Odisha, India Ajay Rout is an Organic farmer in a remote village in the southern state of Odisha, India.
The village is surrounded by forests and mountains with the nearest market 10km (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 eat and sell at the market.
Rout said his income is low, so he has started growing marijuana, an illegal drug, to earn more money.
They have about 1,000 marijuana plants in the mountains, which require at least two hours of walking each way because the path is rocky and rocky, making it difficult for them to ride a bicycle or motorcycle.
Cultivation of cannabis – also known as hemp, marijuana, weed and ganja – is legal for medicinal use in several states, including Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu. Odisha is not one of them.
India had no drug laws until November 1985 when it enacted a law prohibiting the use of marijuana.
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, makes it illegal for a person to cultivate, possess, sell, buy and use narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and is punishable by a heavy fine and imprisonment of up to 20 years.
Dangerous but rewarding
Rout, who has been running the business for the past eight years, was jailed for three months in 2017 and has been out on bail ever since. The income from the business, great for him, overcomes the fear of participation.
“We live in a mountainous area where traditional farming is very limited. I don't earn 30,000 rupees ($357) a year growing vegetables and sweet corn while I can make 500,000 rupees ($5,962) in just five or six months growing marijuana,” he told Al Jazeera after being assured that his real name would not be revealed.
Rout said he and other marijuana farmers often choose remote locations in the mountains to protect themselves from police raids. “We are lucky to be in the middle of the mountains because the police do not enter here because the road is difficult to walk and reach the farming areas,” he said.
Planting season begins at the end of July. Usually, it takes five months for the flowers to grow, which are plucked, dried in the sun, packed and sold to traders. An 8- to 10-foot-tall (2.4- to 3-meter-tall) plant produces 1kg (2.2lb) of marijuana for an average price of 500 to 600 rupees ($5.8 to $7) per kilogram. Farmers sell this to traders at a price of 1,000 to 1,500 ($12 to $18) per kilogram.
“But all trees do not produce the same flowers and many of them do not produce flowers at all. Heavy rains destroy crops,” said Deepankar Nayak, 37, a farmer.
Life changing
Marijuana cultivation, though banned in Odisha, is a very profitable business for farmers and has brought them wealth overnight.
Subhankar Das, 38, who lives in the same village as Rout, told Al Jazeera that he will soon change the floor in his house from concrete to marble tiles with the money he earns from illegal trade. He has also bought three motorcycles. Her children are enrolled in local language schools, but she is planning to transfer them to English schools, which are more expensive.
“I can even buy a four-wheeler and build a palace, but we should avoid such activities as it will put us on the radar of the police who are always on the lookout to catch us and destroy our fields,” Das added. “However, some of us have bought four wheelchairs.”
NK Nandi, the founder of SACAL, a non-profit organization that works in grass-growing districts, said he has seen a change in the lives of farmers.
“We started working in the year 2000 in the districts that grow marijuana and the people of the area, especially the ethnics, did not have two tires and lived in mud houses. Marriages were simple and according to the customs of their tribes. But everything has changed at sea in the last eight to 10 years,” said Nandi.
“A family of every tribe not only bought two or three motorcycles but also built concrete houses. They perform wedding ceremonies like in other parts of the country and spend a lot of money and invite several guests. The decline in crime in these areas and good transport links have also helped businessmen to reach them,” he said.
The police are attacking
Marijuana cultivation is currently active in six districts of Odisha state: Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Gajapati, Boudh and Kandhamal, all of which are hilly and mountainous.
State police officials told Al Jazeera that they are working to crack down on illegal trade and have seized nearly 600 tons of marijuana in the three years to 2023, worth $200m, and arrested 8,500 drug dealers. In terms of drug trafficking, police made their biggest bust last year when they seized 185,400kg (408,737lb) of marijuana worth about $55m.
The police will also destroy about 28,000 hectares (70,000 acres) of cannabis plantations in Odisha from 2021 to 2023, which is the highest for cannabis in the country, JN Pankaj, former inspector general of the Special Task Force of the Odisha Police, told Al Jazeera. .
In the first seven months of 2024, his team seized 102,200kg (225,312lb) of marijuana worth about $30m, he said.
“We use drones and even satellite images to track plantations and destroy them. The problem we are facing is not the mountainous terrain, but the use of landmines in these areas,” which have traditionally been hiding for terrorist groups, Pankaj added: “This is putting the lives of the group at risk.” ours at risk.”
And although his group has reduced its farms to eight from 12 a few years ago, high demand and high prices for the drug are helping the business to grow, he said. For example, while traders buy marijuana from farmers for about 1,000 rupees ($12) per kilogram, it is sold for 25,000 rupees ($298) per kilogram in major Indian cities.
Other ways to live
A number of farmers who were previously involved in the trade admitted to Al Jazeera that they had resigned due to heavy police patrols.
They come to destroy our fields, which cost us a lot, and to arrest us. We can't afford to spend a lot of money financially and we don't want to disrupt family life,” said Prabhat Rout, 50, a farmer in southern Odisha who, after five years of growing cannabis, switched to growing millet instead.
“Although it is not as profitable as weed, it does not have any headache,” he explained.
Millet is an ancient grain in some parts of southern India that governments and local governments are trying to revive.
Odisha provides free seeds for planting, and the government buys seeds from farmers, an incentive that has helped attract farmers to the seeds and made Odisha a key player in millet production.
For Rout, however, no cultivation can compare to the benefits of cannabis. “Farmers are leaving because of fear, but the money they get from millet can't compare to the profit from marijuana. I'm taking the risk because it's worth it,” he said as he began the difficult journey to his fields under a cloudy sky.
Editor's Note: The names of all farmers in this article have been changed to protect their identities.