Dr. K R Hullunache Gowda, who was given an honorary doctorate by Jeeva Theological Open University, Chennai, for his work in farming, belongs to Srinivaspura village of Kolar district of Karnataka. Back in the 90s he finished his post-graduation in Sericulture and started his career as a lecturer in Chikaballapur University.

However,Dr. Gowda could see how Kolar, which was once famous for its mulberry, mango and vegetable plantation, was facing drought and shortage of rainfall year after year,resulting in huge losses for farmers.

The bore wells, the only source of irrigation,had all stopped working. The farmers had to shift from agriculture to some other sources of livelihood. Most of them started working as daily wage labourers and had to travel to Bangalore and nearby industrial areas every day for a living. He then decided to leave his job and find out the reasons behind the farmers’ problems and possible solutions.

Mulberry

In 1995,Dr. Gowda planted mulberry in a row system usingthe traditional method that all farmers followed. In this method 5,000 small mulberry plants were grown per acre and only 250 DFLS could be reared. This required plenty of water and the labour cost was also very high to look after so many plants.

After years of research Gowda finally came up with a technique that solved all the problems of the mulberry farmers. He implemented dry land cultivation techniques for mulberry plantation.

In his mulberry tree plantation technique, per acre 430 mulberry trees can be grown and 300 DFLS (EGGS) can be reared. By this way the quality of leaves and cocoons became excellent. The cost of cultivation was also reduced to 50% compared to old methods.

By this method the farmers were able to grow mulberry with ease with minimum water usage. One family could maintain the farm without much labour and they were able to earn a living. This technique was recognized by Central Silk Board, and is implemented now in many parts of Karnataka state. Mulberry farmers from various districts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh visit mulberry farms that are under Dr. Gowda’s guidance.

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The technique has now been adopted by Government of Karnataka Sericulture department, which has given a target to all district sericulture departments to do mulberry tree plantation in 1,000 acres of land in their respective districts.

Mango Plantation

Dr. Gowda also started a mango plantation in 13 acres of his land back in 2000.He recognized that the decrease in quantity and quality of Kolar mangoes was due to the ‘Stem Borer disease’, which was a result of excessive chemical usage. He then researched for organic methods to tackle stem borer diseases in mango tree. Today under his guidance more than 500 acres of mango farms are grown organically and ripened naturally. These mangoes were of very good quality and the farmers were delighted to sell them at higher prices. Seeing the results, many mango growers are planning to grow there mangoes in a completely organic method.

Pomegranate

Bacterial Blight of pomegranate was first reported in India from Delhi in 1952 and was of minor economic importance till 1998. Presently, the disease occurs widely and outbreaks have been recorded in all major pomegranate growing states, including Karnataka, Maharashtra & Andhra Pradesh. Bacterial blight of pomegranate affects leaves, twigs and fruits.

The investments made by Pomegranate farmers are very high. If the farm gets affected by this deadly disease, the entire pomegranate farm is washed out and farmers suffer major loss.

Dr. Gowda wanted to get rid of this blight through organic methods. After years of research, he implemented the same in districts of Chitradurga and Davanagere. He noticed that these deadly diseases were being controlled through his methods. He not only witnessed recovery from blight, he also gave them a very good yield to earn premium prices. Moreover, the cultivation charges went down up to 50% and the maintenance of the field became much easier. This was a major achievement for K R Hullunache Gowda in pomegranate crop.

Similarly many organic techniques were invented by Dr. Gowda to tackle the common diseases in the crops like coffee, grapes, areca nut etc.

Dr. Soil

Dr. Gowda also invented a unique innovative product in the form of Liquid Organic Plant Food that helps in growth of plants while also maintaining the quality of land known as Dr. Soil.

By natural process of decomposition Dr.Soil balances the PH of land, reduces the acidic part and neutralizes the land. Once the land is neutralized the absorptions of carbon capacity is increased which reduces the carbon foot print, which results in carbon credit. This process is important to get natural crop in natural environment.

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The most important aspect of farming is biological Cycle (soil food web). But usage of chemical fertilizer, which produces sulphuric acid kills the earth worms and other microorganisms and destroy the entire biological cycle very badly.

According to Dr. Gowda use of Dr.Soil will create suitable environment and earth worms and biological cycle will be back naturally. So it will help to convert almost all physical nutrients matter into available form for plants.

“By natural decomposition method Dr.Soil produce required gases like Nitrogen, and Ammonia also. These are helpful for plant to grow and create distance between two particles of land which can help roots to grow and get proper oxygen. Hard soil automatically softens and water holding capacity increases,” says Dr. Gowda.

Villages adopted by Dr. Gowda

In the year 2010 Dr. Gowda started the Sasya Sanjeevini Grammen Abhivrudhi Trust and adopted savayava grama Venugopalapura from Kolar District and Chikkajajur village from Chitradurga District.

The trust plays a major role in the developmental activities of these villages. All the organic inputs in these villages are available at 50% cost, remaining 50% cost is borne by the trust. Farmers here are following organic techniques and the trust has appointed representatives to understand the various problems in the village and triesto give solutions for the same.

Mobile vehicle to spread awareness among farmers

A mobile vehicle was launched to educate farmers from the trust. The vehicle travels to almost all parts of Karnataka to spread awareness. The mobile vehicle has a big-screen TV, speakers, pamphlets, organic books, newsletters and innovative videos to make farmers understand the need of organic farming.

Presently, the vehicle has covered more than 15 districts in Karnataka and has successfully reached the farmers, spreading awareness about organic farming

“Earlier days farmers were experts in their field, they knew exactly what they had to do. Over the years they have been misguided to use all sorts of fertilizers and chemicals, which in the long run have destroyed the soil and affected crop yields. Even the younger generation believes that they can cultivate only after using these deadly chemical fertilizers. It’s a major task to change their mindset to understand how these fertilizers have affected the earth,” says Dr. Gowda.

Dr. Gowda has spent all his life educating and training various farmers across the state. Thousands of farmers are happy continuing his organic techniques. He wants to continue his work in the same way so that one day the entire farmer community will adopt organic farming and stop conventional ways of farming. He proudly informs us how in his training sessions there are at least 15-20 software engineers who want to get back to farming.

“In just two decades the temperature has risen almost 15 degrees. We need to plant more trees, increase biodiversity. All agriculture land should have at least border trees. Wasteland should be converted to forests. Let us not blame anyone. Every individual should be the change,” he concludes

You can write to Dr. Gowda at hngowda@microbiagro.com or call him on 8884677001 or 9740088770

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It was the year 2000 when Maya Mahajan, a PhD scholar from Coimbatore, was researching on the impact of invasive alien weeds on native flora and ecology in various forest types in the Nilgiri biosphere reserve, including Siruvani hills, Mudumalai, Silent valley and Upper Bhavani.

During her research, Maya came to know about lantana camara -, an exotic weed of South American origin – which was invading different forest areas and posing a serious threat to the native vegetation in Western Ghats, including Siruvani area in Coimbatore.

Getting rid of the lantana weed was a little tricky as the use of chemicals to remove the shrub could affect the native species of plants too, and mechanical methods of removal are too expensive. For years, Maya would think about a possible solution to remove these plants as well as helping the local community in Siruvani. As lantana looks exactly like bamboo but was more durable than it, Maya got the idea of making furniture out of it. However, she never had the right support and financial backing.

It was when she joined as an associate professor at the Centre for Sustainable Future at Amrita University, Coimbatore, that she wrote a project report about how lantana can be used to make furniture and help the local tribal community with some extra income.

It took her almost four years to get approval from the funding agency, but finally the project was fully funded and Maya’s idea started to take shape in 2015.

The first and foremost challenge to start the project was to convince the tribal community to get the lantana weeds from the forest as elephant attacks were very common in the area. It was only when V Vellachi, a resident of Singampathy, along with seven other women volunteered for training, that others followed suit.

The next challenge was to get permission from the forest department to cut and get these weeds to the villages. However, soon Maya was permitted to do the same as the forest department came to know about this easy way of removing the weed, which was a difficult task for them.

“We roped in ATREE, a Bengaluru based organisation, to train villagers in furniture- making. Around 40 residents of the three villages were trained in a three-month training programme beginning December 2015. The project was funded by the department of science and technology,” informs Maya.

In this project, the tribal community is involved in the mechanical control of lantana by manually cutting, and at the same time, they are trained in making low- cost furniture, handicraft, toys and other utility articles using lantana wood. Thus, a generation of sustainable livelihood options for tribals and forest conservation is achieved at the same time.

Making furniture out of lantana is quite different from the usual way furniture is made. After the shrub is chopped off, its wood is treated in boiling water to make it flexible. The bark is removed and the log is sliced into sticks before it is assembled into furniture pieces.

