What made rural India abandon its cattle in droves


Ramnath Patel, a 47-year-old farmer from Sarai Dangri village in eastern Uttar Pradesh, had a largish family six months back. Apart from his four children, he also owned two cows, a bull and a pair of calves. Patel had fondly named his cows Radha and Bholi. The bull was Shankar, the calves Purba and Chhote. But tragedy struck in mid-2018 when herds of abandoned cattle, roaming the streets of Sarai Dangri, entered his agricultural land and destroyed a standing wheat crop. After the disaster, Patel had fondly named his cows Radha and Bholi. The bull was Shankar, the calves Purba and Chhote. But tragedy struck in mid-2018 when herds of abandoned cattle, roaming the streets of Sarai Dangri, entered his agricultural land and destroyed a standing wheat crop. After the disaster, Patel, too, set his animals free. “It was not easy but when others are letting loose their domestic animals who are destroying our crops, why should I keep them?” he asks. 

Sarai Dangri is about a dozen kilometres south of Varanasi, and the Ganga flows serenely on the south and east. Standing on his two acres of land that sports a fresh crop of bright yellow mustard flowers, the lanky farmer explained the wrenching experience of having to choose between feeding your children and feeding the cattle. “I could barely feed my children. Keeping the cows and the calves was beyond my means,” he says. And if everybody else was doing it to make ends meet, why not him, Patel ....Read more

 

Source web page: Economic times


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