It’s nutty on the ground
More than 6,500 farmers in Uttar Pradesh have secured an income boost through climate-resilient groundnut agriculture
For thousands of farmers with small landholdings in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the summer months from March to June — known as the Zaid cropping season — are mostly unproductive. Water availability is limited and farmlands typically lie fallow until the monsoon sowing season starts in July. Now this once-barren period has been turned into a window of opportunity by an initiative nested in the Tata Trusts’ agriculture portfolio.
Growing groundnuts as a summer crop is the change that has happened and it covers 6,658 farmers in around 50 villages in the districts of Bahraich, Shravasti and Balrampur in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The objective is to reach a further 20,000 farmers over the next three years through grassroots NGO partners and, eventually, more than 100,000 in some 500 villages.
The groundnut farming effort is a pilot project that comes under the wide-ranging Sujalam Sufalam programme, which incorporates multiple facets: creating community institutions; enhancing water conservation; developing agriculture entrepreneurs, collaborating with industry stakeholders; and providing farming security through crop insurance and credit options.
Sujalam Sufalam is being implemented by the Tata Trusts in eastern Uttar Pradesh with the support of three NGOs. It embodies a comprehensive approach to sustainable farming practices, with the aim of transforming the agricultural landscape by doubling farm incomes.
Launched in 2019, Sujalam Sufalam covers 500 villages in Bahraich, Shravasti, and Balrampur, reaching 100,000-plus households and integrating a wide range of agricultural practices, including innovative cropping patterns, irrigation techniques, high-quality seeds, high-value crops, mechanisation, and market linkages, alongside the formation of farmer producer organisations.
But why groundnuts? The reasons are clear. Extensively used in edible oil production, groundnuts are a high-value produce with good market demand. And there’s no lack of expertise in India when it comes to groundnut farming, given that the country, with an annual output of more than 10 million tonnes, is the second-largest producer of groundnuts in the world (after China).
Groundnut is the ideal intercrop. It is relatively easy to cultivate even in semiarid conditions and it fixes atmospheric nitrogen directly into the soil, improving fertility and enhancing crop yields. Moreover, groundnuts are easy to store and sell in the market.
“The continuous improvement of seed varieties and adoption of better farming practices have made groundnuts an ideal crop for sustainable farming systems,” says Chitore Guha Sarkar, who heads the ‘climate-smart agricultural livelihoods development’ portfolio under the rural uplift theme of the Tata Trusts. “On the one hand, it boosts the income of farmers and, on the other, it attempts to help reduce India’s deficit in edible oils.”
Peanut propulsion
Patna Ghusiyari village in eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district has set itself a goal — to be nationally recognised as a source for high-quality groundnut seeds. A farmer producer group, comprising 13 farmer members, has been trained in the production of seeds of three groundnut varieties: TG-37A, TLG-45 and TG-51.
The farmers were trained by Muktisadan Basu, a former director of the public-sector Indian Council of Agricultural Research, on best practices in groundnut seed production. They have learned to use a decorticator machine that enables them to separate seeds from the groundnut pod. The seeds are then treated to be ready for sowing.
The farmers were shown how to prepare soil beds so that the entire field could be irrigated evenly. Farmers also learned that an additional crop — okra, for instance — could be sown on the soil-bed boundaries. This vegetable became a nutritional dietary input for the families of the farmers.
With support from the Tata Trusts team, the 13 farmers produced 20.60 quintals of groundnut seeds in just 2.2 acres of land. The group sold the seeds through their Udhyami Mahila Producer Company and the new seed varieties are now being supplied to farmers of 10 neighbouring villages.
High on potential
The potential for groundnut cultivation in eastern Uttar Pradesh is high. Two rivers — the Ghagra and the Rapti — flow through what is known as the Tarai belt, supplementing a 20-foot-deep water table that supports agricultural activity for most of the year. The sandy loam, with highly fertile soil, makes this an ideal land for groundnuts to flourish with the right scientific practices.
The three-year groundnut initiative started in October 2022 under the ‘climate-smart agriculture and livestock’ thrust of the Trusts and has been planned in accordance with livelihood parameters arrived at by NITI Aayog, the Indian government’s public policy think tank.
Integrating agricultural advancements with grassroots conditions, the initiative engages directly with farmers and other stakeholders, while encouraging capacity building among local communities.
To foster the shift to groundnut, the Trusts team first set out to understand the local farming community. The farmers here predominantly grow sugarcane and paddy during the Kharif season (which commences with the onset of monsoon) and lentils, rapeseed and mustard as winter crops in the Rabi season.
“There was potential to cultivate groundnut concurrently with sugarcane by utilising the inter-row space between sugarcane saplings and harvesting the groundnut crop in 80-90 days, before the sugarcane gains in height,” explains Mr Guha Sarkar.