The furniture looks exactly like the bamboo or cane furniture, but is more durable. The cost of lantana furniture is also much lesser than bamboo furniture as the raw material is available for free.

“Not only is it cheap and durable, it will also help conserve bamboo and cane trees, which otherwise are cut down to make furniture,” says Maya.

Seventy tribals in Singampathy, Sarkarporathy and Kalkotipathy hamlets were provided training in lantana furniture-making for 45 days each in the past one year. The training will be also provided to tribals in other three hamlets during the next two years.

Assistance was provided to the communities in marketing the products in potential areas  in India. Market linkages were being established in Coimbatore and other major cities in India with the help of Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED).

Even though the business is still in its primitive stage, villagers have so far sold furniture worth Rs 1,70,000, and have orders worth Rs 70,000 pending with them.

“Everyone was skeptical about the idea in the beginning. Once the products were ready after so much effort from the villagers, I was worried about the marketing. But one year down the line we have advance orders and now we are worried about how we will finish the orders,” laughs Maya.

During her project, Maya also noticed that the tribals of Sadivayal, Singampathy and Sarkarporathy hamlets that are located in the pristine forests of Siruvani hills of the Western Ghats, were reluctant to do agriculture due to frequent elephant raids and water scarcity. Few of them, especially in Sadivayal village, had started using chemical fertilizers influenced b external agencies. By reviewing the overall situation with the help of a team from Amrita University, she decided to promote crops that don’t attract elephants and introduced organic farming methods in these villages.

Awareness programs were conducted in all the three villages about the importance of organic farming and the ill effects of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on land, environment and health.

Several training programs  on the actual process of organic farming were conducted, followed by on- field training/implementation programs. Organic crops such as turmeric, chilly, cow peas, ground nut, black gram, tomatoes, ladies finger and rice were cultivated in a total of 45 acres of land.

Farmers were trained in making Panchgavya, Jeevamritam, and the land was prepared using cow dung, green mulching and goat manure. Farmers were also trained on bio-insecticides using leaves and cow urine. There were many people who pointed out that converting to organic was not that easy and initially the farmers may have to face losses. But Maya was determined to do this.

“It was a huge responsibility on me. Even the farmers were not sure, but I asked them to just trust me. I told them that I was  going to pay whatever loss there was, from my own pocket. But when the crop was ready, everyone was overjoyed – especially me. The yield was almost double, and moreover, it was organic, so the farmers got a better price than before. This was one of the best moments of my life,” says Maya.

At the end of the year, 45 tonnes of organic rice and 5 tonnes of turmeric were produced and were sold at a premium price in the market. The farmers made double the profit compared to the previous year.

You can contact Maya Mahajan at mayaenviron@gmail.com

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About 30 km from Maihar, lies Pithaurabad village in the Unchehara block of Satna district in Madhya Pradesh. What is unusual about this village is the 2-acre land, where you will find 110 varieties of rice crop. The farm belongs to 72- year- old Babulal Dahiya, who has been collecting these varieties since 2005. In the rest of the 6 acres, Babulal has also grown 100 more varieties of pulses, grains and vegetables.

Babulal was born and brought up in a farmer’s family. Though he had been sent to study far away from his village, he would come back in the holidays and help his father with his farm.

“In those days, kids got involved in their father’s profession very easily. Being from a farmer’s family, I learnt everything about farming. We would have a 28-day holiday from Dussehra to Diwali. All the kids would come home and help the family with harvesting the yield,” says Babulal.

Babulal also had an unusual knack for Bagheli (a local language in Madhya Pradesh) poetry and storytelling right from childhood. So, even after finishing his studies and working as a postmaster in his village, he would keep participating in poetry meets and performances. Soon he started writing columns for renowned publications like Navbharat Times.

Babulal became a household name soon in the Bagheli speaking tribal community and joined the Madhya Pradesh Adiwasi Lok Kala Academy. The academy requested him to document Bagheli folk literature -songs, proverbs, folktales, legends, myths and so on, to retain their culture. Babulal, who was already passionate about Bagheli literature, then authored five books on Bagheli oral folk literature and published two poetic collections.

This is when he came across many songs, sayings and folktales where a variety of rice was mentioned which he had never heard about.

“There is a saying in Bagheli ‘Dhaan bove Kargi, suvar khaye na samdhi’. (If you sow, the Kargi rice variety, it is neither eaten by wild boars nor by the family of the son-in-law). This variety has small protective spikes and so the boars can’t eat them. Then there is this mention of ‘kalawati’ variety which is black in colour and takes 145 days  to get ready to be harvested and it has amazing medicinal properties” he explains.

Babulal would often think about how one can save folk culture by preserving the songs and folktales, but what about the diverse variety of grains and crops that were once a part of the culture? Thus, in 2005, Babulal started his mission of saving the rice varieties that he had heard about in folktales and songs.

He started visiting each and every farmer across the country, who had seeds of the unique varieties of rice and sowed them in the 2-acre space of his 8-acre land.

So far he has grown 110 varieties of traditional rice. He has studied their qualities deeply. Every year he sows these farm-saved seeds in his field and studies them, and  grows traditional crop varieties without using any fertilizers.

Along with that, he is also growing rice and coarse grains like kodo, kutki and jowar with farmers from 30 villages of the Unchehara block.

“At one time, our country had more than 1 lakh variety of traditional rice. Now that number has drastically reduced. Out of these, I have collected 110 varieties, which I am constantly protecting and preserving,” says Babulal.

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Talking about the qualities of traditional rice varieties, Babulal says each one has a unique taste, unlike the hybrid ones, which is why the farmers get a good price for these. Sufficient yield is obtained for traditional rice varieties by simply using cow dung as manure. In contrast, hybrid and dwarf varieties require chemical fertilizers. This increases inputs and reduces the fertility of the land or soil.

Moreover, there are different rice varieties for different purposes. Like Bajranga, which is sown by farmers for a long time, as it takes time to get harvested here are other rice varieties like Kamalshree that are sown for guests and Nevari variety is sown for selling as it provides good returns.

He also informed that traditional rice varieties don’t require regular weeding.

Doing it once is enough because weeds don’t ‘strangle’ these plants since they grow taller. Pests are controlled by spiders, honeybees, ants and insect friends. Earthworms too help by turning and softening the soil throughout the day, which helps the plant to grow.

Not only this, but traditional varieties have the strength to adapt to the local environment. For instance, the traditional rice varieties constantly competing with the dwarf varieties and growing in this land for millennia -, have increased the length of their stalk, which helps store more water. Later after the spikes have developed, dew is sufficient to ripen the rice. Imported dwarf varieties don’t have that quality.

Babulal has also formed a Sarjana Samajik Sanskritik and Sahityik Manch, which has served as a medium for documenting and disseminating information on traditional seed varieties.

Inspired by Babulal’s work, the Biodiversity Board has started a Beej Yatra to collect indigenous varieties of vegetables and medicinal plants. So far, they have collected over 1600 varieties from 24 districts.

These days he is in Bhopal, where various grain varieties are grown in pots as a part of the awareness campaign. His collection has been getting deposited in a seed bank developed with the help of the Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Board.

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He also runs a biodiversity awareness campaign with school children and  travels across the country participating in various workshops to spread the message of conservation of seed varieties. Babulal  has been honoured on various platforms for his work. 

“Recently I visited Kerala, where we were served kodo rice. My mother would serve kodo rice along with milk to us when we were kids. So, it was very nostaligic . It is also said in the folktales that in ancient times, kings would ask farmers to grow this variety of rice and store them for droughts as it can be stored for years. Also, even a little quantity is very filling. But due to its thickness, it was not liked much and farmers stopped growing it. It’s very important to preserve these varieties as they prove to be helpful in adverse situations,” says Babulal.

You can contact Babulal Dahiya at babulaldahiya@gmail.com or call him on 9981162564.

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Among renowned personalities like Deepa Karmakar, Virat Kohli and Sanjeev Kapoor on the list of Padma Shri awardees this year was another, but far lesser-known, name– Genabhai Dargabhai Patel, a differently-abled farmer from Sarkari Goliya village of Banaskantha district of Gujarat. And his is a story of grit and determination.

“There is no life without challenges and there is no fun without challenges. Where people stop, I start from there. I never felt that there is something I can’t do. What do you say in English? ‘There is no word called impossible in my dictionary,’”laughs Genabhai, who was born with polio in both his legs.

Genabhai is the youngest among four brothers and one sister. As kids, his brothers would help their father on the farm.However,their dad wanted Genabhai to study as he felt that due to his illness, he would never be able to farm. He was sent to a hostel 30 km away from his village at an early age where he would manage to go to school on his tricycle. He studied till class 12 there, but being illiterate his parents had no clue on how to educate him further. So Genabhai came back to his village.

