Nonprofit journalism dedicated to creating a Human Age we actually want to live in.

Shrikant connects the holo-projector in his dining room to the land ownership database and displays the Nirula Valley estate. He gestures with his glove to overlay the legal boundaries of all the farm plots, which drape across the foothills of the Western Ghats and into the Deccan plateau, two hundred kilometers inland from Mumbai. His late father had owned ten hectares of the steep slope and another twelve in the valley. But generations of inheritance, piecemeal sales, bankruptcy, and amalgamation had fragmented the holding.

It split further after his father passed, five years ago. Now Shrikant manages one quarter of the estate, his older brother Mahesh manages another quarter, and tenant farmers tend to the rest. Shrikant shakes his head with pride and annoyance as he compares the aerial view of his plots to his brother’s. Shrikant’s fields buzz with vitality year-round. They’re farmed using regenerative agriculture techniques that intersperse pulses and vegetables among the rows of areca nut, mango, and cashew trees.

Mahesh’s land lies desiccated and lifeless for all but a couple of months before harvest, when he unleashes a blitzkrieg of robots to spray the soil, drill in seeds, puff fugs of smoke over the foliage, and finally gather the crops. And he’s erected a giant greenhouse, bigger than a football pitch, that blights the view of the valley from the village. Disgusting, Shrikant mutters to himself.

He opens his fist to expand the view all the way down to the basalt bedrock, and smiles with satisfaction. The water table is high, with abundant flow in the subterranean streams—easily enough to last until the monsoon.

Tomorrow, he thinks, I’ll prove myself a better farmer than my brother, and all of this will be mine.

Switching off the holo, he pushes away his plate, leaving the dinner the maid prepared for him untouched. He is too apprehensive to eat. Where are Mahesh and Mum?

Tonight the three are supposed to meet here in the family’s ancestral home, a bungalow tucked among the tenant farmers’ breeze block and concrete dwellings on the valley floor.

He paces around the living room, bored, wishing his wife Neela and daughter Jyoti had come along, as they usually do. He pauses at a frame hung on the wall, finding his name on the merit list for the prestigious Indian Administrative Service examination, batch 2041. He shakes his head; has it really been twenty years?

Next to it is another frame, a decade-old story clipped from the Financial Gazette about Mahesh’s ten-billion-rupee deal with the Ministry of Defence to build combat-ready drones, the start of his armament empire. And next to that, a yellowing master’s diploma in computational theory and statistics, awarded by IIT Kanpur to their mother, Meera Kulkarni.

At ten, the driveway camera shows a vehicle pulling in. Mahesh helps Meera out of the self-drive.

“Hello, Padawan,” Mahesh says as he enters the bungalow. He ignores Shrikant’s outstretched hand and clasps him in a bear hug.

“You’re no Jedi knight,” Shrikant says, wriggling out of the embrace with a shove. The two had not spoken since the reading of their father’s will when this contest began.

“Don’t be like that,” Mahesh says. “I promised Mum we’d be on best behavior.”

Meera signals for them to sit and looks disapprovingly at his plate of food. “Shrikant, you should have eaten. I told you we’d eat on the way.”

Sensing their discord, she frowns. “Already fighting! You were both always so competitive. I blame him!” she says, pointing over her shoulder to her husband’s portrait, hung above the head of the table. It was painted on his sixty-fifth birthday, just a year before he died.

“That will of his only made things worse. Your families have not met since your feud started. My two grandchildren don’t know each other. This will end tomorrow,” she says, pursing her lips and glaring at them. “I am going upstairs now. I need to prepare for the evaluation.”

From the staircase, she looks at Mahesh. “I haven’t seen last month’s soil carbon.”

“I’ll flick you a copy. No problem.”

“Make sure you do. Tomorrow, after breakfast, we will all go on a farm walk, and you can explain how you’ve managed the properties.”

“But you have all my data already,” Shrikant protests. “You know everything.”

“Not to me! To your brother. This isn’t about who the winner is; it’s about getting closure. After lunch, I will reveal which of you has been more sustainable and profitable and will inherit the estate.”

As she eyes the two of them, her gaze softens. “And remember, you’re grown men, not children.”

