Rahul Mehta Gandhinagar LsCandidate
Experience of a farmer ... worth a read. (not my experience, I have copied from a website, see link at bottom)
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In our fields we have been growing cotton since ages. We used to grow desi variety which is called desan. It used to provide small yield and also very labour intensive as soon as the flower blooms you have to pick the cotton otherwise it falls from flower bud on field.If there is a high velocity wind during pick up season, you may hardly get 50 to 100kg yield in one acre. This was grown more for household consumption and less as an cash crop.
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Then about 30yrs ago came a new variety called narma. Yield was good, and cotton remain stuck on flower dont fall off that easily, but you have to buy seed from market and have to spray pesticide and also it requires more water. When we first started only one spray was good but now minimum 5 sprays are required. Now the cotton seed are feed to cattles mostly buffaloes as nutrient supplements. Now all that pesticides are coming into food through milk.
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With the arrival of BT cotton, the spray has decreased but not eliminated. There is a new problem being reported these days that is miscarriage among the cattles who are feed cotton seeds !!!!
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Now our experience with wheat, In old days we used to grow desi variety wheat and that was also only for household consumption. only in couple of acres near the well. In old days we before 1968, we didnt have electricity in our village so water was drawn out of well using camel and bulls. We used to grow many different types of crop and staple diet was not wheat but wheat flour mixed with gram flour in summers and bajara in winters.
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During 70s came the hybrid variety wheat, yiels was very good 10 quintals per acre compared to 3-4 quintal of desi variety but it required urea and irrrigation was not an issue anymore since we have elcetrified well to pump water. First only urea used to be sprinkled, than we have to used DAP fertilizer as well,
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now if we dont use fertilizer nothing will grow. !!
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Roti of hybrid wheat tasted horrible so we continued with desi wheat for some time but not any more. We used to have chana(gram) a lot but not any more.
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We used to grow so many different kinds of crop earlier like jawar, bajara, moong, soyabeen, till(seasme seeds) but not more.
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(copied from bharat-rakshak . com/viewtopic . php?f=24&t=6799&start=3160#p1689390 ; you need a login )