Though people believed that Genabhai could do nothing to help his father and brothers on the farm, he would still accompany them. He realised that there was one thing that he could do at the farm – drive a tractor. He learnt to drive one and also managed to handle the clutch and break with his hands.

Soon, Genabhai became the best tractor driver in his village.

“My father was into traditional farming. He would grow wheat, bajra and the traditional crops grown in Gujarat. Those times there was no drip irrigation facility as well so the farmers would use flood irrigation method with the help of borewells. Due to this there was a lot of wastage of water. Also one has to work all year round in traditional farming. I wanted to do farming and so I was looking for a crop that I can handle despite my disability, something that requires just one time plantation and gives returns for long,” says Genabhai.

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Genabhai then started his research on such crops. He thought of planting mango trees initially, however mango flowers fall if there is a weather change and one has to wait until the next flower season. To know about more options, Genabhai took help of the local agriculture officer. He also visited Agriculture University and gathered information from the government’s krishi mela. He travelled across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra for about 3 months and finally came across the answer to his research. He saw farmers in Maharashtra growing pomegranate in an almost similar climate as of Gujarat. Unlike mango flowers, pomegranate flowers grow all year round and do not require constant attention.

In 2004, Genabhai brought 18,000 saplings from Maharashtra and planted in his farm with the help of his brothers.

“Other farmers would think that I have gone mad to plant pomegranate as no one ever did it in the entire district. But a farmer’s eye can never fail. I knew that this was going to grow well in my land. My brothers and nephews too trusted me and supported me completely,” says Genabhai.

Genabhai was proved right within two years and in 2007 all his plants bore fruit. Noticing his success few farmers also planted pomegranate. But now marketing these fruits was the biggest hurdle as there was no market for pomegranate in the entire state. Genabhai then gathered all the pomegranate growers in Banaskantha–they would load trucks of pomegranate and sell them at Jaipur and Delhi markets. But this was not a long-term solution. They needed traders who could buy their yield directly.

“Traders would buy from us if we showed them enough quantity and hence we played a trick. We asked each farmer to sit at various places in different farms. We showed the trader the same farm several times and showed 100 farms of pomegranate which were actually just 40. The traders then believed that we have a huge quantity and we got our first order,” he laughs.

The first order was sold at Rs 42 per kg. He cultivated pomegranate on over five hectares of land and produced nearly 54,000 kg pomegranate, earning a profit of more than Rs 10 lakh against his investments.

“For every acre of routine farming, the other farmers used to get Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000. But my plantation gave me Rs 10 lakh profit,” Genabhai says.

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Seeing this, a lot of villagers started following his footsteps and diverted from traditional farming to horticulture farming. Genabhai also started conducting workshops for villagers on pomegranate farming for which he brought in agricultural scientists and experts to his pomegranate farm. This was to ensure that the farmers can avoid all the mistakes which Genabhai made due to lack of knowledge and exposure to information.

However, the problems did not end here. There was a point when the water level in the entire district went down and there was a huge water crisis. But Genabhai, who believes that everything happens for a reason, took this as an opportunity to install drip irrigation in all the pomegranate farms.

“We had a subsidy of 50% to install drip irrigation that time which has now become 80%. The government also gives subsidy of Rs. 42,000 to the pomegranate farmers. Taking advantage of this, we installed drip irrigation in all the pomegranate farms,” says Genabhai.

Today Genabhai’s efforts have borne fruits and the district’s pomegranates are exported to Dubai, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, giving the farmers excellent returns. During his visit to Deesa in Banaskantha, Prime Minister Modi had also mentioned his name and praised his achievements in his speech.

Talking about how farmers can get out of the current situation, Genabhai says,“I suggest farmers to think beyond traditional crop and traditional farming methods. Every farmer must have at least two indigenous cows and prepare their own organic fertilizer. Using chemicals and spending on them is an unnecessary burden on them. Also if they grow crops and fruits as per the market’s demand then they can export their produce to foreign countries, which is beneficial for the country and they can earn in dollars too.

“If farmers will earn well… then, what do you say in English? ‘We can also pull up our collars and walk,’” he laughs.

Genabhai has been honoured with more than 18 state-level awards and many national-level awards too. However getting a Padma Shri was a dream for him.

He says that he felt like he was in heaven when he received the award on January 26, 2017 from President Pranab Mukherjee.

On asking about his future plans, he says that he dreams of an India where farmer success won’t be a miracle anymore.

You can contact Padma Shri Genabhai Patel at patelgenabhai77@gmail.com

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Rice emerged in India 14,000 years ago and with a single variety. Farmers experimented and amplified the genetic diversity and in the course of the last 10,000 years, there emerged 1,10,000 varieties of rice of which only 6,000 now survive. The diversity was lost after the introduction of the green revolution in 1970 with its emphasis on mono culture and hybrid crops.

For Sheela Balaji, chairperson and Managing Trustee of NGO AIM For Seva, this variety was something she wanted to bring back. So she not only grew these lost gems but also made sure that people could taste them and encourage farmers to grow them once again.

While working in Manjakkudi, a village in the Cauvery Delta region in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, Sheela would always find herself surrounded by paddy fields. Around that time, she happened to see a farmer spraying pesticide on the crops ruthlessly. She could see the farmer getting exposed to the dangerous pesticide too and tried to explain to him the health hazards. However, the farmer explained her that the rice he grew was a hybrid variety and could not be harvested without the use of chemicals.

This was an eye-opener for Sheela, and she was hell-bent on looking for a solution to the farmers’ concerns. During her many farm visits, Sheela started to learn about the diversity of rice that India once had. She also researched the different nutrients and medicinal values that these rice varieties contained. Being indigenous, these varieties grew well in Indian soil and climatic conditions without any chemical input. She then decided to grow only indigenous varieties in the 40 acres of land that belonged to the NGO.

Sheela also came across a festival of grains called Nel Thiruvizha being organised in one of the villages called Adirangam and started conducting this festival in Manjakkudi in 2013.Through this festival, Sheela met more than 500 farmers each year who helped her get the seeds for the indigenous varieties of rice.

She started with just four varieties of rice and within four years, she has preserved nearly 30 varieties.

“I was sure about one thing right from the beginning, that no chemicals will be used in our farm. We have 43 cows, which are organically fed, and their dung and urine was enough to make excellent manure for the entire 40 acres. The first variety that we grew was Mapillai Champa. The rice is very good to keep our body in balance and is an excellent energy booster,” informs Sheela.

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After the first festival, more farmers came to know about the success of AIM for Seva’s farm and joined them in the next year’s festival. This year, Sheela took the opportunity to spread awareness among these farmers about the benefits of growing indigenous varieties organically. Many farmers were convinced by these sessions and took up organic farming of indigenous varieties.

“Nearly six farmers converted to organic after the second festival and now I know 9 of them who grow these varieties organically. I know it is just a small drop in the ocean. But then sometimes these drops fill an ocean. It is so satisfactory to see them change,” says Sheela.

However, even after knowing the health benefits and medicinal value of the rice varieties, farmers started growing these varieties only for their consumption and not for selling as there was no demand.

“After the second harvest we were left with so much grain that I started asking people if they want to buy it. But people were used to eating white rice. They did not even know the taste or aroma of these varieties. I understood that just growing them cannot save them forever. Best way to save them is to make people consume them. We need to popularise these varieties. Every individual can do it. Know your indigenous varieties and demand for it. When people will demand, automatically traders will ask the farmers to grow them,” Sheela says.

This idea gave birth to a store, Spirit Of The Earth in the Mylapore area of Chennai. Spirit Of The Earth stocks these varieties of rice for now – Kaatuyaanam, Kalajeera, Karuppu Kauvuni, Kichili Champa, Iluppai Poo Champa, Mapillai Champa, and Thooyamalli.

In a view to retain the essential nutrient value in all varieties of rice, all grains are hand-pounded and semi-polished to retain the husk, which would enhance richness and provide nutrients to the body.

The rice packaging has a line drawn map of Manjakkudi and a paddy stalk on the side, and the sticker has printed details (like rice variety name and if single or double par-boiled). Cooking instructions and health benefits are available in a brochure called Grains of Goodness. There are also trained staff at the store who guide visitors on how they can use the produce.

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According to Sheela each of these rice varieties has different medicinal and health values. Some of them are as follows –

Kaatuyaanam-

This rice variety is light red in colour. It is mainly cultivated in Tamil Nadu and grows upto over seven feet tall. It has the ability to hide an elephant; hence the crop was given this name. (‘Kaatu’ means forest and ‘Yaanam’ means elephant). The rice is said to keep diabetes and arthritis under control, boost immunity and protect against skin problems.