As the upstairs door clicks closed, Mahesh bends down, eye to the table, and flicks at the food congealing on the plate. Shrikant flinches as a pea strikes him in the middle of his nose.

“Wicket!” Mahesh says, punching the air.

Shrikant grabs a chapati from the bread basket and flings it at his brother. “Two can play at that game.” He smiles at their ridiculousness—forty-somethings behaving like children.

Mahesh rummages in his bag and produces a bottle of Goan feni. “Let’s call a truce.”

“That stuff’s lethal, bruv! Ninety proof.”

“Are you my wife now?”

Mahesh pours, and they sip their drinks in silence, avoiding eye contact and also the topic on both their minds. Shrikant thinks back on all the good times he’s spent here with his family. Last month, he and Jyoti made jasmine garlands. His annoyance rises again.

“Why do you even want the estate?” he says. “You’re a weapons manufacturer. You don’t care about this place. I do.”

“Is that how little you think of me?” Mahesh says. He looks wistful. “I have fond memories of visiting our grandparents here.”

Then his gaze hardens. “And you? Sitting in your Lutyens-designed bungalow in New Delhi, taking bribes from the common man. What does a babu like you know about running a farm? Bloody do-nothing bureaucrat!”

Shrikant grits his teeth, surprised by Mahesh’s ferocity. “Is that the best you’ve got? You’re sore because Dad didn’t hand over the land to his eldest son. We both know he didn’t trust you with our ancestral land—and his will proves it.”

Mahesh scoffs. “You poisoned his mind against me. You told him I planned to sell the land to developers.” Tipping his chair back, he stares at the ceiling. “Anyway, your words don’t matter. Tomorrow, the numbers will show that I am a better farmer than you. And that’ll be the end of it.” He gulps the last swig of feni from his glass and takes the bottle with him as he heads upstairs.

Shrikant lingers, nursing his drink and wondering whether he could persuade his tenants to make cashew feni. It tastes good.

The following day, the self-drive takes them up the high road to the ridge near the head of the valley. En route, Mahesh keeps glancing at his glove and then tells the car to pull over. Getting out, he pulls a tiny metal globe from a tangle of weeds and wordlessly stashes the device.

“Did the locals hurt your drone?” Shrikant teases. Mahesh ignores him.

They crest the pass and park at the top of the road that leads to Shrikant’s farm. Looking down into Nirula Valley, parched and barren soil gives way to fawn-colored brush that filters the harsh sun. Farther down, rows of Indian ash trees hug the slopes. Shrikant shows Meera and Mahesh the trees rising from earth bunds, long mounds that follow the hill’s contours. Above each row, a shallow trench allows precious monsoon water to pool instead of rushing down to the river below. Shrikant had set the plumb lines himself and led the gangs of village laborers to reshape the hill and plant the saplings, which now stretch up to three meters in height. Make running water walk, make walking water stand still.

As they reach the first line of trees, Meera smiles at Shrikant. “Your tree planting has worked. The valley’s microclimate has become cooler, and the soil moister. You see this?” She plunges a trowel into the trench to show Mahesh the damp, worm-filled, loam.

“But you’re not cultivating any crops on the steep land,” Mahesh points out. “So, it’s all a waste of money.”

“On the contrary,” Shrikant objects. “The tree roots stabilize the soil, which traps the water, which percolates into the aquifer. Also, the carbon content of the soil up here is increasing each year by two and a half tonnes per hectare. I sell the carbon credits on the carbon market at a profit.”

“At six-thousand rupees a tonne, that’s peanuts. And now you’re stuck filing reports every year so the carbon counters don’t claw back those payments.”

They walk along the contour to the hill’s northern face, which Mahesh manages. Trees here are sparse. Meera repeats her maneuver with the trowel and finds only dry grit and sand.

Mahesh shrugs. “We’ve had some soil erosion problems on my side of the hill. I’ll give you that.”

They meet the car, which takes the winding road down to the creek on Shrikant’s side of the hill, dropping them near a check dam constructed from piled rocks. Shrikant beams and boasts about how he secured a low-interest loan from the rural bank and then used local labor to build a series of two-meter-tall dams. The torrent of water that used to wash away the valley’s topsoil now burbles tamely through a staircase of ponds.

