The Urban Farmers Battling Bangalore's Concrete Jungle
by The Daily Eye Team June 2 2017, 3:17 pm Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 40 secsIn Ramagondanahalli village, Muniraju Hanumanthappa bends over his clay-coloured soil surrounded by bright green spinach leaves. He quickly prunes the plants, dwarfed by the apartment complex next to his small plot.
Ramagondanahalli is an urban village being swallowed by the city. It lies on Varthur Lake, one of the biggest in Bangalore, which is known as the Silicon Valley of India. There are copper-tinted dirt roads, small-scale vegetable farms and a man who calls people to temple by beating a drum. The once-rural farming community is now part of eastern Bangalore, near the city's mighty IT campuses. This rapid urbanisation has thrust urban farmers like Hanumanthappa, who is 45, into a fraught relationship with the city. They are confronted with a choice: continue farming under adverse conditions, or sell their land.