Kalajeera –

This is an aromatic rice variety. It is also known as the ‘Prince of Rice’ and its informal name is ‘Baby Basmati.’ A darker shade, it looks like cumin seeds. It is believed to increase hemoglobin levels and body metabolism. This fragrant grain is also said to have antispasmodic, stomachic, carminative, hypolipidemic, antibacterial, astringent and sedative properties. Ancient text explains that Kalajeera improves memory and controls diabetes.

Mapillai Champa-

This variety is believed to cure mouth ulcers and even cancer. It is very good for people with diabetes as it lowers blood sugar.This fibrous rice keeps the mind and body alert.

In red rice, the bran layer is rich in polyphenols, anthocyanin and has antioxidant properties. Their zinc and iron content is two to three times higher than what you would get in white rice.

“In 1910 the first rice milling machine came to India and that changed our entire eating habit. Today it is believed that white rice is harmful for our health. But every grain is as good as other, we just have to eat it right. In India, the first thing we give to a baby to start solids is rice and we spread rice at someone’s death too. Rice is so much a part of our culture because our geography and our climatic condition make rice the least allergenic and most nutrient grain. So don’t be afraid of rice. It is the queen of cereals. There is no better cereal in the world than rice if you eat it well,” she concludes.

Spirit of The Earth is located at 3^rd Floor, Srinidhi Apartments, No. 4, Desika Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004. Phone Number – 91 95000 82142, 91 44 2498 7955 / 2498 7966

You can also mail Sumita at spiritoftheearth2017@gmail.com for more details or follow their Facebook Page.

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Vallabhbhai Vasrambhai Marvaniya, a 95-year-old carrot farmer from Khamdhrol village of Junagadh district of Gujarat, was one of the recipients of 9th National Grassroots Innovation Award this year.

His story started back in 1943 when he was around 13. Vallabhbhai had to leave his education after class 5 to help his father in his 5-acre farm where pulses, grains and groundnut were grown to sell,and maize, jowar, rajko (a kind of grass meant for fodder) and carrot was grown to feed the cattle. No one in Gujarat knew back then that these grains and vegetables could also be consumed by humans.

However, while feeding the fodder to the cattle, once Vallabhbhai also tried some carrot and found it very tasty. He then suggested to his father that they should sell the surplus carrot in their farm.

But his father found this idea very funny as carrot was only considered fodder for cattle back then and he ignored Vallabhbhai’s suggestion. But Vallabhbhai was so sure about this that he himself dug out the carrots and took them to the market to sell.

As a young boy, it was hard for him to take them out from the ground without any help but he did not give up. He took two gathri (sacks) of carrots to the market and asked one of his regular customers to taste it. The customer loved the taste and bought one sack, which was almost 5 kg, for Rs 4. He also brought another customer who bought the other sack too. Vallabhbhai earned Rs 8 from his first lot of carrots.

“Those days, even 50 paise was too much money for us. My father was surprised to see an extra Rs 8 when I handed over the day’s earnings. He thought that people might have returned the money for the vegetables taken on credit. When I told him that this is the money earned by selling carrot, he could not believe it. Rs 8 was something we could not even earn in entire month sometimes,” says Vallabhbhai.

“I would give 25 paise to the tangawala to go to the market, that day while coming back home I gave him 50 paise. He was so happy, I can’t forget his face,” laughs Vallabhbhai.

After this, his father supported him to grow and sell carrot. People would also approach them to buy this new vegetable that they had only heard of. A vegetable that was sweet, strong and could even be eaten raw? People loved it!

However,a few complained about the branches that had to be cleaned before consuming the carrot. Vallabhbhai then started working on reducing these branches so that the vegetable grew straight into the soil. He applied various methods of sowing and watering to achieve this goal. He would also extract the carrots carefully from the soil to keep the shape intact.

Soon, word spread and the Nawab of Junagadh, Muhammad Mahabat Khan III came to know about this wonder vegetable.Life took a turn from here and Vallabhbhai became the regular supplier of carrots for the langars at the Nawab’s palace. However, after the partition of India and Pakistan, Mahabat Khan left Junagadh and settled in Karachi and Vallabhbhai had to depend on the market for his earnings.

“The Nawab of Junagadh still has to give me Rs 42 for my carrots,” he laughs.

But within this short span of four years, carrot farming brought immense prosperity to Vallabhbhai and his brothers.

In the coming years, he also adopted drip irrigation and mulching methods in his farm and slowly expanded his farms from 4 acres to 40 acres.

His methods also made the carrots’ quality better day by day. Hence, though his yield was good there was a huge demand for these carrots in the market. Vallabhbhai then thought of growing the seeds of his variety of carrots and started distributing them to other farmers. He selected best plants for seed production and grew them in a small area.

With time, the demand for the seeds also increased. And so by 1985 he started growing seeds on large scale and named the variety as Madhuvan Gajar.

“When we planted the carrot seeds all over and it started flowering there were lakhs of honey-bees visiting our farm, so my father named the variety Madhuvan,” says Arvindbhai, Vallabhbhai’s son.

Since then, he, along with his family, has been working for conservation and development of this variety.

The average yield of Maduvan Gajar is 40-50 tonnes/hectare and is cultivated in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan successfully.

During Kharif 2016-2017, National Innovation Foundation (NIF) India conducted validation trials for this variety at Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute (RARI), Jaipur.Madhuvan Gajar carrot variety was found to possess a significantly higher root yield (74.2 t/ha) and plant biomass (275 gm per plant). During 2016-2017, a trial was conducted at farmers’ fields by NIF in different states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan; the reports showed that the performance of Madhuvan Gajar carrot variety was excellent in terms of yield. The variety is also used for various value added products like carrot chips, juices and pickles.

At 95 now, Vallabhbhai still visits his farm twice a week, and his son Arvindbhai and his family work under his guidance.

The family has not recruited any labour and the entire process of growing to packaging of the seeds is done by the members alone. Arvindbhai says that the family earns approximately Rs 1 lakh from 1 acre of carrot farming and are more than happy to guide any farmer who visits their farm. Villabhbhai has also penned a booklet to give to any farmer visiting the Madhuvan farm.

Vallabhhai has received various awards and recognition for development and promotion of Madhuvan Gajar carrot variety and was recently conferred with the 9th National Grassroots Innovation Award by the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

On the basis of his experience of more than 6 decades, Vallabhbhai suggests that every farmer should grow carrots to improve their yield.

“I have observed that after you harvest carrot and grow groundnut or cotton on the same farm then these crops don’t catch fungus and other plant diseases,” he says.

He urges agri-scientists to innovate more value-added products from carrots, which are a rich source of beta carotene and sugar.

To order Madhuvan Gajar seed or to know more about Vallabhbhai and his work you can call on 9377635148

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In the words of Tenzing Bodosa, “If you respect nature, nature will respect you. It is that simple.”

Tenzing’s two farms in Bodoland territorial area of Kachibari village in the Udalguri district of Assam have recently been certified as the world’s first elephant-friendly farms.

But there was a time when Tenzing did not want to become a farmer like his father and grandfather.

He dropped school after class 6. He left his home when he was 10 to work and help his mother, who was looking after their 2-hectare ancestral farm after his father’s death. Tenzing  was just 6 years old at the time. He did odd jobs for the first few years and then joined a Malaysian construction company, where he learnt to drive, repair machinery, work on the internet and even speak English fluently.

“In those 13 years, I learnt everything – driving, mechanic work, how to control the machinery and how to set up a small factory. This made me gain a lot of confidence to do almost all jobs,” says Tenzing, while speaking to TBI from his farm.

However, as his mother was getting older, she wanted Tenzing to come back home and take care of their farm. And finally on December 12, 2006, Tenzing returned to his hometown in Assam.

His family used to always grow paddy and vegetables, but by the time he came back, everyone was growing tea in Assam. When Tenzing visited several farms, he came to know that tea could be easily exported and many tea companies were buying tea, making marketing easier for the farmers. Tenzing too decided to grow tea in his farm. But as his family had never grown tea, he had no idea how to do it. Hence, he went to his friends who were growing tea to learn from them.

Most of the tea experts that he met suggested him to use chemical fertilisers and pesticides and advised to buy genetically modified seeds. According to them, this was the best way to get the fastest and highest yield. Being a layman in this field, Tenzing followed their instructions.

But whenever he would spray pesticide on his farm, he would get a headache and feel nauseous.

His mother, too, did not like the idea of using chemicals as they had never done this before.

