Sanviti Iyer

Priti David

Editor

large_01-IMG20240209110939-SI-How_will_ragi_grow_in_this_heat.jpg

medium_01-IMG20240209110939-SI-How_will_ragi_grow_in_this_heat.jpg

small_01-IMG20240209110939-SI-How_will_ragi_grow_in_this_heat.jpg

thumbnail_01-IMG20240209110939-SI-How_will_ragi_grow_in_this_heat.jpg

01-IMG20240209110939-SI-How_will_ragi_grow_in_this_heat.jpg

Nagaraj Bandan remembers the smell of ragi kali cooking in his home. As a
little boy, he would look forward to it everyday.  



Five decades later the ragi kali (a dish made with ragi
flour) no longer matches up. “The ragi
we get now doesn’t smell or taste as good as it used to,” he says and adds
that ragi kali is made only once in a
while now. 



Nagaraj is an Irula (listed as a Scheduled
Tribe in Tamil Nadu) and a resident of Bokkapuram hamlet in the Nilgiris. He
grew up around ragi and other millets that his parents cultivated such as ragi (finger millet), cholam (sorghum), kamboo (pearl millet) and samai (little millet). A few kilos were always kept aside for the family’s
consumption, the rest was for the market. 



When an adult Nagaraj took over the farm, he
noticed that the yield was significantly lower than what his father would get:
“We only get enough [ragi] to eat, and sometimes not even that,” he told PARI.
He continues to grow ragi,
intercropping it with vegetables like beans and brinjal on the two-acre plot. 



Other farmers have also noticed the change.
Mari (only uses his first name) says his father used to get 10-20 sacks of ragi. But the 45-year-old farmer says he
gets only 2-3 sacks now from his two acres. 



Nagaraj and Mari’s experiences are reflected
in official figures showing that ragi cultivation in the Nilgiris has plummeted
from 1,369 hectares in 1948-49 to 86 hectares in 1998-99.  



The last census (2011) says that millet
cultivation occupies only a single hectare in the district.

“I didn’t get any ragi last year,” says Nagaraj, talking about the seeds he had sown
in June 2023. “It rained before I sowed the seeds but not after, then the seeds
dried up.” 



Another Irula farmer Suresh says ragi plants grow more slowly now that
they are using new seeds. “We can’t rely on agriculture anymore,” he says, and
his two sons have left farming and work as daily wage labourers in Coimbatore. 



Rain patterns have become more erratic.
“Earlier it used to rain for six months [end of May to early October]. But now
we can’t predict when it will rain; it can rain in December also,” says
Nagaraj, who blames the poor returns on lack of rain and adds. “We can’t depend
on the rain anymore.” 



The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve lies in the
southern part of the Western Ghats and is recognised by UNESCO as an area of <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/mab/nilgiri?hub=66369">rich biodiversity</a>. But
the introduction of non-native species of plants, converting high altitude
swamps into plantations, and the cultivation of tea during Colonial times have
“come at the expense of the biodiversity of the region’s biodiversity,” says
this 2011<a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/report-of-the-western-ghats-ecology-expert-panel/#section02"> paper</a> by the Western Ghats Ecology Panel. 



Other sources of water in the Nilgiris like
the Moyar river are too far away. And since his land lies in Bokkapuram –
buffer zone of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve – forest officials do not allow
borewells. B. Siddan, also a farmer from Bokkapuram, says that many things have
changed since the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-scheduled-tribes-and-other-traditional-forest-dwellers-recognition-of-forest-rights-act-2006/">Forest Rights Act, 2006</a>. “Before 2006 we could take water from the forest but now we aren’t even
allowed inside the forest,” the 47-year-old says. 



“How will ragi
grow in this heat,” asks Nagaraj. 



To offset his losses on the land and earn a
living, Nagaraj is a daily wage worker in other farms in and around hamlets of
Masinagudi. “I can earn anywhere between 400-500 [rupees] in a day, but that is
when I get some work,” he says. His wife, Nagi is also a daily wage worker, and
like many women in the district, works in nearby tea plantations and earns Rs.
300 a day.

The farmers joke that elephants seem to like ragi as much as they do. “The smell of ragi draws them [elephants] into our
farms,” says Suresh. Bokkapuram hamlet falls under the <a href="https://www.conservationindia.org/wp-content/files_mf/WP_Corridor_TNFD.pdf">Sigur elephant corridor</a> – which connects movement of elephants between western and eastern
ghats. 