Groundnut being a bulky seed crop, it was a challenge for farmers in the region to get quality seeds. The Zaid season opened up a unique opportunity to develop seed hubs that could cover this gap while earning a premium over the normal commodity price when sold as seeds to farmers.
In early 2022, the Trusts team made a modest beginning, engaging with 10 farmers and supplying them with high-quality seeds. Muktisadan Basu, a former director of the public-sector Indian Council of Agricultural Research, was contracted to help drive the project by extensively training the project team members as well as mobilising village-level workers, the last-mile community resource.
The seed chosen for the pilot was of the DH-86 variety, a climate-tolerant semi-spread type — which does not take up too much space — developed by the Directorate of Groundnut Research, which operates under the central government’s Ministry of Agriculture.
About 20kg each of groundnut seeds were sown in the Rehra, Sadar and Sriduttganj regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh and the results were encouraging. The first crop was cut three months after sowing, yielding a harvest of 450-520kg per acre. “Considering the prevailing minimum support price of 
6,000+ per quintal (100kg), this translated into an additional income of at least 27,000 per acre for the farmer,” says Mr Guha Sarkar.
The success of DH-86 led the team to explore further. Discussions with the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, led to the securing of varieties with high oleic oil content — Girnar 4 and Girnar 5 — for pilot adaptation evaluation trials.
“This has been envisaged as an idea where communities will be able to increase value-addition and incomes by developing a secure production line for high oleic oil groundnut seeds,” says Mr Guha Sarkar. “This also offers a healthier option to local farming communities.”
From the adaptation pilots, the Girnar 4 harvested in November 2023 was also a success, registering yields of 428 to 572 kg per acre (though the seeds were received quite late). The project then expanded to trials of four more seed varieties of groundnut with 39 farmers.
Tested and tried
The seed trials were meant to identify the most suitable seed for the climatic, geographic and environmental conditions in eastern Uttar Pradesh. This was to ensure maximum compatibility and production output. The varieties tested showed no disease throughout the process from sowing to harvesting. Yields and production were satisfactory and all the seeds showed positive results in terms of improved soil fertility.
The final selection was narrowed down to the TG-45 variety. It emerged as the preferred choice of farmers because it generated high yields and the larger size fetched a better price in the market.
Buoyed by the success of the trial project, the Trusts team has now expanded the adoption of groundnut farming to the Rehra, Sadar and Tulsipur regions. The Trusts team is supporting the farmers by purchasing agricultural machinery and arranging seeds from the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee.
Farmer communities have been engaged with and encouraged to adopt groundnut cultivation. To ensure sustainability and build a local ecosystem for quality seeds, the team has trained farmers to establish seed production clusters (see Peanut propulsion).
The expectation is that the groundnut farming venture will provide a much-needed boost to small-farm households and help hedge against climate risks and volatility in wheat and paddy prices. The way things are going, that expectation is on track to being met on a larger scale.
Gudiya Devi at her farm in Badago village in Tulsipur
Gudiya gets growing
For Gudiya Devi, a woman farmer from Badago village in the Tulsipur region of eastern Uttar Pradesh, the adoption of groundnut cultivation has been transformational.
Ms Gudiya’s three-acre plot of agricultural land is the main source of livelihood for her nine-member family. Before joining the project, her family grew paddy and wheat, along with some sugarcane as a cash crop. Poor irrigation meant yields were never up to expectations.
In 2020 Ms Gudiya joined the Sujalam Sufalam programme, which was being implemented in her village by its pani sansthan (water organisation). She learned about ways to use less water in farming and also cottoned on to the benefits of planting high-value crops.
Ms Gudiya’s family was initially reluctant to shift away from their traditional practices. She managed to convince her husband and, as a trial, they planted an onion crop on raised beds in a small area of their field.
“We got almost double the yield compared with the traditional method and we used a lesser quantity of water,” says Ms Gudiya. “This boosted our confidence and my family became more accepting of the idea of planting new crops and adopting new methods.”
In February 2024, during a meeting of the village farming group, Ms Gudiya heard about sowing groundnut as an intercrop with sugarcane. This time when she returned home to explain the benefits of groundnut farming, her family was more willing to listen.
At the end of the month, the family sowed the TG-37 variety of groundnut, planting the oilseed between two lines of sugarcane. In June Ms Gudiya and her family found themselves with a rich harvest of 210 kg of groundnut from just a quarter of an acre of land. Even after keeping back sufficient seeds for the next sowing season, Ms Gudiya earned 10,500 from the crop.
Ms Gudiya’s story of high-yield groundnut cultivation and her consequent earnings jump spread quickly, within her village and beyond, encouraging more farmers to go with groundnuts.