“My father, grandfather and my mother had never used chemicals in our farm. They always used organic fertilisers made of cow dung and urine. We could not stand the smell of the chemicals. And then I saw that the fishes were dying in my pond. The pesticides were nothing but poison. Everyone starts their day with tea, I couldn’t have fed them poison,” says Tenzing.

He started looking for alternatives.However, everyone told him tea couldn’t be grown organically. Tenzing did his research online and came to know about Dr. L Narayan Reddy from Doddaballapur in Bangalore, who was doing it organically. He then went there and learnt organic farming. He also took up many classes, but still was not very satisfied with the training. Finally in 2007, he connected with a Canadian NGO Fertile Ground, and invited them to his farm. That’s where they trained him.

Thus, Tenzing started growing tea organically in 2007. Though initially he had to face some challenges, slowly he started getting better yield and quality of the tea leaves. Tenzing was the only farmer among 12,000 others who was growing tea organically.

But now the marketing of organic tea was a big challenge for him. He then decided to have his own processing unit, through which he processed the tea and packaged it all by himself.

“I set up a small processing unit and started selling my tea in Canada, German, US and UK through a tea company which helps me export. It was very difficult for me to find a global market. I visited Hong Kong and Australia for the royal expo to find a market. Everything was a big challenge,” he says.

Today he has 25 acres of land, in which 7.5 acres is used for tea plantation, and he grows almost all types of fruits and vegetables. He also grows paddy in the rest of the land. His yearly turnover from the tea plantation is around ₹60-₹70 lakh per annum.

The most interesting part of his farm is the buffer zone, which is the area at the end of his farm from where the jungle begins at the Bhutan border. He has left that part of the farm as is. He does not cut down the trees or start a fire there, instead he has planted bamboo trees on which the wild elephants feed. He has also not put any barriers in and around his plantation, so that the wild animals from the jungle can freely move in his farm.

At times,  you can see at least 70-80 wild elephants in his farm. Hornbills, wild pigs, deers, peacocks and a variety of birds is a common sight there.

“If you grow organically, you can grow every seasonal crop in a tea farm, and you can maintain the ecological balance. When you maintain the ecological balance, you can see more birds and animals too,” he says.

According to Tenzing, tea companies mislead farmers to grow only tea on their farms. Indian climate is suitable for growing anything from apples to strawberries and from tea to rice, but the farmers don’t intercrop. This is because when you use chemicals, it is difficult to grow consumable fruits in the same farm and the soil slowly becomes infertile, as microorganisms also die due to pesticides. But if farmers grow organically, then all the seasonal fruits, vegetables and even paddy can be grown in the same tea farm. This makes the farmers self sufficient. Moreover, growing one’s own food will ensure that there is enough food for everyone and farmers can get a chance to export their produce for bigger benefits. He also urges the urban population to learn the basics of farming and grow as much they can on their rooftops or balconies. This will increase the food security of the nation and thus, the government will help the farmers to export too. Also, it’s only if one grows organically will the entire ecosystem get back into place.

“When I started growing organically, it brought back the ecological balance and even elephants loved to stay here. Yes, they are also damaging some tea plants and sometimes my house too, but it’s fine by me. Even they need to survive so I am growing for them too. Why should I be selfish to grow just for myself?,” he adds.

Tenzing’s success inspired many, and farmers from Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh also started coming to his farm to learn organic farming. He has trained about 30,000 farmers so far.

For farmers who want to grow organically, Tenzing suggests that they should not buy anything from the market for their farm. He recommends the ‘1 family, 1 hectare and 1 cow’ formula, which means that the fertiliser made from cow urine and dung is sufficient to grow in one hectare of land which is sufficient for one family.

Though Tenzing’s farms were very popular in and around Assam, he came into the limelight two years back when an elephant died in his farm due to elephant conflicts. Tenzing was so upset with this that he kept writing to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to visit his village and help. After persuading them for two years, they finally visited his farm and were very happy to see the wild animals roaming freely. It was then that both his farms were certified as the world’s first elephant-friendly farms.

Every year almost 100 tourists visit Tenzing’s farm from various parts of the world like Japan, China, UK, Australia and Germany.

Some are tea buyers, some come to learn, some to know about organic farming, and some come to see the wild elephants in his farm. There are many people who also come to volunteer. There are guests who stay for more than  two months and Tenzing loves hosting them.

“I love the jungle because I grew up in a village. I love every tree. I respect every microorganism, every creature, every animal of the jungle. I love to grow. I am happy with my life,” he concludes.

You can contact Tenzing at tenzingb86@yahoo.in

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What do you associate memes with? The first few words that come to my mind are comedy and satire. But 24-year-old Santhosh, an agriculturalist, uses them to inform farmers about various techniques and tips that will benefit their practice. This meme-crusader comes from a farming family, and is armed with a B.SC in agriculture from Annamalai University, Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. Santosh is capitalising on the popularity of memes, by using them to educate people.

Santosh is capitalising on the cultural currency of memes, and using it to make a difference in society.

While studying, he was frequently asked on Facebook about certain agricultural practices, and that is when he understood the utility of social media. While he was able to help a small community, he and his peers realised that larger sections of society would benefit from the dissemination of such information. Seeing the e-popularity and reach of memes, Santhosh and two of his friends, Prakash Thangavel and Mahim Antony, created ‘Learn Agriculture’, a page on Facebook dedicated to promoting sustainable farming. In a month the page had more than 70,000 subscribers and is an active forum for queries related to agriculture.

“People forward memes much more than just plain text posts. But it was frustrating to see so many memes just mocking society; that prompted me to use them better. Why not use this powerful medium to send socially relevant, and useful messages,” he says.

‘Learn Agriculture’ is perhaps the first page where memes guide farmers on sustainable agriculture, providing better cropping techniques, dispelling myths, and all of this while entertaining their audience too. “More than the likes we get, we get a lot more questions on the page. People keep asking us for solutions to their problems, and we reach out to them offline too,” he adds.

Santosh also runs another popular Facebook group called Azhvar Memes, which encourages organic and traditional farming techniques.“It is the way our forefathers tilled the land, achieving good yields and maintaining the soil’s quality without chemicals,” he says.

Santosh’s aim is to start an organic farm, more than just the commercial viability, he wants to prove the effectiveness of the method too. “I come from an agricultural family. My grandfather and uncles still farm, but even they follow chemical methods. I have told them about the benefits of organic farming, but they will not change their methods as they are used to chemical inputs. Until I am able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods, things won’t change. Which is why we are scouting for land now to start the farm,” Santosh elaborates.

To connect with Santhosh and stay updated you can join his Facebook pages ‘Learn Agriculture’ and ‘Azhvar’.

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While coming back to India after staying in Canada for four years, Deepak Gupta, a banker for 16 years, thought of something that would change the course of his life forever. Deepak and his wife Smita, who was a marketing professional for over 15 years, were tired of the rat race in the corporate world. They decided to change theirs as well as the lives of others, who were stuck with a not-so-healthy modern lifestyle.

Deepak was working as a deputy general manager in a reputed bank, and had been living in South Africa for a year and Canada for another four years for an assignment.

When he came to India in 2011, he found that the entire community wasn’t very aware when it came to health, which was directly affected by the food they were consuming. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides were rampantly used,  and people had no other option but to eat the poisonous fruits and vegetables. This was leading to dangerous diseases like cancer. More diseases spread due to lack of nutritious food as it meant lack of immunity. A resident of Gurgaon, Deepak then decided to visit the farms in and around Delhi and Gurgaon.

“In my journey towards figuring out the whole ecosystem of organic foods around Delhi, I was fortunate to meet several aware consumers and entrepreneurs, who were standing against all odds, in a community that was still broadly short-sighted on matters of health and well-being,” says Deepak.

Thus, in 2012, Deepak laid the foundation of his firm Organic Maati, which focussed on procuring organic fruits and vegetables from local farmers and selling it to interested consumers.

While this was going well as a part-time venture, Deepak also realised that the ill effects of modernisation were not limited to food. The deterioration of our health and environment was also caused by the clothes we wear and the poisonous dyes used on them; the cosmetics and hygiene products used by us, and of course, the air pollution.

“People were popping pills like never before as their threshold of pain was much lesser, and they developed issues like stress and anxiety. There seemed to be no getting away from it for the average city dweller,” he says.

Deepak’s wife Smita pitched in and added organic cotton herbal dyed apparel and natural wellness products to the list of the Organic Maati products.

The couple was running their brand successfully and could see the difference in the awareness level of the consumer as well. However, something was still missing.