Shrikant points to an old well on the field below. “The valley’s water table has stopped dropping and started to rise. That well was dry for decades. Now it has water again.”

“No one cares about an old well,” Mahesh grumps. “Everyone has piped water.” He grabs a spade from the boot, walks to the dam’s edge, and sinks the blade into the murky water. “Look, the pond is silted up.”

Shrikant remains impassive. The dams do need regular desilting, but unfortunately, the government subsidy he used for their construction doesn’t cover maintenance.

Mahesh presses his point. “You might have noticed the new topsoil on my fields. My drones got that field dressing by desilting some of your dams. They still work only because I’ve been clearing them for you.”

“You stole fertile silt for your farm?” Shrikant splutters. “Your bots probably damaged the dams!”

“Nope. They’re fitted with LIDAR and know exactly how much silt to remove. If you want the silt back, take it.”

“How do you know all this? You never visit the valley.” The only human Shrikant had ever met on Mahesh’s land was a baffled, bespeckled techie who belonged on a Bengaluru campus, not a field. “You’ve not employed any of the local villagers. Not one! You’ve only hired robots, drones, and out-of-town contractors.”

“And yet the crop is sown and harvested. Let’s go to my fields, so I can show you how to do it properly.”

Meera waves off the suggestion; she has other ideas. “The heat is getting unbearable,” she says. “We will go to the village temple first.”

At the temple, she leads them into a hall set apart from the main building. “Your great-great-grandfather was the priest here in the independence days. But now the compound is used for secular things, too.” She sits down on one of the steel seats folded at the side. “This is the hamlet’s biggest communal space. There’s something I want you to see, Mahesh.” She fans herself and waits.

One of the tenant farmers arrives. “Mama-ji,” she says, as she sees Meera and offers her a garland of flowers. The farmer smiles shyly at Shrikant. “You promised you’d bring Neela-ji and Jyoti.”

“She’s at school today,” Shrikant says. “Her exams are coming up.”

“She’ll learn more here in the village than from books!”

“You may be right,” Shrikant agrees.

After they’ve helped themselves to cold drinks from the fridge, the farmer takes them to an adjacent concrete building, whose stench telegraphs its purpose. “We have eighteen cows and six calves,” she says, as a cow nuzzles her chest. “This is Lakshmi.”

She points to concrete channels that lead into steel drums. “There, you see. We make a concoction of cow manure, urine, and jaggery that we spray on the fields. The scientists at Haryana University have proven it stimulates bacteria and fungi, freeing more nutrients from the soil. We also use natural insecticides made from tobacco and the neem trees that we grow in the valley. With regenerative farming, we don’t need agrochemicals.”

Shrikant nods as she talks, then joins in. “I often come here and help. It’s a good place to catch up on the gossip.”

“Shrikant-ji helped us obtain a grant and a loan from the rural bank.”

Shrikant goes red and stops her. “Shh! It would help if you didn’t tell anyone. I am responsible for the government’s policy on regenerative agriculture. We don’t want to get rumors going.”

Mahesh looks at a display on the wall that shows large numbers ticking up like an odometer. “Is that measuring the carbon credits earned?”

“Yup,” she says. “Not just for CO₂ but also for the nitrous oxide we avoid emitting. Plus, we filter methane from the cow barns and run it through the pyrolizer to split off the hydrogen. That’s what powers the dairy. The black carbon left over goes to the paving plant.”

Outside the shed, Meera says, “OK, Mahesh. Take Shrikant and me to your greenhouse now.”

“Don’t you want to see my fields?”

“What for? Nothing much to see there.”

Mahesh shrugs. “Have it your way.”

As the car drives to the greenhouse, it overtakes an unmarked, unmanned truck. Shrikant scrutinizes it through the window. Over the past year, he has seen many rigs like this one ply to and from the mysterious building.

 “My company is pivoting away from military drones,” Mahesh says. “There’s more growth in environmental monitoring and agricultural bots. With LIDAR, multispectral cameras, and chemosensors, our drones can detect disease and predict yields from a single flight over the field. They measure canopy height and extent accurately enough to certify our reforestation credits—no paperwork required. We aim to make ag-tech affordable to the masses.”

“But I assume making ploughshares isn’t as profitable as making swords,” Meera teases.

