In the early Nineties, the Syndicate Bank and Virendra Heggade called me to Dharamsthala, off the Ghats from Mangalore. Heggade had implemented the agro-climatic plan for the region and wanted me to see it. When you are poor, you grow paddy or an inferior cereal to survive, although it may erode the soil or require trees to be cut. Heggade, an MIT trained engineer, was in a long line of mahants of the Dharamsthala shrine and (as I told him) was after immortality by seeing to it that his parishioners would become self-reliant and never want charity again. He gave a bushel of rice or more to anyone who would grow trees on his land, the recommended strategy for the Western Ghats Southern Coastal sub-region. By the time I reached there, the trees had grown tall and his peasants were rich. An agro-climatic plan is not a project, but a way of organising, its mentor, Rajiv Gandhi would tell his sceptical mantris, who wanted to know where the moolah was. Heggade understood this.A decade and a half later, I retraced my steps, staying at Manipal, enjoying the food of the gods at Udipi and instead of going back to Heggade's Dharamsthala, went to other adjoining areas. Pandukal is around 30 km from Udipi. There are twin hamlets here, the larger is Shivapura and the smaller, Kenbittu. Diversification has taken place. Mango trees abound. Paddy is grown in about half of the cropped area, around 2,000 acres in Shivapura and 600 acres in Kenbittu. But this is no longer subsistence agriculture and yields are high. Some farmers, the Bunts, Kshatriyas, Bilawas and Brahmins, get 15 to 20 quintals of paddy. This is the territory of proud people who speak Tullu and are rooted in the soil and their traditions. There is jackfruit, cashew, arecanut, chilli and some rubber.The diversification took place almost a decade ago. Since then, not much has happened. There is a cashew factory and a rice mill. They tried vanilla. For a few years, some money was made, but then the price fell and they gave up. I make a mental note to check as to who is subsidising vanilla exports in world markets. Rubber is not viable either. There is anger at the arecanut price going down from around Rs 10 a kilo to Rs 6. A coconut can fetch in good years Rs 6 but can go down to Rs 4. These are not poor people. Actually you don't see in these ghats the kind of hunger which was common when I was here much younger and around a tenth of the population has migrated from the village. In fact, Shanker Narayan, with whom I have had long conversations, complains of wage rates rising and cashew processing profits going down and asks for newer labour saving technologies.The growth game is like going up the downstairs case. You have to constantly find new sources or you stagnate. Forty to 50 farmers work more than ten acres of land and make around Rs 20,000 annually, but it fluctuates and is not improving. It is not enough to conserve water and grow the right crops, as the Approach Paper says. In this game you have to find the strategies for the next round. Maybe the authority for the rainfed regions will do it.
