James' India Experience - completed as part of the Oklahoma State University Master of International Agriculture Program - http://miap.okstate.edu

1. Shiroor & Talaguppa
AGED 5900
Summer 2009 Internship
Karnataka, India
James
Oklahoma State University

2. Quick Facts
Drive on left side of the road
Population: 1,070 Million
Currency: Rupee ~48 INR / $1 USD
Religions: Hindu, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian
Several Thousand Casts
Fifteen National Languages
National Anthem: Jana Gana Mana
National Animal: Tiger
National Flower: Lotus
National Bird: Peacock
Flag: Saffron (growth), White (peace), Green
(agriculture), 24 Spoke Navy Blue Wheel (charity of
Ashoka Chekra)

3. Recent History
• British unified India’s kingdoms into one
nation
• British gave India a common language: English
• Gandhi was the first person in freedom
movement
• India became an independent nation in 1947

4. Cultural Awareness
• Men do not shake hands with women
• Men do not kiss their wives in public (including in the home if
others are present)
• Tilting the head (left, right, etc.) means “ok” or gives
permission
• A head massage consists of pounding the head with the
hands. Thus the word massage is very misleading
• If you are invited to eat lunch with someone at 1PM, show up
fifteen minutes late and expect to eat forty-five minutes later
• Buying a used motorcycle involves an hour of socializing, 5
minutes of looking and talking about the bike, another hour
of socializing, then exchanging cash and ownership
certificates

5. Cultural Awareness
• Plugging something into an outlet can involve putting
individual wires in where prongs normally go
• India is the US’ dumping ground for illegal pesticides and
antibiotics, thus nobody is alerted of the problems one might
have
• The Indian National Highway is a 2 way road with
pedestrians, cattle, dogs, goats, sheep, bicyclists, vehicles, etc
…
• The cast system is still alive
• A pharmacy also sells toothpaste, snacks, and veterinary
medicine
• Most middle-class Indians do not eat from street vendors

6. Cultural Notes
• Time: Now can mean within the next few
hours, while tomorrow can mean within the next
few weeks
• Work Morale: Workers somehow know they are
doing a good job without being told.
Complementing them makes them think, “I’m a
good worker, now I don’t have to show up for
work.” Calling workers and telling them to come to
work encourages them to show up late or not at all
• Ego: The workers serve the ones paying. Not
letting a worker do their job hurts their ego.

7. Lost in Translation?
India English American English
That’s what! I totally agree
J: “The monsoon started late.” G: “That’s what!”
Loose motion Diarrhea
This caused you to loose motion last time.
Huh, Ha, Awe, or Hmm Yes
J: “Can I buy food here?” G: “Huh.”
Feeling gitty Loss of energy
You don’t look so great, you must be feeling gitty.
X after Y before Z do X then Y then Z
First you take X and then after Y before Z you take, Ok?
Take this Eat this
Take this, it’s good for health.
Isn’t it? Am I right?
You should drink some more water. Isn’t it?

8. Get Acquainted with India
Water Heater Shower

9. Get Acquainted
House Entrance House Plant

10. Getting Acquainted
LPG Gas Stove
Rice Paddy Workers

11. Acquaintance
Crowd of People Around Accident Indian National Highway

12. Acquainted?
Bull Cart Stores
Auto Riksha

13. Acquaintance Made
Bathroom Gutter

14. Ready for India?
Saturday Market (all food) Your Water Source!

15. Here We GO!
Electrical Outlet with Stick Welder
Car Wash Plugged In

16. the Brake Inspectors

17. Daily Interruption—Power Outages
• Power is turned off in rural areas by the
electric company to maintain constant
electricity flow for large cities
• Private households use cellular batteries that
store solar generated electricity, when power
is out
• Diesel generators provide power for larger
buildings
• In many places common tasks are still done by
hand

18. Mugimane Farms, Shiroor
• Beetle Nuts
• Coconuts
• Rice
• Coffee
• Pepper
• Sugar Cane
• Organic Farming

19. Shiroor Duties
• Cutting Grass • Bio-Digester
• Rolling Drip Irrigation Maintenance
Hoses • Bio-Gas Digester
• Plantation Maintenance
Maintenance • Watering Trees
• Banana Tree Dressing • Rice Paddy Cultivation
• Cattle Watching
• Plantation
Supervision

20. Cutting Grass
• Grass is hand cut with a sickle
• 50 lb bundles of grass are hand brought to a
cattle shed
• Grass is fed through an electric cutting
machine on one side
• Grass is pulled into the machine by inside
“teeth”
• Wheel with a blade attached cuts grass on the
other side

