Odisha, India – Ajay Rout is an indigenous farmer in a remote village in the southern district of the Indian state of Odisha.
The village is surrounded by forest and hills and the nearest market is 10 km (6.2 miles) away.
The 34-year-old grows sweet corn and vegetables on his 0.2 hectares (0.5 acres) for his family to feed and sell at the market.
Rout said that the earnings were miserable, so he started growing cannabis, an illegal drug, for better earnings.
He has about 1,000 cannabis plants located deep in the hills, which require at least a two-hour hike one way because the path is full of rocks and stones, making it almost impossible for him to ride a bike or 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 did not have a narcotics law until November 1985 when it passed a law that included a ban on the use of cannabis.
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985 prohibits the cultivation, possession, sale, purchase and consumption of narcotic and psychotropic substances by a person, which can lead to severe fines and imprisonment of up to 20 years.
Risky, but rewarding
Rout, who has been in this business for the past eight years, served three months in prison in 2017 and has been out on bail ever since. Earnings from work, huge for him, overcome the fear of dealing with it.
“We live in hilly terrain where traditional agriculture has a very limited scope. I barely earn 30,000 rupees [$357] annually growing vegetables and sweet corn, while I can easily earn 500,000 rupees [$5,962] in just five to six months growing cannabis,” he told Al Jazeera after being assured that his real name would not be published.
Rout said he and other cannabis farmers generally choose remote hilly locations for their plantations to protect themselves from police raids. “We are lucky to live in the middle of the hills because the police do not attack here because the path is too difficult to walk and reach the plantation area,” he said.
The planting season starts at the end of July. It usually takes five months for the flowers to grow and then they are picked, dried in the sun, packed and sold to traders. An 8- to 10-foot-tall (2.4 to 3 meters) plant produces 1 kg (2.2 lb) of cannabis at a price of around 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 not all trees produce similar production and most do not flower at all. Excessive rains are harmful to crops,” said Deepankar Nayak, 37, a farmer.
Change of lifestyle
Cannabis cultivation, though banned in Odisha, is a very lucrative 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 had recently changed the flooring in his house from concrete to marble tiles thanks to the proceeds from the illegal trade. He also bought three motorcycles. His children are enrolled in local language schools, but he plans to transfer them to English language schools, which are much more expensive.
“They can even buy four-wheelers and can build a lavish house, but we have to refrain from such activities as it would put us on the radar of policemen who are always on the lookout to catch us and destroy our fields,” Das added. “However, some among us bought four-wheelers.”
NK Nandi, founder of SACAL, a non-profit organization that works in areas where weeds grow, said he has witnessed a change in farmers’ lifestyles.
“We started working in 2000 in the districts where cannabis is grown, and the local population, mostly tribal, hardly had two-wheelers and lived in mud houses. Marriages were simple and in accordance with their tribal traditions. But everything has changed a lot in the past eight to ten years,” said Nandi.
“Each tribal family not only bought two to three motorcycles, but also built concrete houses. They perform wedding ceremonies as done in other parts of the country, spend lavishly and invite few guests. A decline in insurgent insurgent activity in those areas, along with better transport connectivity, has also helped traders reach out to them, helping to 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 were doing their best to stop the illegal trade and had seized about 600 tonnes of cannabis in the three years to 2023, goods worth $200 million, and had also arrested 8,500 drug dealers. Of that amount of drugs, police made their biggest single haul last year when they seized 185,400 kg (408,737 lb) of cannabis worth about $55 million.
Police also destroyed about 28,000 hectares (70,000 acres) of cannabis plantations in Odisha from 2021 to 2023, the highest number of cannabis plantations in the country, JN Pankaj, former inspector general of Odisha Police’s 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 hideouts for insurgent groups, Pankaj said, adding, “This poses a serious risk to the lives of our team.”
And although his team reduced the plantation area to eight from 12 a few years ago, the huge demand and astronomical prices the drug fetches are helping the trade thrive, he said. For example, while traders get cannabis from farmers for about 1,000 rupees ($12) per kilogram, it sells for 25,000 rupees ($298) per kilogram in India’s big cities.
An alternative way of life
Several farmers who previously engaged in this trade admitted to Al Jazeera that they had given up because of excessive police patrolling.
“They come and destroy our plantations, causing us great losses, and they also make arrests. We can’t afford to spend too much money on legal fees and we don’t want a disruption in family life,” said Prabhat Rout, 50, a farmer in southern Odisha who, after five years of growing cannabis, switched to growing millets instead.
“Even though it’s not as profitable as weed, there are no headaches,” he explained.
Millet is an ancient grain in some parts of southern India that federal and state governments are trying to revive.
Odisha offers free seeds for sowing and the state purchases the crop from farmers, incentives that have helped attract farmers to the crop and made Odisha a significant player in millet production.
For Rout, however, no cultivation can match the profits of cannabis. “Farmers are switching out of fear, but the earnings from millet cannot be compared to the earnings from cannabis. I take the risk because it’s worth it,” he said as he began the arduous journey to his fields under a cloud-filled sky.
Editor’s note: The names of all farmers in the story have been changed to protect their identities.