“I could not help but notice the sharp deterioration in the quality of life all around me, in the name of advancement, but had no idea how to do something about it. I noticed children who were very social in their virtual life but introverts in the real world. Their physical agility and cognitive skills were quite low as they did not go out to the playground every evening, which we did as kids. Instant gratification and fidgety temperament were pervasive. The gap in health awareness and well-being between my community and the ‘advanced’ communities that I was fortunately exposed to, was too wide for me to ignore. I had to do something to change this,” says Deepak.

Deepak and Smita realised that only providing organic products was not enough. There had to be a holistic lifestyle change in the community.

Deepak quit his well-paying job in May 2016 and got involved full-time into farming.

He realised that a lot of landless farmers, who had a rich knowledge of natural farming passed on to them by their ancestors, were forced to use chemicals and work as labourers in others’ farms at very low wages. He hired those farmers as permanent employees of Organic Maati. After being sure about taking up natural farming, which he believes is the best therapy for all the environmental issues, Deepak and Smita started Organic Maati 2 – a rented natural farm not too far from the city, which can be a definite panacea for the city dwellers.  

Organic Maati 2 offers natural farming of vegetables on rent, wherein people can choose an acre (or more) of land in the vicinity of Delhi and ask Organic Maati to farm for them.

Costing less than a US air ticket, one can have a one-acre personal farm for a full year, which is within an hour’s drive from Delhi. This includes unlimited visits with the family and learning natural farming, picking up their own vegetables and fruits and being a part of nature.

“These farms are located at the small villages near Delhi and Gurgaon. Not only will it serve the purpose of connecting the urban dwellers to their roots and lead them to a healthy and sustainable living, but also, as we are using only natural farming methods, these farms will prove as a model for other farmers,” he explains.

OM2 offers three models to own a farm. If you own a farm, you can just hire OM2 to farm for you in your existing land. If you want to rent a farm, then the firm will help you with one and grow your veggies. If you want to purchase a land of your choice and grow on it, even that can be done.

Though one can earn by selling the produce too, Deepak encourages people to take up this model for personal consumption and not for commercial use.

The team signs a one-year contract with the consumer, in which they help them harvest at least three yields. If one wants to continue, they can still renew the contract or continue farming on their own. The entire responsibility of resources, logistic, labour, farming and even harvesting and delivering the veggies is taken care by the OM2 team.

So far 15 families from Delhi and NCR have taken up farming on an acre land through OM2. This has helped the youth from villages in getting a permanent job, and has stopped them from migrating from their homeland.

They also get to continue with their  family profession, which is farming. As these families visit the farms with their friends too, it has encouraged eco-tourism and the villagers get to showcase their skills as well.

“I am so happy my distant dream of passing on my childhood farm experience to my son has come true. And that too conveniently and affordably,” says Chiranjib Dhar from Gurgaon.

OM2 aims to scale up the natural rental farms in Gurgaon and add 100 acres of green natural farms within ayear. According to Deepak, this will help reduce the carbon footprint for the entire community too.

Organic Maati also conducts workshops on their demo farm at sector-92, Gurgaon, for those interested in natural farming (cow-centric farming, producing food with no chemicals, preservatives or GMO seeds) and building their own organic kitchen garden.

“Avoid looking at your farm as a financial investment instrument with assured rate of return. Look at it as a social enterprise instead, where you get safe healthy food and a farm experience, both of which are invaluable. Unlike conventional farming, which only focuses on productivity and yields, natural farming focuses on enriching the soil first. You benefit your own health, uplift the local farmers, better the environment, and fulfil your farm dream – all without having to give up your comforts of the city and your busy life,” Deepak concludes.

For more information you can log on to www.organicmaati.com

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Dr. K R Hullunache Gowda, who was given an honorary doctorate by Jeeva Theological Open University, Chennai, for his work in farming, belongs to Srinivaspura village of Kolar district of Karnataka. Back in the 90s he finished his post-graduation in Sericulture and started his career as a lecturer in Chikaballapur University.

However,Dr. Gowda could see how Kolar, which was once famous for its mulberry, mango and vegetable plantation, was facing drought and shortage of rainfall year after year,resulting in huge losses for farmers.

The bore wells, the only source of irrigation,had all stopped working. The farmers had to shift from agriculture to some other sources of livelihood. Most of them started working as daily wage labourers and had to travel to Bangalore and nearby industrial areas every day for a living. He then decided to leave his job and find out the reasons behind the farmers’ problems and possible solutions.

Mulberry

In 1995,Dr. Gowda planted mulberry in a row system usingthe traditional method that all farmers followed. In this method 5,000 small mulberry plants were grown per acre and only 250 DFLS could be reared. This required plenty of water and the labour cost was also very high to look after so many plants.

After years of research Gowda finally came up with a technique that solved all the problems of the mulberry farmers. He implemented dry land cultivation techniques for mulberry plantation.

In his mulberry tree plantation technique, per acre 430 mulberry trees can be grown and 300 DFLS (EGGS) can be reared. By this way the quality of leaves and cocoons became excellent. The cost of cultivation was also reduced to 50% compared to old methods.

By this method the farmers were able to grow mulberry with ease with minimum water usage. One family could maintain the farm without much labour and they were able to earn a living. This technique was recognized by Central Silk Board, and is implemented now in many parts of Karnataka state. Mulberry farmers from various districts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh visit mulberry farms that are under Dr. Gowda’s guidance.

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The technique has now been adopted by Government of Karnataka Sericulture department, which has given a target to all district sericulture departments to do mulberry tree plantation in 1,000 acres of land in their respective districts.

Mango Plantation

Dr. Gowda also started a mango plantation in 13 acres of his land back in 2000.He recognized that the decrease in quantity and quality of Kolar mangoes was due to the ‘Stem Borer disease’, which was a result of excessive chemical usage. He then researched for organic methods to tackle stem borer diseases in mango tree. Today under his guidance more than 500 acres of mango farms are grown organically and ripened naturally. These mangoes were of very good quality and the farmers were delighted to sell them at higher prices. Seeing the results, many mango growers are planning to grow there mangoes in a completely organic method.

Pomegranate

Bacterial Blight of pomegranate was first reported in India from Delhi in 1952 and was of minor economic importance till 1998. Presently, the disease occurs widely and outbreaks have been recorded in all major pomegranate growing states, including Karnataka, Maharashtra & Andhra Pradesh. Bacterial blight of pomegranate affects leaves, twigs and fruits.

The investments made by Pomegranate farmers are very high. If the farm gets affected by this deadly disease, the entire pomegranate farm is washed out and farmers suffer major loss.

Dr. Gowda wanted to get rid of this blight through organic methods. After years of research, he implemented the same in districts of Chitradurga and Davanagere. He noticed that these deadly diseases were being controlled through his methods. He not only witnessed recovery from blight, he also gave them a very good yield to earn premium prices. Moreover, the cultivation charges went down up to 50% and the maintenance of the field became much easier. This was a major achievement for K R Hullunache Gowda in pomegranate crop.

Similarly many organic techniques were invented by Dr. Gowda to tackle the common diseases in the crops like coffee, grapes, areca nut etc.

Dr. Soil

Dr. Gowda also invented a unique innovative product in the form of Liquid Organic Plant Food that helps in growth of plants while also maintaining the quality of land known as Dr. Soil.

By natural process of decomposition Dr.Soil balances the PH of land, reduces the acidic part and neutralizes the land. Once the land is neutralized the absorptions of carbon capacity is increased which reduces the carbon foot print, which results in carbon credit. This process is important to get natural crop in natural environment.

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The most important aspect of farming is biological Cycle (soil food web). But usage of chemical fertilizer, which produces sulphuric acid kills the earth worms and other microorganisms and destroy the entire biological cycle very badly.

According to Dr. Gowda use of Dr.Soil will create suitable environment and earth worms and biological cycle will be back naturally. So it will help to convert almost all physical nutrients matter into available form for plants.

“By natural decomposition method Dr.Soil produce required gases like Nitrogen, and Ammonia also. These are helpful for plant to grow and create distance between two particles of land which can help roots to grow and get proper oxygen. Hard soil automatically softens and water holding capacity increases,” says Dr. Gowda.

Villages adopted by Dr. Gowda

In the year 2010 Dr. Gowda started the Sasya Sanjeevini Grammen Abhivrudhi Trust and adopted savayava grama Venugopalapura from Kolar District and Chikkajajur village from Chitradurga District.

The trust plays a major role in the developmental activities of these villages. All the organic inputs in these villages are available at 50% cost, remaining 50% cost is borne by the trust. Farmers here are following organic techniques and the trust has appointed representatives to understand the various problems in the village and triesto give solutions for the same.

Mobile vehicle to spread awareness among farmers

A mobile vehicle was launched to educate farmers from the trust. The vehicle travels to almost all parts of Karnataka to spread awareness. The mobile vehicle has a big-screen TV, speakers, pamphlets, organic books, newsletters and innovative videos to make farmers understand the need of organic farming.

