Odisha’s tribal farmers turn unused land into income with green and black gram farming

For many years, Krushna Chandra Madkani, a tribal farmer in Nuaguda village of Odisha’s Malkangiri district, would leave his 11 acres of land vacant after harvesting paddy. Lack of irrigation facilities and reduced soil moisture levels made it impossible to grow another crop. That was until 2022.

Today, Krushna, who belongs to the Koya tribe, grows green gram (moong) and black gram during the Rabi season, earning an additional Rs 1,65,000  besides paddy. 

“Green gram and black gram are short-duration pulses, which are ready between 60 and 90 days. They grow well in conditions with less soil moisture and also add nitrogen content to the soil, increasing fertility,” Krushna tells 30Stades.

Krushna’s success is the result of the Odisha government’s Comprehensive Rice Fallow Management (CRFM) Programme, which aims to convert uncultivated rice fallow land into productive areas during the Rabi season. 

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The experiment that led to the expansion

Trained by the CRFM-implementing agency, the Jeypore-based MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Koraput district, Krushna started growing only green gram in 2.5 acres in 2022-23 on an experimental basis. 

He apprehended that it might cause him a huge loss. But he was proved wrong as he earned around Rs 50,000 that fiscal year from green gram cultivation. This encouraged him to expand green gram cultivation to three acres. He also started black gram farming on two acres in 2023-24, and the two crops generated over Rs 1,00,000 in income. 

“The results encouraged me to bring all the 11 acres under the simultaneous farming of green gram and black gram in 2024-25,” says Krushna. Encouraged by his success, 32 tribal and non-tribal families in his village now grow the two legumes over about 42 hectares under the guidance of MSSRF, he says.

Across the tribal-dominated Malkangiri, bout 12,172 tribal and non-tribal people have taken up legume farming. 

They include 25 self-help groups (SHGs) from 263 villages. The target villages are in Korukonda, Malkangiri, Mathill, Kalimela, Podia, Chitrakonda and Khairput blocks.

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Seeds, training and more

Koyas, who traditionally collect minor forest produce, like mahua, sal seeds, and medicinal plants, mainly live in Malkangiri, Koraput and Nabarangpur districts of Odisha. The community practices animism and has a patriarchal and patrilineal society and speaks the Koya dialect.

“The farmers grow Sikha, Virat and Puchha varieties of green gram over 6600 hectares and PU1 and Lata varieties of black gram on 1900 hectares," says MSSRF Director Prashant Kumar Parida. 

Each hectare under CRFM yields about 7.65 quintals of green gram and 6.83 quintals of black gram per hectare, Parida adds.

“The success rate of CRFM can increase substantially if various inputs are supplied adequately and promptly by the government,” he adds. 

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The Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment has spent Rs 9000 per hectare through MSSRF. It is used for procurement of quality seeds, training tribal farmers, pest management and several other components.

“In coordination with MSSRF, we have trained tribal beneficiaries and also distributed quality seeds for free under CRFM, which started in the district in 2022-23. The seeds are procured from Odisha State Seeds Corporation Ltd,” says Dillranjan Mahalik, the chief district agriculture officer of Malkangiri.

The programme’s success in Malkangiri and Nayagarh led the state government to bring three more districts, Khorda, Kandhamal and Gajapati, under the CRFM with MSSRF as the implementing agency, says Akhaya Kumar Panda, the state coordinator of MSSRF. 

“Now MSSRF has covered 2,8,000 hectares under CRFM in five districts,” he adds.  

Each beneficiary receives 20 kg of green gram seeds and black gram seeds per hectare. 

“The free distribution of seeds is restricted to two hectares per beneficiary,” says Sanjay Kumar Soren, the Block Agriculture Officer of Podia block. About 500 farmers grow green gram and black gram in more than 600 hectares in Podia. 

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Earning from fallow land

Malkangiri receives an annual rainfall of 1667 mm. It is intense during the Kharif season when paddy is cultivated and decreases later, reducing the water availability for irrigation. However, green gram and black gram are drought-tolerant and can survive with less water.

The rainfall during the post-monsoon period is scarce. 

However, moisture content in the soil, called ‘crop residual soil moisture’, after Kharif harvest helps green gram and black gram grow well during the first month. 

Light rain, mostly in December, helps the plants to sustain themselves. “Green gram is a 60-65-day crop that requires light rainfall after a fortnight when it starts leafing. It also needs light rainfall in 45-50 days when the plant begins pod-setting. Black gram takes nearly 80 days to mature. But it needs light rainfall in 60 days after sowing, when it starts to produce pods.

However, dews during winter in Malkangiri can help both types of crops grow, though their growth rate is less than that of those that receive light rainfall,” says MSSRF’s senior scientist Dr Kartik Charan Lenka.

The loamy, sandy soil in Malkangiri is conducive to the farming of green gram and black gram. However, pests and insects pose a major problem. To get rid of these twin dangers, MSSRF and the agriculture department have trained the farmers to use ‘yellow sticky and pheromone traps’ along with the use of fungicide and insecticide.

Farmers as seed savers

Following traditional methods, farmers save a part of their harvested legumes for use as seeds during the next Rabi season. 

They mix their pulse seeds with ashes and dried neem leaf powder before storing them in a ‘Pacchia’ (a kind of bamboo basket). The top of this bamboo container is covered with dry straws and cow dung. 

The container's outer surface is layered with fresh cow dung before it is left in the sun for 4 to 5 days.

If any cracks develop in the layer of cow dung, they are filled with fresh dung. The container is again left for sun-drying, according to farmer Tumbeswar Samarath, who is the sarapanch of Tengurupali gram panchayat in Malkangiri.

“When this process is over, the bamboo container is brought back and kept in a secluded room or space. At the advent of the next Rabi season, seeds are taken out and winnowed to clean them of neem powder and ashes before their use in the field,” says Samarath, who grows green gram in eight acres. 

The yield was 18 quintals. He sold it at Rs 7500 per quintal. Encouraged by the success, he has decided to take up farming of black gram on four acres this fiscal, in addition to green gram.

(Niroj Ranjan Misra is a Cuttack-based freelance writer. He writes on rural and tribal life, social issues, art and culture, and sports.)

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