Sun was setting across the river Krishna, as we sat in Hanumanthappa’s field, chatting with him and Kaveri, – his daughter of six years. Fifty five year old Hanumanthappa cultivates three acres of land inherited from his father and also share crops another acre from his neighbour. Both pieces of land lie close to the river but are rain fed. He grows lentils, sunflower and cotton for more than seven years now. Earlier it was sorghum and groundnut mostly.
This crop change meant a change in his family’s food pattern. For some years now, they eat more of rice every day. Rice is cheaply distributed by the government. It made sense to eat rice and raise crops for the market instead of cultivating jola for their daily roti. The cost they had to pay for this shift, Hanumanthappa says, was in terms of health, stamina and medical expenditure. Annual food related expenditure for the family also comes to more than 60,000. He spends around 66,000 annually on agriculture. A good crop fetched him slightly more than 1.16 lakhs that year. This is pretty much what the family has, to tide over the whole year, without much wage income. Two local breed bulls and a cow serve the family with draught power and milk, but not cash income.
Hanumanthappa has two overdue loans – agricultural loan taken from the Grameen bank (Rs. 35,000) and another Rs. 40,000 taken from a neighbour. When we met him, he was all set to realise the irrigation dream, installing a pump set in Krishna’s overflows next to his land, availing a new loan from a village money lender. This will take his total debt above 1 lakh, excluding interest. Towards the end of each agricultural year, he is left with nothing to repay loans. Hanumanthappa tries to rotate borrowed money to meet various expenses.
Talking about expenses, he mentioned two wives and their children staying with him. Kaveri hastily added that the first wife stays in the next room and she goes there to sleep. She was talking at ease about her father’s wives. We weren’t clear if he had two or more wives; though didn’t spare time in clarifying. Hanumanthappa explained how he needed to marry more than once – just for a son. To our questioning look, he responded – everyone needs a son for their funeral rituals. By his first wife, he already has two grandchildren while his youngest born – the son of the family – is a toddler. One of his married daughters is back to live with her parents, along with her children. There are four adult women in the family who labour in the farm and house. Family of five adults and four to six children (including toddlers) dependent on a rocky rain fed four acres along with their cattle, live in a shaky congested house.
Hanumanthappa lamented that with new seeds and new inputs, neither their grains nor chicken taste well and fail to give them enough strength to work on the stone filled land. While resenting the dietary change, he upheld the hardships the entire family goes through to ensure customary heirship for after life rituals.
Small Farm Dynamics in India 