Presently, the vehicle has covered more than 15 districts in Karnataka and has successfully reached the farmers, spreading awareness about organic farming

“Earlier days farmers were experts in their field, they knew exactly what they had to do. Over the years they have been misguided to use all sorts of fertilizers and chemicals, which in the long run have destroyed the soil and affected crop yields. Even the younger generation believes that they can cultivate only after using these deadly chemical fertilizers. It’s a major task to change their mindset to understand how these fertilizers have affected the earth,” says Dr. Gowda.

Dr. Gowda has spent all his life educating and training various farmers across the state. Thousands of farmers are happy continuing his organic techniques. He wants to continue his work in the same way so that one day the entire farmer community will adopt organic farming and stop conventional ways of farming. He proudly informs us how in his training sessions there are at least 15-20 software engineers who want to get back to farming.

“In just two decades the temperature has risen almost 15 degrees. We need to plant more trees, increase biodiversity. All agriculture land should have at least border trees. Wasteland should be converted to forests. Let us not blame anyone. Every individual should be the change,” he concludes

You can write to Dr. Gowda at hngowda@microbiagro.com or call him on 8884677001 or 9740088770

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It was the year 2000 when Maya Mahajan, a PhD scholar from Coimbatore, was researching on the impact of invasive alien weeds on native flora and ecology in various forest types in the Nilgiri biosphere reserve, including Siruvani hills, Mudumalai, Silent valley and Upper Bhavani.

During her research, Maya came to know about lantana camara -, an exotic weed of South American origin – which was invading different forest areas and posing a serious threat to the native vegetation in Western Ghats, including Siruvani area in Coimbatore.

Getting rid of the lantana weed was a little tricky as the use of chemicals to remove the shrub could affect the native species of plants too, and mechanical methods of removal are too expensive. For years, Maya would think about a possible solution to remove these plants as well as helping the local community in Siruvani. As lantana looks exactly like bamboo but was more durable than it, Maya got the idea of making furniture out of it. However, she never had the right support and financial backing.

It was when she joined as an associate professor at the Centre for Sustainable Future at Amrita University, Coimbatore, that she wrote a project report about how lantana can be used to make furniture and help the local tribal community with some extra income.

It took her almost four years to get approval from the funding agency, but finally the project was fully funded and Maya’s idea started to take shape in 2015.

The first and foremost challenge to start the project was to convince the tribal community to get the lantana weeds from the forest as elephant attacks were very common in the area. It was only when V Vellachi, a resident of Singampathy, along with seven other women volunteered for training, that others followed suit.

The next challenge was to get permission from the forest department to cut and get these weeds to the villages. However, soon Maya was permitted to do the same as the forest department came to know about this easy way of removing the weed, which was a difficult task for them.

“We roped in ATREE, a Bengaluru based organisation, to train villagers in furniture- making. Around 40 residents of the three villages were trained in a three-month training programme beginning December 2015. The project was funded by the department of science and technology,” informs Maya.

In this project, the tribal community is involved in the mechanical control of lantana by manually cutting, and at the same time, they are trained in making low- cost furniture, handicraft, toys and other utility articles using lantana wood. Thus, a generation of sustainable livelihood options for tribals and forest conservation is achieved at the same time.

Making furniture out of lantana is quite different from the usual way furniture is made. After the shrub is chopped off, its wood is treated in boiling water to make it flexible. The bark is removed and the log is sliced into sticks before it is assembled into furniture pieces.

The furniture looks exactly like the bamboo or cane furniture, but is more durable. The cost of lantana furniture is also much lesser than bamboo furniture as the raw material is available for free.

“Not only is it cheap and durable, it will also help conserve bamboo and cane trees, which otherwise are cut down to make furniture,” says Maya.

Seventy tribals in Singampathy, Sarkarporathy and Kalkotipathy hamlets were provided training in lantana furniture-making for 45 days each in the past one year. The training will be also provided to tribals in other three hamlets during the next two years.

Assistance was provided to the communities in marketing the products in potential areas  in India. Market linkages were being established in Coimbatore and other major cities in India with the help of Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED).

Even though the business is still in its primitive stage, villagers have so far sold furniture worth Rs 1,70,000, and have orders worth Rs 70,000 pending with them.

“Everyone was skeptical about the idea in the beginning. Once the products were ready after so much effort from the villagers, I was worried about the marketing. But one year down the line we have advance orders and now we are worried about how we will finish the orders,” laughs Maya.

During her project, Maya also noticed that the tribals of Sadivayal, Singampathy and Sarkarporathy hamlets that are located in the pristine forests of Siruvani hills of the Western Ghats, were reluctant to do agriculture due to frequent elephant raids and water scarcity. Few of them, especially in Sadivayal village, had started using chemical fertilizers influenced b external agencies. By reviewing the overall situation with the help of a team from Amrita University, she decided to promote crops that don’t attract elephants and introduced organic farming methods in these villages.

Awareness programs were conducted in all the three villages about the importance of organic farming and the ill effects of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on land, environment and health.

Several training programs  on the actual process of organic farming were conducted, followed by on- field training/implementation programs. Organic crops such as turmeric, chilly, cow peas, ground nut, black gram, tomatoes, ladies finger and rice were cultivated in a total of 45 acres of land.

Farmers were trained in making Panchgavya, Jeevamritam, and the land was prepared using cow dung, green mulching and goat manure. Farmers were also trained on bio-insecticides using leaves and cow urine. There were many people who pointed out that converting to organic was not that easy and initially the farmers may have to face losses. But Maya was determined to do this.

“It was a huge responsibility on me. Even the farmers were not sure, but I asked them to just trust me. I told them that I was  going to pay whatever loss there was, from my own pocket. But when the crop was ready, everyone was overjoyed – especially me. The yield was almost double, and moreover, it was organic, so the farmers got a better price than before. This was one of the best moments of my life,” says Maya.

At the end of the year, 45 tonnes of organic rice and 5 tonnes of turmeric were produced and were sold at a premium price in the market. The farmers made double the profit compared to the previous year.

You can contact Maya Mahajan at mayaenviron@gmail.com

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About 30 km from Maihar, lies Pithaurabad village in the Unchehara block of Satna district in Madhya Pradesh. What is unusual about this village is the 2-acre land, where you will find 110 varieties of rice crop. The farm belongs to 72- year- old Babulal Dahiya, who has been collecting these varieties since 2005. In the rest of the 6 acres, Babulal has also grown 100 more varieties of pulses, grains and vegetables.

Babulal was born and brought up in a farmer’s family. Though he had been sent to study far away from his village, he would come back in the holidays and help his father with his farm.

“In those days, kids got involved in their father’s profession very easily. Being from a farmer’s family, I learnt everything about farming. We would have a 28-day holiday from Dussehra to Diwali. All the kids would come home and help the family with harvesting the yield,” says Babulal.

Babulal also had an unusual knack for Bagheli (a local language in Madhya Pradesh) poetry and storytelling right from childhood. So, even after finishing his studies and working as a postmaster in his village, he would keep participating in poetry meets and performances. Soon he started writing columns for renowned publications like Navbharat Times.

Babulal became a household name soon in the Bagheli speaking tribal community and joined the Madhya Pradesh Adiwasi Lok Kala Academy. The academy requested him to document Bagheli folk literature -songs, proverbs, folktales, legends, myths and so on, to retain their culture. Babulal, who was already passionate about Bagheli literature, then authored five books on Bagheli oral folk literature and published two poetic collections.

This is when he came across many songs, sayings and folktales where a variety of rice was mentioned which he had never heard about.

“There is a saying in Bagheli ‘Dhaan bove Kargi, suvar khaye na samdhi’. (If you sow, the Kargi rice variety, it is neither eaten by wild boars nor by the family of the son-in-law). This variety has small protective spikes and so the boars can’t eat them. Then there is this mention of ‘kalawati’ variety which is black in colour and takes 145 days  to get ready to be harvested and it has amazing medicinal properties” he explains.

Babulal would often think about how one can save folk culture by preserving the songs and folktales, but what about the diverse variety of grains and crops that were once a part of the culture? Thus, in 2005, Babulal started his mission of saving the rice varieties that he had heard about in folktales and songs.

He started visiting each and every farmer across the country, who had seeds of the unique varieties of rice and sowed them in the 2-acre space of his 8-acre land.

So far he has grown 110 varieties of traditional rice. He has studied their qualities deeply. Every year he sows these farm-saved seeds in his field and studies them, and  grows traditional crop varieties without using any fertilizers.

