No more tears: New fruit in onion country

‘‘There is a need today to innovate on the fields,’’ says Dalvi, who doubles up as a senior clerk in the tribal welfare department. ‘‘We try because if we don’t, survival will be difficult. And when we succeed we encourage others to also try.’’

Dhaulibai agrees with her husband. Owner of all the land, she gives the final nod before Dalvi’s ‘‘crazy ideas’’ are sown on the fields. ‘‘So far it has all been worth it,’’ she says, brushing aside the daily commute and hard work on the field.

Their latest investment is watermelons. Below their grape creeper and next to their regular bajra crop, the earth is covered with green twines of watermelon. The fruit will hit the market just when their supply from other states start ebbing.

The Dalvis planted watermelons for the first time alongside venturing into grapes a few months back. ‘‘We knew that the grapes will be ready only after three years,’’ Dhaulibai says. ‘‘In the meanwhile we wanted to keep earning, so we went through a list of things we could plant and zeroed in on watermelons. In three months we got our first harvest.’’

Their choice has paid off. They have harvested 25 tonnes of the fruit so far this season and sold it at Rs 3,000 per tonne, promptly setting off another trend.

Everyday, there are farmers who drop by at the Dalvi farms. They look around, chit-chat and take home tips on better farming.

‘‘What Dalvi has done nobody could have,’’ says Avinash Chauhan, assistant project officer with the tribal welfare department in Kalwan. ‘‘He understands the needs of the region and practices what he preaches. Without him we would not have been able to reach out to the tribals of the region.’’

Sprinting between his workplace and fields on his motorcycle, the senior clerk stops to give advice everywhere. Tracking fluctuating onion prices, he was one of the first in the region to try alternatives.

‘‘Onion is a relatively easy crop to grow,’’ says Dhaulibai, as she supervises the harvest of ripe watermelons. ‘‘But the losses are also huge. In case of strawberries and grapes, the effort put in is much more. We spend every waking hour in our fields but at the end of the day even a small patch gives big returns.’’

It hasn’t been easy for the couple to convince the tribals to innovate on their fields. ‘‘It is difficult because farmers don’t change easily,’’ Dalvi says matter-of-factly. ‘‘The only way to convince them is to practically show them how different things can be. We took the chance because I had a steady income from my government job. Now our success inspires them to invest in crops they had literally never heard of before.’’

–anuradha.nagaraj@expressindia.com