Odisha, India – Ajay Rout is an indigenous farmer in a remote village in a southern district of the Indian state of Odisha.
The village is surrounded by forest and hills with the nearest market 10 km (6.2 miles) away.
The 34-year-old grows maize and vegetables on his 0.2 hectares (0.5 acres) to eat and sell to his family members at the market.
Rout said this income is meager, so he has started cultivating cannabis, a banned drug, for better income.
He has about 1,000 cannabis plants deep in the hills, which require a walk of at least two hours each way to reach because the path is full of stones and rocks, making it almost impossible for him to ride a bike or his motorcycle.
Cultivation of cannabis – also known as hemp, marijuana, weed and ganja – is legal for medicinal use in only a few states, including Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu. Odisha is not one of them.
India had no legislation on narcotic substances until November 1985 when it brought in a law that included a ban on the use of cannabis.
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 makes it illegal for a person to cultivate, possess, sell, buy and consume narcotic and psychotropic substances and doing so can lead to heavy fines and imprisonment of up to 20 years.
Risky but profitable
Rout, who has been in the business for the past eight years, served three months in prison in 2017 and has since been released on bail. The income from the business, huge for him, overcomes the fear of getting involved in it.
“We live in a hilly terrain where traditional agriculture has a very limited scope. I barely earn 30,000 rupees ($357) a year growing vegetables and sweet corn, while I can easily make 500,000 rupees ($5,962) in just five to six months cultivating cannabis,” he told Al Jazeera after being assured that his real name would not be revealed.
Rout said he and other cannabis growers generally choose remote hilltop locations for their plantations to protect them from police raids. “We are lucky to live among the hills as the police do not raid here as the road is very difficult to walk and reach the plantation area,” he said.
The planting season begins at the end of July. Typically, it takes five months for the flowers to grow, which are then plucked, dried in the sun, packed and sold to traders. An 8- to 10-foot-tall (2.4 to 3 m high) plant produces 1 kg (2.2 lb) of cannabis at a cost of about 500 to 600 rupees ($5.8 to $7) per kilogram. Farmers sell it to traders for 1,000 to 1,500 rupees ($12 to $18) per kilogram.
“But all trees do not produce the same crop and most of them have no flowers at all. Excessive rains are harmful to crops,” said Deepankar Nayak, 37, a farmer.
Change in lifestyle
Cultivation of cannabis, though banned in Odisha, is a very profitable business for farmers and has made them rich overnight.
Subhankar Das, 38, who lives in the same village as Rout, told Al Jazeera that he recently changed the floor of his house from concrete to marble tiles with proceeds from the illegal trade. He also bought three motorcycles. His children are enrolled in local language schools, but he is planning to transfer them to English language schools, which are much more expensive.
“I can also buy four-wheelers and build a palatial house, but we must refrain from such activities that would bring us on the radar of the policemen who are always ready to catch us and destroy our fields, Das added. “However, some of us have bought four-wheelers.”
NK Nandi, founder of SACAL, a non-profit organization working in weed growing districts, said he has seen the change in the lifestyle of farmers.
“We started working in 2000 in the districts where cannabis grows and the locals, mostly tribals, barely had two wheels and lived in mud houses. Marriages were simple and according to their tribal traditions. But everything has undergone a sea change in the last eight to 10 years,” Nandi said.
“Each tribal family has not only bought two to three motorcycles, but also built concrete houses. They perform marriage ceremonies as in other parts of the country and spend lavishly and invite several guests. Declining insurgent activities in these areas along with better transport connectivity has also helped traders to reach them, “helping expand the market for this banned product,” he said.
Police raids
Cannabis cultivation is currently active in six districts of Odisha state: Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Gajapati, Boudh and Kandhamal, all of which have mountainous and hilly terrain.
Senior state police officials told Al Jazeera they are doing their best to stop the illegal trade and have seized about 600 tonnes of cannabis in the three years to 2023, goods worth $200 million. and have also arrested 8,500 drug traffickers. Of this amount of drugs, police made their biggest seizure once last year when they seized 185,400 kg (408,737 lb) of cannabis worth about $55 million.
Police have also destroyed around 28,000 hectares (70,000 acres) of cannabis plantations in Odisha from 2021 to 2023, the highest for cannabis in the country, JN Pankaj, a former inspector general of the Odisha Police Special Task Force, told Al Jazeera. .
In the first seven months of 2024, his team seized 102,200 kg (225,312 lb) of cannabis worth about $30 million, he said.
“We use drones and even satellite imagery to track planting areas and destroy them. The challenge for us is not the hilly terrain, but the use of explosive landmines in these areas, which have traditionally been havens for rebel groups, Pankaj said, adding, “This poses a great risk to the lives of our team.”
And although his team has reduced plantation areas to eight from 12 a few years ago, the high demand and astronomical prices the drug fetches are helping the trade flourish, he said. For example, while traders buy cannabis from farmers for around 1,000 rupees ($12) per kilogram, it sells for 25,000 rupees ($298) per kilogram in India’s big cities.
Alternative living
Some farmers who were previously involved in the trade admitted to Al Jazeera that they had quit due to excessive police patrols.
“They come and destroy our plantation, causing us great losses, and make arrests. We can’t afford to spend a lot of money on legal fees and we don’t want disruption to family life,” said Prabhat Rout, 50, a farmer in southern Odisha who, after five years of cultivating cannabis, switched to millet cultivation.
“Although it’s not as profitable as weed, it’s free of all the headaches,” he explained.
Millet is an ancient grain in parts of southern India that federal and state governments are trying to revive.
Odisha offers free seeds for sowing and the state buys the crop from farmers, incentives that have helped lure farmers to the crop and make Odisha a major player in millet production.
For Rout, however, no cultivation can match the profit of cannabis. “Farmers are moving out of fear, but income from millet can’t match the profit from cannabis. I’m taking the risk because it’s worth it,” he said as he began the arduous journey to his fields under cloud-filled skies.
Editor’s note: The names of all farmers in the story have been changed to protect their identities.
