“The more we buy, the more we are in debt.” That’s Kunari Sabari, a farmer in her 40s, speaking to us in Khaira, a village mainly of her own Saora Adivasi community.
“The gobarakhatachaasa, halaachasaa [farming with cow dung and ploughs], which was ours, nobody is doing that anymore,” she said. “Now we run to the market for everything. Seeds, pesticides, fertiliser. Unlike before, even what we eat, we have to buy.”
Kunari’s account reflects a dependence brought about by cotton cultivation that is taking root across the ecologically sensitive highland tracts of Odisha’s Rayagada district, with deep implications for its rich store of biodiversity, farmers’ distress and food security (See Sowing the seeds of climate crisis in Odisha ). This was clearly visible as we descended south-east to the plains of Rayagada’s Gunupur block, where cotton first arrived. Bordering Andhra Pradesh, the landscape here is one of monocrop fields of cotton as far as the eye could see. Also visible – deep distress.
“We took to cotton 10-12 years ago. We do it now because we have no other choice.” That’s what many people in Khaira, which is in Gunupur block, told us. Several farmers in the area said that as they shifted towards a capital-intensive cotton, they had progressively lost their own seeds and traditional methods of multi-cropping.
— source ruralindiaonline.org | Aniket Aga, Chitrangada Choudhury | Aug. 16, 2021