Growing Ragi (Finger Millet)

In my view, you become a ‘complete farmer’ if you grow rain fed crops (ragi, horse gram etc.,), because it teaches you work around the nature schedule & face the challenges. July & August are the crucial months in a farmers calendar to grow rain fed crops, it’s that time of the year…

• Find a suitable day between rains to plough the land (so that it’s not too wet or too dry)
• Allow the weeds to dry off for few days.
• Remove the weeds off the field & let the water soak in a bit more.
• Schedule the second round of ploughing to keep it ready for sowing the seeds.

In this story, want to have a picture story from preparing the land to sow ragi until the time of harvest, along with interest take aways at each stage of the farming.

Stage #1 : Land has been ploughed, around July 20th 2019

Land being ploughed for sowing ragi in a few weeks

We then left the land for about 20 days, waiting for a gap of few days in rain.

Stage #2 : We sowed Ragi seeds around Aug 10th, along with a tractor to help in making the lines after they have been thrown on the soil. (shown in the video below)

Sowing Ragi, by the help of my cousin brother Ramanna

Few weeks after sowing ragi, needs de-weeding

Stage #3 : We removed the weeds (manually & use of machine), around Sep 18th.

Ragi plant, be ready to harvest in few weeks

We grow Ragi without using any kind of pesticides / urea (fertiliser) in our farm & disadvantage of not using pesticides is a lot of weeds & had to hire 2 labourers for a week to get through de-weeding.

Stage #4 : Wait for ragi plant to mature, let the plant dry. Plant will turn grey & dry completely, now we need to wait for the rains to end, so the harvested plants when they are left on the soil for a few more days to dry won’t get dampened / washed away.

Stage #5 : Harvesting the Ragi plant & allow them to dry for a few days / week. We harvested Ragi plant around December 1st week.

Stage #6 : Manual de-husking of Ragi, by spreading them on solid ground surface that is layered with cow dung (yes! — cow dung) to ensure the rock / mud part reduces when we pack the de-husked plant produce in bags or for next / final stage of processing.

Stage 6, laying harvested Ragi plant on flat surface to be run over by tractor

Stage #7 : Final stage of Ragi growing, we do a small pooja before using a machine to clean the Ragi to be loaded into bags.

In about 1.5 acres of land, we harvested 900kgs of Ragi. If we compute the cost of growing, it’s nearly Rs.45–50 per kg & would love to sell these at Rs.60 per kg.

Joy of being a “complete farmer” is priceless! next year (2020) will be the story of growing horse gram.