Commuters 'thresh' ragi while driving on Shidlaghatta roads

They are more worried about the ears of ragi which are spread across the roads. If they want to venture out in their vehicles, they have the daunting task of threshing ragi while driving.

Infact driving or riding on a ragi-spread road is not an easy task for them. They will have to display the best of their driving skills to prove their mettle. Every precaution is required for the drivers and riders. Apart from driving slow, due to constant meddling by the farmers who keep sifting the husk from the grains every time a vehicle passes through, the drivers are forced to apply brakes and avoid themselves from skidding on these grains.

One might wonder what the ears of ragi are doing on the roads, instead of being stored in the field. Infact, the very process of ragi threshing throws light on the plus and the minus points of this activity. The threshing involves a lengthy and time-consuming procedure. The process requires a minimum of 10,000 litres of water, sufficient man power, for preparing the threshing floor.

Threshing floor

The farmers are required to clean the entire area marked for threshing. They should water the area and level it. Cow dung is sprinkled on the area and is allowed to dry.

Once the area is dry, the place is now ready for threshing activity. Heaps ragi corns are dumped on the threshing floor. Farmers move the rolling stone tied to oxen to help the chaff separate from the grain.

Unfortunately, the entire affair is expensive in the present day, owing to the huge quantity of water utilised. Oxen are not available and so also the man power. Nuclear families have replaced joint families even in the villages. Threshing is no longer a massive affair and this procedure has lost its charm.

The threshing floor is prepared by only those farmers who can afford to produce more than 60 bags of ragi. Bogged by poverty, labour problems and financial constraints, the farmers are forced to get their ragi ‘threshed’ on the roads. Traffic movement help the grains separate from the chaff without any investment or physical strain. The grains are later sifted and collected, the villages inform.

All-season

All-season threshing floors can be constructed in the places belonging to the Gram Panchayats in the villages. By doing so, mishaps on the roads can be averted and also, commuters will not be unnecessarily harassed. Even the wide and huge boulders on the outskirts of the villages can be converted into full-time threshing floors.

Now a days, diesel-run seed separators are also available. The Gram Panchayats can buy them and rent them to the farmers at a lower rate and thus facilitate threshing activities among the villagers who cannot afford to set up independent threshing floors, says farmer Jayaram of Varadanayakanahalli.