Farmers look for alternatives to traditional farming

LUCKNOW: Thirty-two year old Pankaj Srivastav, a farmer from Badhalganj in Gorakhpur, suffered a major setback when stray cattle destroyed three acre of his lush paddy crop on October 15.

“I couldn’t go to guard the farm that night. The next morning I found it ravaged by half a dozen bulls,” sighs Pankaj.

Hurt by the loss, Pankaj has now started looking beyond the boundaries of traditional agriculture that include cropping of wheat, paddy, maize and potato. He is not the only one exploring more viable and profitable alternatives. “There is little profit and that too is diminishing with the rising cost of farming. Secondly, stray cattle damage all our prospects for a better future,” explains Dineshwar Nath Parajapati, a farmer from Ballia district.

Pankaj, Dineshwar, along with 35 other farmers from across the state are getting trained in farming aromatic plants at CSIRCentral Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants(CIMAP) in Lucknow. “The problems caused by stray cattle are getting bigger with each passing day,” says Rajesh Tyagi, an Agra farmer attending the training.

Farmers say the menace of stray cattle has grown in the last couple of years. They attribute the problem to the high handedness of the state government against slaughter houses and cases of lynching of those suspected of cow smuggling. Under the fear of cow vigilantes, people in villages have started leaving spent cows and bulls to graze in fields with standing crops.

A 22-year-old agriculture student, Navneet Shukla, who is also the youngest trainee at the course claims that the issue of stray cattle leads the list of problems faced by farmers these days.

Agricultural experts are of the same view. Manoj Sinha, Lucknow-based agriculture expert calls it the most pressing issue for farmers.