21. Rolling Drip Irrigation Hoses
• Drip irrigation not needed during monsoon rains
• Drip irrigation hoses for over 9,000 beetle nut
and 250 coconut trees
• Well over 18,000 meters of hoses to keep track of
• Each hose has a valve to turn off water flow
• Inspect hose for leaks and cracks while being
coiled
• Secure rolled-up hose and store

22. Plantation Maintenance
• All tasks had to be learned before they could
be supervised
• Includes watching the workers: patch the
reservoir dam, role drip line hoses, water trees
with bio-digested fertilizer, dress banana
trees, watch cattle, and pick fruit

23. Dressing Banana Trees
• Take off top dead or decaying sheath
• One hand pulls the sheath down while the
other hand hacks it with a sickle
• Caution keeping clear of the sickle path and
others nearby.
• Considered a “woman’s job”

24. Cattle Watching
• Cattle are walked from the cattle shed to the rice
paddy fields
• Manure dropped on the way must be picked up
and tossed into the plantation
• Watched as they graze on the paddy
• Kept from eating sugar cane
• Watch for cobras and other animals that might
disturb the cattle
• Cattle are lead back up the driveway and into the
shed where they are tethered, bathed, and fed

25. Plantation Supervision
• Fertilize trees
• Dress trees
• Cut Grass
• Watch cattle
• Chase monkeys

26. Chase Monkeys
• Dogs bark alerting workers of monkeys in
trees, dogs chase monkeys
• Workers take an air rifle and shoot at the
monkeys to scare them away
• If air rifle does not work, a small homemade
cannon is used
• Cannon produces a loud explosion that can be
heard for a couple miles

27. Bio-Digester Maintenance
• Cattle manure is scooped into a bucket and dumped
into the bio-digester
• Cattle urine is washed into it with water
• Cattle waste sits in the bio-digester and moves into the
holding tank where neem is poured on top of it
• Neem is used to keep the mosquito population down
• The liquid is then pumped from the tank into the hose
and is used to individually fertilize trees or fertilize
through a series of valves and pipes
• During the monsoon, the bio-fertilizer levels become
equal in the final two tanks and must be maintained as
not to mix

29. Bio-Gas Digester Maintenance
• Maintained for cooking gas
• Cattle manure is dumped into a smaller
digester which siphons into a holding tank
where gas collects and is transported through
a hose to the house
• Gas hoses and valves lead to several gas
stoves
• Low maintenance, require attention when
leakage occurs
• Free gas

30. Watering Trees
• Water trees with Bio-Digested fertilizer
• Must know Bio-Digester valve location
• Hose connected to valves
• Watered at tree base
• Contains high concentration of fertilizer
• Low concentration of neem (for fungicide)
• Has distinct odor

31. Two Types of Paddy Planting
• Seed Planting Method
• Transplanting Method

32. Seed Planting Method
• Fifteen days before the
monsoon starts, fields
are plowed twice to
soften the topsoil
• After the 2nd and 3rd
pre-monsoon rain, plow
one more time
• Plane the field with
oxen

33. Plowing
• Need two oxen, one yoke, plowing equipment, and a
rope
• One hand holds a small wooden whip, other hand
guides plow
• Small whip is actually a stick with a string tied to the
end and a small stick about 2” long attached to the end
• Whip is not used to whip oxen, but to steer them
depending on how stick is held
• Plow is almost a foot wide, made of iron or wood or
both
• Oxen are steered to make many parallel passes until
entire paddy is plowed

34. Seed Planting Method
• Flatten the field • Dig rows about 8” deep
(powdered dry soil) and 6” wide according
to plowing shovel width
• Mix paddy (rice seed)
with organic fine cow • Simultaneously, seeds
dung, dry manure are sewn and manure is
(powder-like) and neem mixed into the rows
powder and other • The entire land area is
pesticides in equal covered in rice paddy
portion seeds evenly

35. Rice Paddy Planing
• Rice paddies are plowed, planted, weeded,
and flooded
• A process in weeding is called planing
• The plane is wood, circular in shape
• Width is only about a foot, but at least five
inches tall
• When this process is finished, a rake is used to
clean up the excess plants floating in the
water

36. Seed Planting Method
• 10 or 11 days after seeds • Paddy is weeded again 10
planted, ground is still days after monsoon starts
moist • Weeded using same
• Growing plants can be equipment as preparation
seen on field • Weeds are uprooted and
• Plant will be approx 5” tall float in the water
when the monsoon starts • Weeds are swept up with
• Oxen and equipment are a rake and thrown away
used to weed the paddy • After raking, 2” of water
left in the field

