Three men who belong to Talalapada village under Patrapur block in Odisha’s Ganjam district are trying to return to agriculture following the loss of their livelihoods because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Panda Sahu was working in Bengaluru; Uma Das was earning his living in Mumbai. They completed mandatory institutional and home quarantine after returning home, and began looking for some alternative source of livelihood nearby. Prafulla Kunda, who owned and drove a small cargo carrier in Patrapur block but lost a lot of his business in the lockdown, joined hands with the two returnees.
They found a patch of 10 acres of unused land at a distance of a kilometre from their village and persuaded the owner to let them lease it for one year. “With the help of their family members, they cleared up the land and have started to sow groundnut,” said Rabi Mishra, a local.
