The landlord who became a shepherd

Till a few years ago, Ramdas Javanjal, 68, was a landlord in his village of Madhan in Amaravati district, Vidarbha. He owned hundreds of acres of farmland. Today, he has lost most of his farm, and has only his cattle to keep the home fires burning.

Javanjal is just one among the hundreds of debt-ridden farmers in Vidarbha who have been losing their farmlands to moneylenders. Javanjal had to sell his farm to repay the loans he had taken.

“We produce oranges and cotton on a large scale, but we do not have access to industries to process the products,” says farmer Satish Bhatkar, who owns orange orchards in Madhan. “Deer come into the orchards and damage the oranges. This year, oranges over 4.5 lakh hectares were ruined because of a scarcity of water and deer attacks.”

The changed pattern of crop cultivation has also hit the farmers badly. “Earlier, we used to sow the cotton or jawar from the grain we produced. But since BT cotton was introduced, we lost the household seeds as BT cotton does not produce seeds and one has to buy seeds every year at higher costs,” says Prashant Gajbhiye, another farmer.

Load shedding also has affected the farmers. “We get electricity for farms only three times a week, and that too at night,” Bhatkar says. “Farmers have to cultivate their farms at night, exposing us to dangers like snake bites without even a primary health centre in the vicinity.”