37. Seed Planting Method
• After 15 to 20 days the
• After 10 days weeds are paddy plant starts
manually plucked flowering.
• NPK fertilizer applied all • K fertilizers is spread
over the field • Weeding, flowering, and
• After one month paddy pesticide spraying continues
plant grows to height of 1.5 for another 2 months
inches with 10 to 13 • Pesticides are used to
branches (depending on the destroy root & leaf eating
variety of seed) insects and worms
• Again NPK is spread with • Paddy flower converted to
more K. paddy (hardened rice
seed), then harvest into rice

38. Transplanting Method
• Small part of field is
selected
• Field is flooded first part
of monsoon season after
fifteen days rainfall
• Tiller or oxen used on
field 3 times to soften the
soil
• Ground still quite muddy
• Planes are made 3’ X
50’, using shovel
• Shovel used for making
small irrigation ditches
separating the planes

39. Transplanting Method
• Sprouted paddy (paddy soaked
in water for a day) spread onto
planes
• 25 Kilos of paddy seeds are
needed per acre evenly spread
• Let sit for 20 days depending
on the variety of paddy seed
(some can go up to 30 days)
• Paddy plants will be around 8”
• Plow all the [muddy] fields 2
times using tiller (these are
the fields that have not been
seeded)
• Water level 2-3” to make
unwanted plants die (in
unseeded fields)

40. Tilling with a Power Tiller
• Power tiller uses a hand crank to start
• Is driven by a driver which walks behind the
tilling attachment
• Handles protrude out the back for steering
• A knob is used to switch direction and speed
• Tilling takes twelve days to complete and is
done twice, fifteen days apart

41. Transplanting Method
• Separation mounts are
dressed using shovel
manually, separating the
paddies
• Mounds are around 1’ tall
by 1’ wide by 50’ long
• Mounds store water in the
paddy
• 3,000 Kg of cow dung
manure is spread all over
the field
• Plowed again for weeding
• Plant height 8”, hand
plucked and put into 100
seedlings per bundle

42. Transplanting Method
• Transplanted, spaced 5”apart
• Water level kept at 2”
• Manually weed after 15 days
• Weeding is done only once

43. Transplanting Method
• NPK (35 KGs per acre two times in the span of 30 days)
applied, NP is more than K. Need to maintain water
level
• Pesticides sprayed if needed (Chloropyropos
Monocrotophos etc.)
• Before flowering, 40 kilos of K per acre applied
• Harvest after hardening of paddy (when to harvest
depends on variety)
• Yield is 1800 KG per acre
• 4 month cultivation process, max manpower at one
time is 20 (on the day of plucking transplanting)

44. SGS Industries
SGS Industries—forms pipes of varying sizes for
government vehicles, tractors, and other
machinery

45. SGS Industries
• Receives private contracts which supply
government vehicles
• Break and muffler pipes
• Employs 3-5 male workers
• Process: Order proper number and sizes of
pipes, Take inventory, Mark and cut to desired
length, Shape the heads with a drill then
dies, Inspect heads, Attach pipes on bending
machine and hand bend each one, Inspect
pipes, Weld muffler pipes and
inspect, Recount, pack, and ship

46. AG Mechanics Maintenance
• Indian agriculture employs its labor force and does not
require much mechanization
• Most popular mechanization is the power tiller
• Agricultural machinery is cheaper to maintain and does not
have to be fed year round, compared to oxen
• Machinery maintenance is usually done by the owners
themselves or mechanical workers
• Those who do not have the proper tools for maintenance
rely on SGS Industry to repair the needed items
• Workers are advised on how job should be done
• Workers are advised on structural soundness and welding
techniques

47. Rice Mill, Talaguppa
Rice Mill—cleans and polishes several bushels of
paddy a day, and turns it into rice
Talaguppa—village of 10,000 people. Mostly
farmers, some commuters to Sagar. Goods
bought and sold

48. Rice Mill, Talaguppa
• Family owned business
• Serves company and family contracts
• Rice dumped into a machine, fed through a series
of augers and machinery which take the pulp off
and polishes it
• Most customers want fully polished rice, but
some still prefer the partially polished rice
• Fully polished rice is white, while partially
polished rice is brownish white
• My obligation: social networking of
managers, staff, and customers

49. Questions?

50. That’s it!