“We’ll see. The gameplan was always to use our defense contracts to iron out the bugs and build capital for a move to civilian uses.”

He activates his glove and flicks an image onto the windshield. “See this? As we know, soils in the valley are deficient in phosphorus, boron, and zinc. But you see here how my bots have mapped the precise patches that need treatment. They fertilize exactly where needed, precisely two weeks before they drill the seeds into the soil. Herbicides and pesticides are also used sparingly. Just enough to ensure each seed has the opportunity to grow without competition or predation. Shrikant, you lost all your mangoes two years ago, right?”

“And you didn’t?”

“Nope. The drones detected the infestation from a spot on a single leaf, and we sprayed the whole area that same night. No losses.”

“OK, but what are your agrochemical costs and pollution taxes and fines for spills? We have none. All our bees and workers are healthy, and natural predators keep the pests in check.”

“They’re low,” Mahesh shoots back. “Precision targeting has cut our chemicals bill by seventy-five percent. We time our sprays using the meteorological department’s data feed to avoid run-off. And bots don’t spill—only humans make that kind of mistake.”

“I know your machines must cost a fortune.”

“I won’t lie. We’re having to rethink using autoharvesters in the fields. The farm is too small to justify the costs of bringing them here for a few tonnes of cotton, lentils, and millet.”

The vehicle parks outside the greenhouse. Mahesh makes them don plastic shoe covers and surgical overalls before they enter. The airtight door hisses as it opens, releasing a cacophony of scents.

Shrikant gapes in amazement. Inside is a damp Garden of Eden. Groaning metal stakes sag under the weight of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. Coriander, basil, bay, and curry leaves grow in knee-high thickets. As they walk through the giant building, they pass through an indoor orchard, with dwarf trees dripping with custard apples, durian fruits, guavas, and pomegranates.

Mahesh raises his arms as he walks backwards in front of them. “We grow eighty different fruits and vegetables. If a disease does sneak in, the diversity ensures we still get income from the other crops. And we just started experimenting with protein-rich fungi.”

Meera pulls a fork out of her handbag and jabs it into a rack of mushrooms. “Where are all the staff?”

Mahesh smiles. “We have just four full-time employees.”

“Four?”

“Techies from Pune, mostly to maintain the robots. They also make sure the truck loaders follow phytosanitation protocols, and they run experiments for the boffins at HQ. All watering and feeding is automated. We release natural predators to stop aphids, and robocats to catch vermin.”

“You shouldn’t write off the local villagers,” Meera says. “They’re smart. You know we were the locals four generations ago.”

Shrikant looks depressed and angry. “This is not farming! You’re operating a factory in the countryside, not an ecosystem. There’s nothing about it that speaks to Nirula Valley. Why don’t you just build this in Pune close to your customers.”

After a lunch in the reception room sampling some of the greenhouse produce, Meera turns on the wall-vue. “The good news is that you both outperformed other local farms,” she begins. “You invested in the farms, which local farmers can’t or won’t. Mahesh, your efforts to farm staples robotically produced astonishing yields, but you spent a fortune. India needs these crops to feed its 1.7 billion people, but at this small scale you couldn’t make it work profitably. Two years ago, you added greenhouse-based horticulture of high-value products, and your revenue went through the roof, easily covering costs.”

Mahesh crosses his arms in satisfaction. “Next year, we’ll bring the transport in-house to get the produce to market faster and properly refrigerated. That will boost profits even more.”

“Your operation performed surprisingly well on carbon sequestration and water consumption, too,” Meera continues. “As you said, chemical costs were low, and you got no fines from the pollution board.”

“How about the villagers?” Shrikant interrupts. “They must hate you for stealing their livelihoods. I saw the vandalized drone.”

Mahesh laughs. “Those drones are designed for the battlefield. You seriously think the folks here can damage one?”

“I know what I saw.”

“Look, I tried to hire locally. I offered good wages. But I couldn’t find anyone willing to work in the fields with my robots. All the youngsters move away to the cities. Don’t you struggle to get talent?”

“Not really.”

“Oh please!” Meera smirks. “Shrikant, you’re constantly complaining about your workers.” Before Shrikant can rebut, she puts on the next slide.

