Several measures adopted by the residents of the Magradeh village, in rural Madhya Pradesh, including building a check dam and switching to natural farming, are helping change the fortunes of its villagers.
Dressed in a printed pink saree, with a small hoe in one hand and tomato seeds in the other, Ganga Baghel, in her late 30s, heads out to her farm just 300 metres from her two-room kutcha house in Magradeh village. From five in the morning, Ganga devotes at least seven hours a day to the farm, working in shifts to carry out various tasks — tilling the soil, weeding, sowing seeds, harvesting, irrigating, and gathering ripe vegetables.
This daily routine, however, is new for her. Until a few years ago, Ganga could cultivate only a single crop on less than one-eighth of her nearly two-acre farmland, yielding a harvest that was meagre, unpredictable, and entirely dependent on scarce rainfall. The soil was usually hardened and devoid of any moisture.
But over the years, in Magradeh village, a small, arid settlement in the Bagli block of the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, many villagers have transformed their lives and land by adopting natural farming techniques and the strategic use of water resources.
Known for its unforgiving droughts and parched soil, Magradeh had long struggled to sustain agriculture, with many villagers forced to leave for city jobs to survive. “The landscape here is undulating. The rainwater would usually run off, leaving little for us to use. We couldn’t irrigate our lands in the non-monsoon periods,” said Ganga.
However, since 2017, the community has built resilience and prosperity through an initiative that revived the region’s potential: a modest check dam.
The dam was built with the support of Samaj Pragati Sahyog (SPS), a not-for-profit organisation working in the region on multiple aspects of rural development.
Ganga and other villagers contributed labour to build the structure, which is now essential for the village’s water needs. The dam captures rainwater during the monsoon season, storing it for use throughout the year and also recharging wells downstream.
“Before the dam, we could hardly imagine farming during the dry months,” said Phoola Baghel, 40, another resident of the village. Now, with an assured water source, she has expanded her cultivation to the entire farmland. She cultivates maize, wheat and multiple vegetables.
“Look at our village, agriculture is all we have. The men from our village migrate for work and we look after our small land holdings. Without sufficient water for irrigation, the produce was hardly enough to meet our needs. But things are changing now,” Phoola added.
After the water woes ended last year, Magradeh has also adopted crop diversification and natural farming techniques under the JIVA programme by NABARD, supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and implemented by SPS.
From the conventional maize and cotton cultivation, the village farms are now a vegetable basket with multiple vegetables like ladyfinger, tomatoes, torai and gilki. This diversification has made their farm productive year-round, an unthinkable achievement in the village’s drought-prone past.
Ganga’s husband, who once laboured on construction sites in Indore, nearly 70 kilometres from the village, now works beside her in the fields, cultivating vegetables for the local market.
There was a time when my husband worked for others for daily wages. He toiled at construction sites. But today he sells the vegetables we grow. He owns his own small cart and commutes daily to Indore to sell the fresh vegetables.
Ganga said proudly.
He now sells his surplus produce in the vegetable market in Indore earning Rs 2000 every day. This additional revenue stream has given them the means to reinvest in their farms, further boosting productivity.
With the extra income, they have even been able to employ workers on their farm during peak seasons, a sign of the family’s rising prosperity and the village’s economic growth. “It feels good to provide work to others,” Ganga reflected.
What also stands out for them is their commitment to natural farming techniques. They’ve eliminated chemical fertilisers and pesticides from their farming, instead relying on organic ferments and bio-pesticides to nourish the soil and protect crops.
“It wasn’t easy to switch to these natural techniques. But today we make our own ferments to spray on the crop in case of any pest infestation. Due to multi-cropping on the farm, the pest infestation has reduced drastically,” revealed Nirmala Baghel, another villager.
In place of commercial fertilisers, they use compost made from cow dung and farm residues, a practice that has led to better soil health and crop quality. “Using chemicals on the land was not only costly but also harmed the soil,” she explained. “Now, with natural methods, our soil is getting richer and the crops are healthier,” said Nirmala.
This approach, known as natural farming, requires low investment and promotes soil regeneration, which is crucial in regions where land is often overworked and depleted.
Vivek Kumar, program officer, SPS, who has been involved in the process of switching the farmers here to natural farming explained, “Natural farming is showing remarkable potential here. Not only does it make farming affordable for the farmers, but it also makes their land more resilient to climate variations. Without the burden of costly inputs, farmers like Ganga can thrive even in tough conditions.”
The efforts of residents of Magradeh village demonstrate the power of collective action and the results are a testament to the resilience of this community who, with help from the right quarters, have turned adversity into opportunity.
The lead image on top depicts the check dam in Magradeh village which was built by the villagers to end the locality’s water woes. (Photo by Aishwarya Mohanty)
Aishwarya Mohanty is an independent journalist who reports on themes like the environment, gender, rural issues and social justice.
