Farmers
Community by sharing :
The origin of majority of Shahpur and Ratanpur farmers is Gandhinagar. The huge acres of land, that is now being constantly sold to the Government for development, was originally used for farming different crops, giving rise to a number of farmer communities.
The second generation of those farmers are also dependant majorly on farming.
On the basis of the trade and activities performed the whole community can
be divided in the following way : (Fig – 1)

There is an inter-twinning of all these three segments, where each one is some how contributing or getting benefited from the other segment.

Community by resources :
The resources needed for the community:
Seeds – Depending on the type of crops or trees grown:
- Crops (Bajra, Gehun) – Chilora, Kalol, Mensa.
- Fruits and vegetables – From shops.
The produce is majorly sold in the wholesale markets.
- Crops – Dungapur, Santapur.
- Fruits and vegetables – Sector 24, Gandhinagar.
Infrastructural resources are either bought or rented and borrowed from the neighbouring segments. (eg – farmers working on rented land gets tractor from the land owners, and pays them some money.)
In the above diagram (Fig -1), the inflow of resources from one segment to the other in the community can be seen.

Communication patterns :
Mostly the medium of verbal communications is done in ‘Gujrati’. Very few people know ‘Hindi’.
The rates of all the crops are fixed, so when the farmers go to sell these crops in the market, they don’t have much to bargain for. But the rates of the fruits and vegetables are not fixed, and so one can see an interesting communication pattern of fixing the rates and selling their merchandise. In this case rates are fixed by covering the hands of the buyer and the farmer with a cloth, and picking different fingers of the buyer to indicate the amount that the farmers are ready to sell their merchandise in.
Everyone in the community has an in depth knowledge about the crops, the soil, diseases of the crops, the climate, and also the cycle of each crop, fruit, or vegetable that they grow. It was interesting to see that this knowledge was not given to them by any government help or any kind of formal training or education, but was acquired by experience, and training from the elders in the field. They have their own method of touching and identifying the nature of the soil, without any scientific mechanism.

Community by income source :
The community’s major income is selling the fruits, vegetables, and crops to the whole sale market, or to the landlord. But the period of dependency on this is limited to the time period taken by the crop to grow. During the free time they (farmers who working on rented fields or labourers) adhere to various other means of income, like, doing some small job in a carpenters shop, or doing some electrical work. Farmers who own the land have other sources of income too.
They keep animals like buffaloes, cows and sell their milk, or they keep horses and rent them out for marriages. They also keep Tractors, for renting to the other segments of the community.

Common pattern :
The trade and the lifestyle of the community is different amongst its different segments ( land owners, landlords being broady combined for one segment, and labourers,working farrmers being combined for the econd segment) but similar inside its own segment.

The chart shows the similarity and differences of the segments of the community