“Your revenue and profits are lower than Mahesh’s. The yields from regenerative agriculture are good, but not as high as Mahesh’s automated farming, except two years ago. Monsoon arrived later than predicted that year, and the seeds drilled into the bare soil on Mahesh’s plots all died. The green cover in your regeneratively farmed fields makes them more resilient to such surprises.”

She shows a slide of diseased fruit. “Although your losses from disease are not as low as Mahesh’s, your produce finally became certified as ‘naturally farmed,’ so you get higher prices from the distributors.

“Overall, Mahesh’s field crops produce more protein and calories than yours do. But the soil is deteriorating in his fields, so those high yields will fall unless he makes significant and costly changes. The greenhouse is very profitable, but the produce is low in protein and calories, so does not meet India’s dietary needs so well. The country is still growing and must increase production.”

Shrikant feels the contest slipping away. His fingers drum anxiously on the table.

“Shrikant, you received carbon-credit payments for adding more trees and soil carbon to your land, and for reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions. You also earned income from negative water-abstraction charges. Your bottom line looks good.”

“Typical bureaucrat,” Mahesh snipes. “You know your way around all the government handouts.”

Meera flicks to the summary slide. “Overall, Mahesh made more profit, due to the stellar performance of his greenhouse.”

Mahesh grins. “Too bad, Padawan. I win.”

Shrikant looks at his mother in disbelief. “This isn’t fair! You’ve included my spending on wages and the revenue-share with tenants. But you haven’t included his spending on his company’s robots and drones.”

“She did,” Mahesh says. “See that line listing expenses for outside contract services?”

Shrikant looks at the low-ball costs Mahesh’s drone company charges the farm. The blood rises in his face.

Meera shrugs. “Mahesh claims they’re the same prices his company will charge when the service is rolled out nationwide.”

“But the staff and data centers in Bengaluru training the AIs? He’s cheating! And you’re turning a blind eye.”

Mahesh matches his indignation. “What about your profits from milking the system for grants and subsidies? Insider knowledge!”

Meera shrugs again and flicks to a new slide. “I want to show you something.”

The numbers show a third farm. Though it’s of similar size to theirs, this one has been generating substantially more output and profits.

“These are the numbers that I earned by managing fields in the next valley,” Meera says with an impish look. “I stole your best ideas.”

“Is this a joke?” says Mahesh. “You ran some sort of simulation?”

Meera plays a video of her stirring a cauldron of cow manure and urine, and then another showing a drone flying knee-high over her cover crop. “You both can learn from each other, just as I learned from you. Use high-yielding, climate-adapted cultivars and AI and targeted spraying. I did all of those, plus regenerative intercropping and watershed enhancement. That’s why my yields and profits exceed both of yours.

“Sons, your father left the farm to both of you—not to pit one against the other, but to force you to cooperate. I want you to settle your differences and make the farm one again.”

She turns to Shrikant. “Forgive me for being blunt, but you sometimes come across as a self-righteous zealot for regenerative farming. You need to learn from Mahesh. Ancient methods do need to be modernized.”

Then she turns to her older son. “Mahesh, for five generations our family has worked with and employed people from the village. It’s a community, not a factory. The people are part of the ecosystem.”

As Shrikant mopes, arms folded, Mahesh stops her there, lifting his hands. “There’s something I want to say.”

“Brother, I know how much you love the farm. Binu and I are city people. I’m not cut out to manage this place. You and Neela are. What I am trying to say is: I don’t want the farm. But Mum’s correct. You should use these technologies I am developing. If you agree to showcase my kit to other farmers, you can have my share.”

Shrikant straightens and puts his palms on the table as he feels a cloud of anxiety lift. He looks again at the performance charts for his mother’s farm, rising like the sloped walls of Nirula Valley. His eyes crinkle into a smile. “If you charge me the low-ball prices you charged your farm, I’d be a fool not to.”

_________________

Prashant Vaze is an environmental economist based in Goa, India. In addition to his award-winning climate fiction, which has been published in anthologies, Vaze also writes non-fiction articles and book on climate, energy, and finance. He has worked for government agencies and NGOs in the U.K. and Hong Kong. Find his blog and published writing at prashantvaze.com.

Top illustration based on artwork by Daniel Horowitz
All other illustrations: AI-generated by W. Wayt Gibbs