The land was not the constraint. What he did not have was anywhere to learn a different way of using it.
In 2010 Dwarika Prasad farmed 4,000 square feet by traditional methods and earned fifty rupees a day as a labourer when there was work.
He joined the Gram Adhikar Manch, then the Empowering Rural Women project, and in 2012 came to FASAL. There he learned subabul plantation and machan farming, and travelled to workshops in Faizabad and Delhi.
Exposure visits are easy to dismiss as a line item. What they gave him was a set of practices he could test on his own ground, and a network of farmers doing the same.
He bought a menthol distillation machine and began supplying pharmaceutical buyers directly.
His holding is now 80,000 square feet, under chilli, bitter gourd, menthol, onion, turmeric, rice, wheat, mustard, subabul and neem.
He hires labour instead of selling it. His five children are in school.
He hires labour now instead of selling it.
Seven Years, Not One Season
The distance between fifty rupees a day and a distillation machine is measured in exposure visits, trials and the years in between.