In Pics | Tales of Mumbai’s invisible urban farmers

Urban agriculture is being carried out in many Indian cities from Mumbai, Delhi to Chennai. The limelight is often on upwardly mobile urban citizens who take up farming for recreational, environmental, spiritual or economic reasons, shadowing some invisible and unrecognised farmers. Excluding low-income groups, marginalised communities and indigenous people from the urban farming dialogue leads to a higher probability of the erasure of their contribution, from research, policy and planning. In this photo essay, we explore Mumbai’s lesser-known urban farmers – from the natives of Aarey to the migrant farmers working on the city’s railway farms and, most recently, the women sanitation workers who’ve turned to farming in suburban housing societies. (Image: Mongabay/Prateek Pamecha)

Prakash Bhoir is a farmer, tribal activist, environmentalist and renowned Warli painter. Bhoir’s family grows vegetables, flowers and fruits on their 1.5-acre farm outside their house in Aarey forest’s Kelti pada mainly for subsistence. Aarey lies on the edge of Sanjay Gandhi National Park at the heart of Mumbai. “Water from cow baths and excreta from the Aarey Colony’s cattle sheds come directly into our farms and also acts as manure. Women from the community sell their fresh produce at the high-rise buildings around the locality. Parts of the tribal villages and their farmlands have disappeared gradually. The natives of this urban forest are generational farmers, fishers and livestock rearers, and the most affected by constant concretisation and urbanisation. All indigenous farmers in Aarey pay a minimal annual tax of one rupee per gunta (approx. 1000 square feet of land). (Image: Mongabay/Prateek Pamecha)

In other hidden farms of Mumbai, agricultural migrants from north India work on the government-owned railway land and cultivate vegetables to cater to the needs of city dwellers. Since 1975, Indian Railways began putting its vacant land to use under the scheme ‘Grow More Food’. Here, Sawan Chauhan removes Malabar spinach seeds for sowing. Chauhan and her family moved to Mumbai from Uttar Pradesh 20 years ago and have been living next to Kurla’s railway farms since then. They have been employed by a railway employee to manage the farm. She says her city-bred children do not want to go back to the village now. (Image: Mongabay/Geetanjali Gurlhosur)

Intended to protect its surplus land from encroachment and to prevent new slums from developing, the policy allowed railway employees belonging to Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/Other Backward Classes and Economically Weaker Sections, to cultivate seasonal vegetables on a five-year lease of 4,000 rupees per acre per year. Some of these employees, in turn, hire agricultural migrants to cultivate and oversee these railway farms. In the 4.5-acre railway farm managed by the Chauhans, they have employed six agricultural labourers to sow, harvest and sell the produce here, each of whom gets paid Rs 6,000-7,000 a month. The farm produce is sold to local residents of Chembur, Ghatkopar and Kurla. (Image: Mongabay/Geetanjali Gurlhosur)

Aarey Milk Colony, which used to be one of the state’s biggest milk suppliers almost 70 years ago, is still home to over 30,000 buffaloes and many cattle-rearing migrant families from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Aarey’s cattle rearers want to be recognised as farmers in the city. A worker measures milk in a carton at a stable in Aarey Milk Colony. Cattle rearers of Aarey insist that they are also farmers because they supply milk to rural and urban populations. A lactating buffalo produces seven litres of milk in a day. Some dairy farmers sell milk to distributors, hotels and private dairies. (Image: Mongabay/Prateek Pamecha)

Some of Mumbai’s women sanitation workers began small-scale farming for an additional source of income and nutrition during the COVID-19 lockdown. These women manage the city’s waste at a mere salary of about 6,500 rupees per month. Since January 2021, the collective-based organisation Stree Mukti Sangathan (SMS) has been training the low-income, Dalit and Bahujan sanitation workers, in horticulture. With over 2,000 women, SMS runs self-help groups that work in urban waste management, employment opportunities and women’s rights. Since 1998, it has been running ‘Parisar Vikas’ programme, which addresses the problems of waste management, environment-friendly practices like composting and gardening in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. (Image: Mongabay/Prateek Pamecha)

Noor Jahan Syed and Sushila Ahire, employed with Stree Multi Sangathan (SMS), learn from a terrace garden of a housing society in the eastern suburb of Chembur. Syed points out that only those with enough space can grow their own food in the city; while others cannot. (Image: Mongabay/Prateek Pamecha)

A bavdi or well is the main source of irrigation on railway farms in Kurla. Farm labourers working here state that there is enough water in the wells all year to grow vegetables. (Image: Mongabay/Geetanjali Gurlhosur)

Agricultural migrants working on a railway farm in Kurla, which also houses their makeshift residence adjacent to a railway track. The labourers earn up to 6,000-7000 rupees per month. (Image: Mongabay/Geetanjali Gurlhosur)