Corporate to Farming

Dream

For someone who has grown in a small town looking at mountains and Mango groves and Ragi fields . It was no surprise that I had a craving to do farming since childhood. The memory of me, mother and sisters growing vegetables in our backyard. Then there was this farm owned by my Mama near our town.

We also visited to the farm owned by my mama, went there during holidays and helping pluck Guava , Mangoes and Grapes. Guavas and Grapes were the favourite since you could consume too. Mangoes needed time to be ripe. There was a home-garden( in the farm) full of flower plants and papaya trees, coffee plant etc., Needless to say they got more attention than the rest of the farm.

It was near a mountain which had scrub forest. Foxes, Rabbits and Bears were common there. Leopards were also rumoured to be there. The rumour was very strong when dogs disappeared without trace. It was a very scary experience to go to the farm in the evening or in night since there was almost no light, and we had heard so many stories of ghosts, bears and leopards. Somehow we never worried about snakes, scorpions and foxes which also were there, makes me wonder about my intelligence.

So with all this experiences in the deep part of the brain. The farming craze never really left me. It seemed so relaxing and slow with no hint of hurry whatsoever. But during teens, the urge to study electronics and understand my Dad's radio scored over the slow and unhurried farming dream.

After graduation, joining a job and the hurry to do well and raise a family took centre stage. The dream was taking shape in a different way, I developed the habit of visiting home stays periodically in Chikmagalur and Sakleshpura which brought back the feeling of nature and farm. Never missed an opportunity to visit western ghats either for treks or just for fun. Sometimes I felt compelled to visit them to remind myself of my agricultural ancestry and feel as if I am part of it somehow. Walking in the narrow roads lined with trees , coffee plantations or forest. Streams or ponds in places was my favourite pastime. Now I realise in hindsight that , may be the need to be with nature was driving this habit

Quite late in my career, I took the opportunity to work in Japan. Walking in the villages and seeing the way they maintained traditional house with a garden brought back the longing. The fruits and vegetables that were sold also made a big impact on me. There was this passion and a way of caring for nature in Japan that really touched me. It was common to see people going for forest baths, and the way they treated nature somehow deeply resonated with me .

As destiny would have it, I had to read the “ One straw revolution” by Fukuoka and the longing became hunger. When I came back from Japan. I started actively reading about farming and searching for some farming land to satisfy this hunger.

The first step was planning conservatively as I was afraid of failure as a given. In order to make sure

I will not end up bankrupt, The budget was set. So I did not want to go beyond that budget and really affect our way of living. till my kids could be independent and free.

So the intention was there, budget was set now for execution.

Set your budget and dont expect any return

Initial plan was to set a travel distance of 1 hr from Bangalore ( in 2016) and search around Bangalore so I can work and do farming on weekends/holidays. The plan was to have a land of 4-5 acres. Why this size ?Well, I had met some coffee planters and agriculturists and everyone seemed to say that makes sense. I realised later during my actual farming why it was so realistic. After a couple of searches, It became apparent that it will not be so simple. First, the places I liked cost more second, the places that met the budget did not have, the documents or/and water and/or not good soil or some other technical issues. When your dream meets tough challenges then compromises start. I started compromising on soil, water, looks and still was not able to find something that suits my budget and has a minimum size of what I thought was good to start agriculture.

Research on the documents needed and get a good legal opinion

Every time I discussed about it, people gave different ideas of, where it is possible to find a lower priced location. I expanded my travel time and started looking at other places. After about an year we ended up searching in Malavalli, Kollegala, T Narsipura route.

Along came the issue of having the RTC ( Record of rights, Tenancy and Crops). Since buying agricultural land was not possible without a history of agriculture in Karnataka at that time. This was the basic pre-requisite. I started the search to find my roots in agriculture in parallel to my search. My grandfather had agricultural land but somehow did not comedown to my father. So started the search for the land documents that once belonged to my grandfather.

It is such a challenging activity, Here you are a corporate guy who goes by set timelines for deliveries and lives in a zone where time is sacred and product development follows logic. You are multiplexing your holidays to fulfil your dream. I realised quickly in govt offices, time stands still, people think that you exist to provide/collect documents and do what is asked without any questions. There is no question of time nor of time duration. You go when asked , do what is asked and comeback empty handed with a next deadline when you should go visit. Also when you goto search some records, there is this whole new language which I was never exposed to. Pahani, Mutation, Alienation, Kom, Bin , Khushki, Kharab etc, this had me doing research in a total different sphere.

