In Vidarbha, India, where farming has long been shadowed by debt, loss and quiet fear, one young farmer chooses to stay—learning from failure, reclaiming indigenous cotton, and rebuilding dignity through collective care. His journey reveals agroecology not as a lone act of resilience, but as a living network of youth, women, seeds, and shared labour slowly restoring hope to the land and to each other.
They were not cruel. They were afraid.
Afraid of debt. Afraid of the land turning against them. Afraid of cotton that no longer fed families but swallowed them.
Farmers in Vidarbha, in the state of Maharashtra in India, have lived for decades with the fear that crop failure, debt, climate change and monocropping will turn against them. Farmer suicides are not abstract numbers. They are names, faces and empty homes. When young people witness farmer suicides, they reject farming as a profession. They do not learn about these deaths from newspapers or television; they see them firsthand in nearby villages, sometimes within their own extended families.
These experiences leave a lasting psychological impact. Many parents now openly state they do not want their children to become farmers. Young women from farming backgrounds often hesitate to marry farmers because agriculture is viewed as unstable and risky. What began as an agrarian crisis has gradually become a social crisis, eroding dignity, relationships and the future of rural communities. Most young people around me want to leave farming.
Choosing farming despite the odds
Growing up, many of us heard things like “study well, otherwise you will end up as a farmer”. Education was presented as an escape route from farming.
“Why are you doing this?” That was the question I heard most often when I started cultivating crops in 2016. Sometimes it was asked gently, sometimes sharply, sometimes with sympathy that felt heavier than criticism. In my village, Palshi Zashi, people were not used to young men choosing to become farmers. “Farming has no dignity left,” one neighbour told me openly. Another added, “And organic? You will make your family land barren.”
When I was in school, I read a book about George W. Carver. That was the first time farming appeared to me as creativity rather than compulsion. What stayed with me was not just his science but his attitude, humility, persistence, and service to soil and people. It planted a quiet seed within me: farming can be intelligent, inventive work.
It planted a quiet seed within me: farming can be intelligent, inventive work
Later, when I read The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, something shifted more deeply. His writing fostered trust in natural processes and in the reduction of interference. The book gave language to a feeling I already carried, that nature has its own wisdom if we learn to listen. An episode of Satyamev Jayate, a series on safe food, disturbed me deeply. It made me realise that farming was not just an economic activity, it was a moral one. Through this chain of reading and reflection, I found my way to agroecology. I began to see agroecology not simply as a method of cultivation, but as a value-based approach to farming – one that connects soil health, biodiversity, farmer dignity, and safe food.
Before fully committing to farming, I worked with Pragati Abhiyan on rural employment and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a social welfare measure that aimed to guarantee the ‘right to work’, and later with Paani Foundation on watershed development and community engagement. These experiences changed how I saw agriculture. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, two friends and I decided to grow organic vegetables on six acres. Our plan was simple: grow locally, sell locally. “We have demand,” one friend said confidently. “And people want organic food now,” said another.
We were wrong.
Lack of experience, pests and diseases, and poor marketing planning led to disappointing results. The financial loss was painful, but the emotional toll was even heavier. My friends took it very hard. One friend quietly told me, “I can’t afford another failure.” Another confided in me about a recurring dream: people in the village were laughing at his family because of their failure. That’s how intense the social pressure felt. Gradually, both of them decided to step away from organic farming. I understood their decision, but their departure left an emptiness hard to put into words.
We had started as a small group fuelled by hope, and suddenly, I found myself almost alone in this uncertain field. For me, staying wasn’t a brave or clear choice. It was a mixed and confusing feeling. I wasn’t sure if I was right or wrong. Sometimes, I felt socially and emotionally isolated, but I also felt a strong sense of responsibility for the land and the dream we had begun. I stayed because my parents supported me, and my wife and siblings believed in me, even when the outcome was uncertain.
From failure to collective strength
Our marketing failure in 2020 forced us to rethink everything. Thankfully, around eleven young farmers from Vidarbha came together to imagine alternatives. This led to the formation of Friends of Earthworm Farmer Producer Company. It did not begin as a formal plan or a business model. It began with a shared hunger for dignity and respect for farmers.