They don’t remember elephants coming to their
farms this often when they were young. “We don’t blame the elephants though,”
says Suresh and adds, “there is no rain so the forests are drying up. What will
the elephants eat? They are forced to leave their forests to find food.”
According to <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/IND/31/21/?category=forest-change&amp;location=WyJjb3VudHJ5IiwiSU5EIiwiMzEiLCIyMSJd&amp;scrollTo=forest-loss">Global Forest Watch</a>, the Nilgiris district lost 511 ha of forest land between 2002 to
2022. 



Rangaiyya’s farm is in Melbhoothanatham, a
hamlet few kilometres away from Bokkapuram but he agrees with Suresh. In his
fifties, he farms on one acre land but he doesn’t have patta for it. “My family
has farmed on this land even before 1947,” he says. A Soliga Adivasi, Rangaiyya
also manages a Soliga temple near his land. 



Rangaiyya had stopped cultivating ragi and other millets for a few years
because of the elephants. “They [elephants] used to come and eat everything,”
he says, and adds, “once the elephant comes into the farm and tastes the ragi, it keeps coming back again and
again.” He says that many farmers have stopped growing ragi and other millets because of that. Rangaiyya started growing
vegetables like cabbage, and beans instead. 




He adds that farmers have to stay guard
overnight, and are scared of being harmed by the elephants if they fall asleep
by mistake. “Farmers don’t sow ragi because they are scared of the elephants.”



The farmer says that they have never bought
millets like ragi from the market and
ate what they grew. So as they stopped growing them, they stopped eating them.

A local NGO provided him and other farmers
with solar fences for their farms to protect them from elephants and other
animals. Rangaiyya started farming ragi again
on one half of his farm, on the other he continues to farm vegetables. In the
last season, he earned Rs. 7,000 for the beans and garlic he sold in the
market. 



Declining millet farming has meant changing
eating habits. “Once cultivation of millets went down, we had to buy food from
the ration shops – something we weren’t used to,” says Lalitha Mukasami, a
resident and a health field coordinator for a local NGO. She adds that the
ration shops mostly sold rice and wheat. 



“When I was a child, we used to eat ragi kali three times a day, but now we
hardly eat it. We only have arsi sapat
[rice-based food] which is also easier to make,” says Lalitha. From the Irula
Adivasi community herself, she is from Anaikatti village and has been working
with the community since the last 19 years. She says that the increase in
health issues could be because of changing eating habits. 



The Indian Institute of Millets Research
(IIMR) in a <a href="https://millets.res.in/m_recipes/Nutritional_health_benefits_millets.pdf">report </a>say, “Some of the known nutrients, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty
acids also have benefits in terms of prevention of degenerative diseases
besides their known functions of preventing nutritional deficiency diseases.”
The Telangana-based institute is part of the Indian Council of Agricultural
Research (ICAR).



“Ragi
and thenai used to be a staple. We
used to eat them along with mustard leaves and kaat keerai [spinach found in the forest],” Rangaiyya says. He
doesn’t remember the last time he ate this: “We don’t go into the forest at all
now.”



The
reporter would like to thank Sriram Paramasivan of Keystone Foundation for help
with this piece.

‘How will ragi grow in this heat’

’اتنی گرمی میں راگی کی کھیتی کیسے ہوگی‘

‘ఇంత వేడికి రాగులను ఎలా పండించాలి’

'ਇੰਨੀ ਤਪਸ਼ ਵਿੱਚ ਰਾਗੀ ਉੱਗੇਗੀ ਕਿਵੇਂ?'

‘ଏ ଗରମରେ ରାଗୀ କେମିତି ବଢ଼ିବ’

‘इतक्या तलखीत नाचणी येणार तरी कशी’

‘ഈ ചൂടിൽ എങ്ങിനെ റാഗി കൃഷി ചെയ്യും?’

ʼಈ ಬಿಸಿಲಿಗೆ ರಾಗಿ ಹೇಗೆ ಬೆಳೆಯುತ್ತದೆʼ

'इतनी गर्मी में रागी कैसे उपजेगी?’

‘આટલી ગરમીમાં રાગી ઊગશે કઈ રીતે!’

‘ये घाम मं रागी कइसने जामही’

‘एतना गरमी में रागी कइसे उगी’

‘এই গরমে রাগি ফলবেই বা কেমন করে?’

‘এই গৰমত ৰাগি খেতি হ’বনো কেনেকৈ’

‘வெயிலில் எப்படி ராகி விளையும்’

Bokkapuram, Masinagudi

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

IN TELUGU - Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

‘How will ragi grow in this heat’

Temperatures are changing in the Nilgiris, it’s warmer and drier now. Farmers from Irula and Soliga Adivasi communities say that changing rainfall patterns make it difficult to farm millets like ragi, cholam and samai

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit