor, farm automation and monocropping but shiva defies all these. Shiva has developed a small scale 5000 mah solar fence at the cost of Rs 20,000 which is movable to different parts of the farm and importantly which will just give a pulse and not kill the animals. “Wild boar attack is a big menace to local farmers. I place this solar fence in the field in which the crop is nearing harvesting stage. I have also developed a solar powered sound machine to shoo away birds and animals.” Beyond being a MTC bus driver and an organic farmer, shiva is a grassroots innovator developing various small scale farm machineries. As you walk into his farm, you will find a unique vehicle with solar panel on top of it, which is the solar tiller developed by him. The solar tiller can till 50 cents of land in 1 day’s charge. He has also developed an electric weeder which can be charged through solar power for weeding purpose and an electric thresher to thresh paddy and ground nut grown in his farm.
Shiva has grown a food forest in 1.5 acres in which we can see abundance of sapota, mango, guava and amla. They also cultivate intercrop of vegetables for home utilisation and graze their cattle in the food forest. They cultivate various varieties of traditional rice, fodder for cattle and vegetables for home use in the remaining piece of land. They also cultivate groundnut seasonally in 3 acres of adjacent land by leasing it. They were cultivating Aruvatham kuruvai rice in 80 cents and Athur kichili samba, Milagu samba, Karuppu kavuni and Garudan samba in 10 cents each. They ensure the sowing and harvesting are staggered in order to ensure limited and constant demand for labour which can mostly be managed by the family with very little support from farm workers whenever needed. Shiva has been doing organic farming for around 15 years and has 6 cows. “At the initial stages I used lot of organic inputs like panchakavya, amirtha karaisal etc. but now just crop rotation along with letting cow grazing in the land when the land is free is itself enough.”
Shiva’s innovations springs from the needs of lakhs of small farmers who are struggling to make ends meet. Farming is slowly becoming unviable for such farmers with increasing cost of chemical inputs and labour and lack of policy support. Shiva’s farm is a probable model for the future especially in peri-urban areas — low input, local innovation, small scale farm mechanisation and family managed. Should it compulsorily be along with another job (MTC bus driver in this case) with stable source of income? is a question that we should sincerely grapple.