What stayed with me is that this tradition quietly crossed social boundaries
I still remember our first long meeting in Janori village. We sat on farmer Avinash’s floor, talking openly about what was most difficult in farming. It was not only crop failure or weather, but also marketing issues. Again and again, farmers grow crops with care, but the prices are set by others: traders, distant markets, policies and middlemen. We realised that individually we were weak in the market, but together we could at least negotiate, experiment and learn. Collective selling, collective branding and collective responsibility—these ideas started taking shape right there on the floor of that house. We decided that decisions about farmers’ produce should be made by farmers themselves. That became our simple principle of collective governance. From that meeting, Friends of Earthworm began as a collective promise.
Sayal: Farming as collective care
Over time, our work grew into what we now call Sayal Farm. Sayal is a centuries-old tradition in Vidarbha, where farmers support one another during busy harvest seasons without monetary exchange. The word reflects our philosophy: farming is about collective care.
In earlier times, if a farmer had only one bullock but needed a pair for ploughing, he would borrow another from a neighbour. Later, when that neighbour needed help, the exchange would reverse. No money, no written agreement. Some Sayal partnerships continued for years between the same families. I especially remember one family in our village who had a long-standing Sayal relationship with ours. What stayed with me is that this tradition quietly crossed social boundaries. In rural areas where caste and class divisions were otherwise strong, Sayal often softened those lines. Work created a different kind of equality.
Today, Sayal Farm spans 40 acres of family land. We grow nearly 30 crops. More than 1,200 trees stand on the farm, some more than 200 years old, and we have planted nearly 300 more in the last decade.
Healing a broken crop
In Vidarbha, cotton is not just a crop. It is a wound. Since its approval for commercial cultivation in 2002, Bt cotton as a genetically modified crop promised higher yields and prosperity in India. Initially, some farmers benefited. Over time, costs increased, pest resistance returned and dependency deepened. Cotton fields became sites of anxiety and debt.
In 2021, we decided to grow indigenous cotton not as a market experiment, but as an act of repair. Indigenous cotton fits naturally into agroecological systems. It is resilient, seed-saving, and less dependent on external inputs. We began cultivating varieties such as Kondapatti and others that we obtained from agricultural universities. Processing, however, was the real challenge. The spinning and weaving activities had to be carried out through collaborative efforts. When the cloth made from our cotton finally arrived, my father held it quietly for a long time.
“I have been farming for fifty years,” he said, his voice unsteady, “but this is the proudest moment of my life.”
We use the cloth within our families and communities and do not sell it. Our goal isn’t profit but participation. We want more farmers, especially young farmers, to join the indigenous cotton ecosystem. In the coming years, we plan to work with at least 20 youth farmers who will participate in the process. This is not a success story. It is an ongoing one. And it is rooted in hope.
Patience, humility and calm
In 2013, some farmers and pioneers in Vidarbha realised that, alongside farming, seed sovereignty needed public spaces. They started Beejotsav (Seed Festival) in Nagpur. In 2023, we organised the Satpuda Seed Festival and the Sevagram Seed Festival, which have since become annual spaces for dialogue on agroecology, indigenous seeds, and collective farming practices. For many young participants, it is the first time they see farming not as failure, but as a possibility.
Any honest account of agroecology must acknowledge women. In our region, women do nearly eighty percent of farm work – sowing, weeding and harvesting – yet their knowledge remains undervalued. My mother, Rekha, is a seed saver. She is the seed keeper of our farm. Every season, after harvest, she carefully selects which seeds to save for future harvests. She dries them properly, stores them in traditional containers, and layers them with neem leaves to protect them naturally. When I hear people speak about seed sovereignty and women’s leadership, I immediately see her hands sorting seeds on a metal plate in the courtyard, in my mind. Agroecology grows stronger when women’s leadership is recognised.
Agroecology has taught me patience, humility and calm. Nature teaches without shouting. The future of farming in Vidarbha will not be built by heroic individuals. It will be shaped by collectives, indigenous seeds, women’s leadership, and youth willing to stay, question and rebuild.
Author: Pratap Marode (32) is an organic farmer from Vidarbha, India, working with his family and fellow farmers to strengthen agroecology, indigenous crops and seed conservation. He is part of farmer-led initiatives such as Sayal Farm and Friends of Earthworm FPC, and he volunteers for local farming organisations including the Organic Farming Association of India and Beejotsav. Contact: pratapmarode@gmail.com
More information in these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-MjAg47xE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9GNFjiV8gQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2IsSs6JSZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3NAtF_KZ8o
This article is part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