There is no question of your time, it is only their time. Must be some colonial habit left behind to harass people. You go check with the Taluk office and they keep asking you to come later for the details and finally after a lot of followup and finally finding an agent. ( took close to a year) realised that my grandfather had lands but the details were lost somewhere in the office. So there was no record before 1970’s. Imagine my frustration having to go through all this and then realise there is an issue that is beyond my control. Never the one to give up, as per recommendation of some friends and relatives, requested my relative who still owned land in my town to gift me the minimum required land to own an RTC in exchange for some money ( the idea of gift and money never made sense to me but then that is how despertate you become) . After being gently rejected. I was close to giving up on this project and go back to living with a home garden and my work.

One thing needs to be said, people advise lot of things when it does not affect them. Some even suggested to buy a small land in Tamilnadu which did not have this rule so that I can bypass this hurdle, Either the entire land needed to be bought in a Tamilnadu or buy the minimum to get an RTC. I somehow felt these were not really proper way ahead and gave up. I was losing weekends, money and time with no solution in sight.

My friend who wanted to make my dream come true( I guess he took it very personally) was always encouraging and pushing me to continue. There were some solutions provided which were not correct way in my opinion, so had to reject them. Finally God listened to my problem and in 2020 ( I think) There was an amendment to the Karnataka Land reforms Act. Which made people like me who were desperate to do agriculture a possibility.

The above news renewed our vigour and we started looking out again and were joined by another friend who was from Mysore who strongly influenced us to look around Mysore, instead of going to different places. So the search took a new dimension and desperation . It was close to 5 years now and nothing was working out.

Common mistakes other than the above.

Imagine you are working in a corporate job where weekends are the only time you have for yourselves. And in that weekend you are booking almost all Saturday's to roam around searching for lands for 6 years. It felt tremendous waste of time according to some, a dream to fulfil for some , and no family time for some.

There was this land which did not have water ( good amount) but price seemed to match and I went in a hurry, paid the advance and started the paperwork only to realise something was amiss and I lost the advance money.

There was this other situation where we looked at the land and it was great and I agreed to invest and when we asked for the paper everything was promised. In desperation, I went for registration only to realise the important document was missing and the sellers were encouraging us to buy as almost everything was done. Quite a few people said this is how the documents will be and never be complete. One fellow even said never buy any agricultural land as nothing will be proper. One said you can buy the land but you should be ready for legal battles if they come up as the proof of grant is not there.

It is a strange moment when there are lot of guys looking at you for a decision of which you have no clue about the outcome nor have any knowledge of it. I decided to reject it after a few consultations with my lawyer friend. Now I was dejected and did not feel like doing this search anymore.

Finally

Friends are always a beacon of hope. They kept pushing me towards my dream and never gave up.

It so happened that after a few failed attempts we managed to find a place that was quite remote and not cultivated but with the relevent documents. I was so desperate and tired that I did not even look for the water source, The land was full of stones and thorny bushes in places, rest was barren. But somehow desperation , the lowering of risk tolerance and something with the remote place clicked all the boxes to buy the land. in Kannada there is a saying that to buy land it should be written in your destiny, May be it was my destiny to buy the land there.

Once the decision to buy happened, there were innumerable things that need to be done, survey, document check and a whole lot of talking with people who seem to be curious with questions like

what am I trying to do ?

Coming from the city ?.

why I am doing this ?

Was something wrong with my job or thrown out?

what is the plan ?

why not do something else? ,

why not buy somewhere else ? etc., etc.,

You need to be stubborn and strong in your will if you really want to listen to all questions and opinions and still want to buy the land. It is quite a task to manage this interaction without losing your cool as there is no concept of privacy and respect for your own decisions when it comes to farming community. Then there are naysayers ( practical, ofcourse) saying are you out of your mind ? you should not have done this .I give 2 years maximum and you will repent this decision. etc etc.,

Once you decide on something, keep going.... next set of adventures in the next blog