Interview with the Farmer Chitramma
The following is an extended conversation with a farmer based in Yelagiri village, Tirupattur district, Tamil Nadu. Chitramma, a resident in Yelagiri, describes her experience in farming, she also sheds light on the evolution and the transtition happened in the agricultural field before and after technology.
Farming and Production
Interviewer: Padmavathi
Interviewee: Chitramma
Interviewer : What do you usually cultivate in your lands?
Interviewee : We cultivate Paddy and Millets, We cultivate paddy twice a year if we get access to adequate water supply or else we cultivate Ragi, The rice cultivation is always more expensive than the millet cultivation.
Interviewer : Can you talk about your income?
Interviewee : The main source of our income is from the agricultural lands, So we alternatively cultivate Ragi and rice based on the rainfall and the economy. This year we had adequate rainfall, so we are planning to cultivate more rice than Ragi.
Interviewer : Which is more profitable for you, Ragi or Rice?
Interviewee : It depends on the climate and the production, but cultivating and harvesting paddy is always expensive, so the profit can only be seen if it gets sold in the market. But cultivating Ragi and Kambu (Pearl Millet) is less expensive than rice and this will be harvested within 3 months, whereas rice needs four to six months.
Interviewer : Where do you sell the harvested millets and how much do you sell?
Interviewee : We keep a portion of harvested millets for cooking at home and we will sell the remaining in the village and in the market.
Interviewer : How profitable is it? And will you be able to get your investment back?
Interviewee : As I told before, people can expect profit from rice cultivation, only if they have adequate water resources and other pesticides, orelse we cannot even get the investment back. But for millet cultivation, it does not require a lot of water supply, and we can expect a certain amount of income from it, but still if the production of rice is good, people get more income because rice is more expensive than Ragi and Kambu in the market.
Interviewer : Which one do you prefer to consume?
Interviewee : I prefer having Ragi and Kambu more than rice, because rice is expensive. Also Ragi and Kambu are healthier than rice, since I consume millets more than rice, I do not have any health issues even at this age and I still work in the fields.
Transcript:
Interviewer: How do you cultivate and harvest crops?
Interviewee: In those days, we cultivated and harvested manually, we did a lot of labour, and we used Bulls to plough the lands and also while harvesting the crops, also in those days, everyone from the family used to work in the fields, and we simply used our hands to cut the crops, but now the scenario has changed, now we use machines to harvest, People are not ready to do much labour in these days, and also I guess, these generation people can do hard work like us. Now we have access to machines, so we use them, and we pay for the machine and the few workers who come to help us with the machine harvesting. Also, in those days, we do not give money to the workers; instead, we give the rice, millets or whatever we cultivate, but now we do not practice this anymore. We pay cash to the person who owns the machine and the workers who help with the machines.
Interviewer: Since you said that everyone from the family used to work in the fields in those days, can you share about your family? Is everyone from your family work in the fields, or do they have any other jobs?
Interviewee: No, I am still working in the fields, but my children are going for jobs; they do not work in the fields.
Interviewer: Why did not you let your children to work in the fields?
Interviewee: Because they are not much interested in agriculture and would not be able to do hard work like us, they also had access to education, unlike us. Hence, they studied and migrated to different places to get a job.
Interviewer: You said that in those days, you paid the workers with the crops and not with the money, right, so how much rice or millets did you give them?
Interviewee: There was no such specific amount of rice that was given to them; it was usually based on the amount of work they do and the time they spend, and now we give money to the machine workers and owners on an hourly basis.
Interviewer: Since you have experience in both manual labour and machine labour, which one do you feel is the most profitable?
Interviewee: I feel it was more profitable in those days, and these days most often, our investment and income are the same; we are not getting much profit.
Interviewer: Why do you say it was more profitable in those days than now?
Interviewee: Because we did not have access to machines, hence we did not pay separately for them, but now we have to.
Video link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xoapHfc8Dgs7IoPLhAsB1mYaNPtg11n1/view?usp=sharing
Interviewer: During harvesting, you will separate the edible part of the crops, so what do you do with rice barn and other millet grass?
Interviewee: We feed the barns and other grass to the cows so that it helps the cows to produce more milk.
Interviewer: And what else do you do with the dried grass?
Interviewee: It is used for parcels, so this can be stored for a longer period and used, we cover it with a large sack to protect it from rainfall, and we use it whenever we want, it can also be stored for two years. Since people depend highly on sending and receiving parcels these days, the grass is highly used to protect things from any damage during this process. Also, we feed them to cows for milk production.
Interviewer: What do you do with the Ragi grass and the Pearl millets grass?
Interviewee: It is the same with these grasses also. We just store them and occasionally feed them to the cows and sometimes sell them for parcelling; basically, we do not waste any of them; everything is used along with the edible grains. Since we highly depend on milk production, we do not waste these barns and the grasses; we just feed them to the cows. But these days, we also use Packed milk, but we use that only if we do not get milk, and I mostly prefer having the natural one more than the packed milk.
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