For Lunawada, a former princely seat where maize is grown on holdings divided many times over.
Small plots and a large past
Lunawada was a princely state and is now a Mahisagar district town growing maize and mixed crops. Land here has been divided among heirs repeatedly, so many families work plots too small to be a business and too significant to give up.
The trap of the almost-viable holding
A plot of this size will not support a household and does produce something. That combination is the difficulty. It is enough to justify staying, not enough to succeed, and it consumes the years you would need to build anything else.
Clients describe farming as an obligation performed alongside other work, resenting it, and being unable to justify letting it go.
What the work addresses
Being honest about what the land is. If it is a business, it needs investment or consolidation. If it is heritage, it can be held with much less effort and much less guilt. If it is a hedge, it needs neither guilt nor ambition.
Most of the exhaustion here comes from treating a heritage holding as though it ought to be a business, and quietly failing at that every year.
Sessions
Online, in Gujarati or Hindi.
Frequently asked questions
- Should I sell the land?
- That is yours. The work is making it a decision rather than a twenty-year drift.
- Do you work with part-time farmers?
- Yes, and in this district that is the majority position.
