Fodder camps unrealistic, works against the poorest of poor, say farmers and activists By Aparna Shukla and Yoshita Sengupta Photographs by Manoej Paateel
The fodder camps in drought-hit Maharashtra have been in the public eye, at times, more than water crisis itself. Anil Bonde, a ruling party MLA, alleged that the government spent more on fodder camps than on orphanages. When DevendraFadnavis suggested temporarily shutting down of the camps, it lead to an outrage by the opposition and also from party members like PankajaMunde, the minister for rural development. The budgets, the political leverage, the media attention, clearly suggests that cattle and fodder are politically important issues in the region. However, the average farmer’s opinion on the fodder camps, at least in Beed district, represented in the state assembly by PankajaMunde, seems to have been largely ignored.
Hundreds of fodder camps, usually on the outskirts of villages and alongside state highways, across Beed district, continue to take in cattle and on paper provide 15 kilos dry fodder and about six kilo wet fodder to each animal. The process at the camp is fairly simple, any farmer can come in with his cattle, the upper limit for which is five animals, start living under a tarpaulin sheet at the camp. Each day, they are given a coupon with which they can pick up fodder for their cattle and feed them. However, the entire concept of the fodder camp excludes the poorest of the poor, say locals.
The primary requirement of the fodder camp is for one person to live at the camp to cut and feed the fodder, tend to the cattle and clean up after it. For most households, where women and men have go out into the fields,look for daily wage jobs, be out all day in search of water or wait for unpredictable water tankers, it is nearly impossible to spend the entire day at the camp. The farmers dependent on cattle for supplementary income have an even bigger issue. “My livelihood is dependent on the cattle, as they give me milk. You have to be with such animals at all times. If I travelled to and back from the camp each day, it would take up a lot of time and money. If I stayed back, my farm would suffer,” said EknathHingde, of Salegaon, which is about six kilometers away from the fodder camp in Chincholivillage. MaharudraSaruk from Sarukwadi village adds, “There’s a massive water crisis and we need to spend half our day just arranging for water. In a situation like this, it’s impossible to tend to the animals all day long, especially if they live so far away.”
Add to that the fact that the farmers are reluctant to take their cattle to the camps because of the quality and quantity of the fodder given out. In such a scenario, it’s more feasible for farmers like Hingde andSaruk, to buy fodder for about Rs. 100 a day, from farmers, who don’t own cattle, in neighbouring villages.
At the core of the issue, say the farmers, is the fact that the entire concept of fodder camp is not thought through and works against the poorest and the most marginalised farmers. Ramesh Bhise, the founder of the Jan Vikas SamajikSanstha, which works closely with a population of over one lakh in Beed district, says, “I don’t think setting up a camp was the most intelligent way to solve the fodder crisis. It is not fair on the poor farmers to leave their land and family and stay in the camp for months. A more feasible way would have been to equally distribute fodder in villages, like they do with ration. Why set up camps and give them to contractors?”