Animal farm: a happy story

            This is not an Orwellian satire on a socialist state. This is the story of how goats gifted free in a democracy can sustain livelihoods of farm labourers at times of drought. And, how animal farms help these poor families educate their children. As always, the truant monsoon has turned the fertile lands in this arid district into fallow lands and farm labourers, naturally, are the worst affected.

For some, the secular UPA’s flagship scheme - Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme - has come handy. For others, particularly rural women, the State government’s free goat scheme is the new lifeline. Take the life of thirty-three year old S. Parvathi, a resident of Ammai Agaram in Chinna Salem block in Villupuram district. It has been thirteen years since she lost her husband in a road accident. Ever since, she has been leading a hand-to-mouth existence. Critically, she had to educate her son. None of her relatives came forward to extend any monetary support. In 2011, her son Dilip Kumar was in Class X, the class after which a huge number of rural students drop out of school.

Ten days after the Independence Day that year, the Jayalalithaa government’s free goat scheme was launched in the district. In an age when politics decides who gets what, providence played its role in this poor woman being selected as a beneficiary in the first batch. In the past 22 months, these goats littered 28 kids and many have become full grown adults now. She also said that, it is known why domestic animals such as goats and cattle heads were traditionally termed as assets. To meet the pressing household and educational expenditure, she disposed of four adult goats at a price of Rs. 6,000 each and earned a cool Rs. 24,000. She is confident of sending her son for higher education as she can afford it. The goats have started yielding kids at an interval of six months. Moreover, she need not spend money for fodder, as letting them free in a grazing land is all that is needed.

Thanks to the goats gifted, the five-member family of farm labourer Ramasamy at Elavadi in Chinna Salem block too has successfully overcome poverty. “After the monsoon failure, we had no work. We were about to migrate,” recalls Vellikili, his wife. It was then, in November 2011, she was chosen as a beneficiary under the scheme. Since then, there is no turning back. She now owns a small animal farm, comprising 25 animals – all goats and no pigs. Now and then, she sells one or two goats to meet emergent expenses. But with the income guaranteed, she is confident that her daughter R. Akila will graduate in science. She is also pretty sure of providing higher education to her sons Karthik and Rajkumar who are in school. Ah well, this is a fairy tale.