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Journey of wheat, the beginning of new life

HIRA Lal looks emaciated, his skin darkened, singed. Sometimes, he coughs, he heaves, he doesn’t complain. His hands are as rough, coarse as a stump of a dried wheat plant, his voice as throaty as the hot wind blowing across acres of wheat fields, his eyes as red as the burning sun.

Journey of wheat, the beginning of new life

Photos: Ravi Kumar



Parveen Arora in Karnal & Kulwinder Sandhu in Moga

HIRA Lal looks emaciated, his skin darkened, singed. Sometimes, he coughs, he heaves, he doesn’t complain. His hands are as rough, coarse as a stump of a dried wheat plant, his voice as throaty as the hot wind blowing across acres of wheat fields, his eyes as red as the burning sun. “Koi chinta nai hame (I don’t care),” says he as he wipes his sweat and swings his sickle over a clump of spikelets of the crop being harvested. The hulled wheat is sun-baked, gold-like, his eyes beginning to glisten, affording a smile. 

As the sun beats down over vast stretches of wheat fields in Karnal, Hira is unmindful of his parched lips, his thirst summed up in a routine: since early morning till sunset. “Ham kamaiyenge, phir ghar laut jainge (I will earn and return to my home),” he says, humming a song from his mobile phone. Voices like his trail off before the humongous work at hand, as they did when many Hiras boarded a train from Bihar and UP, their home states, about a month back. 

Lie in front of them heaps of wheat grain and husk ready to be trucked to storages. Scores of labourers camp in the fields and are instantly hired by farmers. “These men know their job,” says Davinder Singh, a farmer from Patanpuri village (Karnal). In the chain of emerging wealth, there is something for everyone: About Rs 2,000 for an acre for manually clearing a wheat field. “For separating the husk from wheat, we prefer manually operated machines, for which we have to pay Rs 2200-2,500 per acre. We get around 10 quintals more husk than by using a reaper machine. The manually culled husk is better in quality,” says Davinder Singh.

Dr GP Singh, director, Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR), predicts a record crop production this season. “We are expecting more than 98 million ton of wheat, which is about 5 million ton more than the last year. Haryana may contribute 115 lakh ton, and Punjab 180 lakh ton,” he says. Agro-scientist in Moga, Dr Jaswinder Singh Brar, says weather conditions were good this time, right from the time of sowing with no frost and unseasonal rains.

That adds to the happiness of Gurcharan Singh Brar of Rode village (Moga) and everyone else in the Malwa belt in Punjab. “The production is about 2 quintals more per acre after so many years,” says Brar, who sowed wheat in 20 acres and earned Rs 60,000 more from the bumper harvest. He too preferred manual harvesting and made dry fodder from the straw, which he has kept for his cattle. He has also sorted out the best grains as seeds for the next cropping season.

Equally happy are commission agents and transporters engaged in the procurement process. At the other end in the grain markets, labourers are engaged in loading, unloading and cleaning of wheat, packing and stitching bags and other related works. The government recently raised remuneration for labourers. 

Gursharanveer Singh, a commission agent at Moga grain market, says a farmer pays Rs 5.70 per bag to a labourer for unloading the produce and cleaning the grain. The commission agents pay them an extra Rs 5.72 per bag. In addition, the procurement agencies pay Rs 1.34 per bag for stitching and Rs 1.62 per bag for unloading the bags in storehouses.

Yet all this hasn’t come too easy. In February and March, the farmers battled weeds and yellow rust. Chemicals and pesticides were widely sprayed. “We have to make the most of whatever we have,” says Ranjit Singh a farmer of Ajitwal village, near Moga.

“Production has become costlier because of high prices of seeds, labour, fertilizers, electricity and pesticides. The government-administered minimum support price (Rs 1,625 per quintal this season) is no match. The MSP must be around Rs 3,000 per quintal,” says Jitender Doda, a farmer from Nigdhu village, Karnal.

“Despite all the challenges, the country is assured of more than enough wheat,” says a procurement official, complaining of lack of storage facilities. “We need more godowns and sheds because any unseasonal rain would destroy all the hard work,” he says. 

Back in the fields, the back-breaking work of Hira Lal and several of his friends is over. They are queued up for their wages: fair and square. Their journey back to their homes will begin soon.

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