Along with that, he is also growing rice and coarse grains like kodo, kutki and jowar with farmers from 30 villages of the Unchehara block.

“At one time, our country had more than 1 lakh variety of traditional rice. Now that number has drastically reduced. Out of these, I have collected 110 varieties, which I am constantly protecting and preserving,” says Babulal.

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Talking about the qualities of traditional rice varieties, Babulal says each one has a unique taste, unlike the hybrid ones, which is why the farmers get a good price for these. Sufficient yield is obtained for traditional rice varieties by simply using cow dung as manure. In contrast, hybrid and dwarf varieties require chemical fertilizers. This increases inputs and reduces the fertility of the land or soil.

Moreover, there are different rice varieties for different purposes. Like Bajranga, which is sown by farmers for a long time, as it takes time to get harvested here are other rice varieties like Kamalshree that are sown for guests and Nevari variety is sown for selling as it provides good returns.

He also informed that traditional rice varieties don’t require regular weeding.

Doing it once is enough because weeds don’t ‘strangle’ these plants since they grow taller. Pests are controlled by spiders, honeybees, ants and insect friends. Earthworms too help by turning and softening the soil throughout the day, which helps the plant to grow.

Not only this, but traditional varieties have the strength to adapt to the local environment. For instance, the traditional rice varieties constantly competing with the dwarf varieties and growing in this land for millennia -, have increased the length of their stalk, which helps store more water. Later after the spikes have developed, dew is sufficient to ripen the rice. Imported dwarf varieties don’t have that quality.

Babulal has also formed a Sarjana Samajik Sanskritik and Sahityik Manch, which has served as a medium for documenting and disseminating information on traditional seed varieties.

Inspired by Babulal’s work, the Biodiversity Board has started a Beej Yatra to collect indigenous varieties of vegetables and medicinal plants. So far, they have collected over 1600 varieties from 24 districts.

These days he is in Bhopal, where various grain varieties are grown in pots as a part of the awareness campaign. His collection has been getting deposited in a seed bank developed with the help of the Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Board.

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He also runs a biodiversity awareness campaign with school children and  travels across the country participating in various workshops to spread the message of conservation of seed varieties. Babulal  has been honoured on various platforms for his work. 

“Recently I visited Kerala, where we were served kodo rice. My mother would serve kodo rice along with milk to us when we were kids. So, it was very nostaligic . It is also said in the folktales that in ancient times, kings would ask farmers to grow this variety of rice and store them for droughts as it can be stored for years. Also, even a little quantity is very filling. But due to its thickness, it was not liked much and farmers stopped growing it. It’s very important to preserve these varieties as they prove to be helpful in adverse situations,” says Babulal.

You can contact Babulal Dahiya at babulaldahiya@gmail.com or call him on 9981162564.

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Among renowned personalities like Deepa Karmakar, Virat Kohli and Sanjeev Kapoor on the list of Padma Shri awardees this year was another, but far lesser-known, name– Genabhai Dargabhai Patel, a differently-abled farmer from Sarkari Goliya village of Banaskantha district of Gujarat. And his is a story of grit and determination.

“There is no life without challenges and there is no fun without challenges. Where people stop, I start from there. I never felt that there is something I can’t do. What do you say in English? ‘There is no word called impossible in my dictionary,’”laughs Genabhai, who was born with polio in both his legs.

Genabhai is the youngest among four brothers and one sister. As kids, his brothers would help their father on the farm.However,their dad wanted Genabhai to study as he felt that due to his illness, he would never be able to farm. He was sent to a hostel 30 km away from his village at an early age where he would manage to go to school on his tricycle. He studied till class 12 there, but being illiterate his parents had no clue on how to educate him further. So Genabhai came back to his village.

Though people believed that Genabhai could do nothing to help his father and brothers on the farm, he would still accompany them. He realised that there was one thing that he could do at the farm – drive a tractor. He learnt to drive one and also managed to handle the clutch and break with his hands.

Soon, Genabhai became the best tractor driver in his village.

“My father was into traditional farming. He would grow wheat, bajra and the traditional crops grown in Gujarat. Those times there was no drip irrigation facility as well so the farmers would use flood irrigation method with the help of borewells. Due to this there was a lot of wastage of water. Also one has to work all year round in traditional farming. I wanted to do farming and so I was looking for a crop that I can handle despite my disability, something that requires just one time plantation and gives returns for long,” says Genabhai.

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Genabhai then started his research on such crops. He thought of planting mango trees initially, however mango flowers fall if there is a weather change and one has to wait until the next flower season. To know about more options, Genabhai took help of the local agriculture officer. He also visited Agriculture University and gathered information from the government’s krishi mela. He travelled across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra for about 3 months and finally came across the answer to his research. He saw farmers in Maharashtra growing pomegranate in an almost similar climate as of Gujarat. Unlike mango flowers, pomegranate flowers grow all year round and do not require constant attention.

In 2004, Genabhai brought 18,000 saplings from Maharashtra and planted in his farm with the help of his brothers.

“Other farmers would think that I have gone mad to plant pomegranate as no one ever did it in the entire district. But a farmer’s eye can never fail. I knew that this was going to grow well in my land. My brothers and nephews too trusted me and supported me completely,” says Genabhai.

Genabhai was proved right within two years and in 2007 all his plants bore fruit. Noticing his success few farmers also planted pomegranate. But now marketing these fruits was the biggest hurdle as there was no market for pomegranate in the entire state. Genabhai then gathered all the pomegranate growers in Banaskantha–they would load trucks of pomegranate and sell them at Jaipur and Delhi markets. But this was not a long-term solution. They needed traders who could buy their yield directly.

“Traders would buy from us if we showed them enough quantity and hence we played a trick. We asked each farmer to sit at various places in different farms. We showed the trader the same farm several times and showed 100 farms of pomegranate which were actually just 40. The traders then believed that we have a huge quantity and we got our first order,” he laughs.

The first order was sold at Rs 42 per kg. He cultivated pomegranate on over five hectares of land and produced nearly 54,000 kg pomegranate, earning a profit of more than Rs 10 lakh against his investments.

“For every acre of routine farming, the other farmers used to get Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000. But my plantation gave me Rs 10 lakh profit,” Genabhai says.

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Seeing this, a lot of villagers started following his footsteps and diverted from traditional farming to horticulture farming. Genabhai also started conducting workshops for villagers on pomegranate farming for which he brought in agricultural scientists and experts to his pomegranate farm. This was to ensure that the farmers can avoid all the mistakes which Genabhai made due to lack of knowledge and exposure to information.

However, the problems did not end here. There was a point when the water level in the entire district went down and there was a huge water crisis. But Genabhai, who believes that everything happens for a reason, took this as an opportunity to install drip irrigation in all the pomegranate farms.

“We had a subsidy of 50% to install drip irrigation that time which has now become 80%. The government also gives subsidy of Rs. 42,000 to the pomegranate farmers. Taking advantage of this, we installed drip irrigation in all the pomegranate farms,” says Genabhai.

Today Genabhai’s efforts have borne fruits and the district’s pomegranates are exported to Dubai, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, giving the farmers excellent returns. During his visit to Deesa in Banaskantha, Prime Minister Modi had also mentioned his name and praised his achievements in his speech.

Talking about how farmers can get out of the current situation, Genabhai says,“I suggest farmers to think beyond traditional crop and traditional farming methods. Every farmer must have at least two indigenous cows and prepare their own organic fertilizer. Using chemicals and spending on them is an unnecessary burden on them. Also if they grow crops and fruits as per the market’s demand then they can export their produce to foreign countries, which is beneficial for the country and they can earn in dollars too.

“If farmers will earn well… then, what do you say in English? ‘We can also pull up our collars and walk,’” he laughs.

Genabhai has been honoured with more than 18 state-level awards and many national-level awards too. However getting a Padma Shri was a dream for him.

He says that he felt like he was in heaven when he received the award on January 26, 2017 from President Pranab Mukherjee.

On asking about his future plans, he says that he dreams of an India where farmer success won’t be a miracle anymore.

You can contact Padma Shri Genabhai Patel at patelgenabhai77@gmail.com

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Rice emerged in India 14,000 years ago and with a single variety. Farmers experimented and amplified the genetic diversity and in the course of the last 10,000 years, there emerged 1,10,000 varieties of rice of which only 6,000 now survive. The diversity was lost after the introduction of the green revolution in 1970 with its emphasis on mono culture and hybrid crops.

For Sheela Balaji, chairperson and Managing Trustee of NGO AIM For Seva, this variety was something she wanted to bring back. So she not only grew these lost gems but also made sure that people could taste them and encourage farmers to grow them once again.

While working in Manjakkudi, a village in the Cauvery Delta region in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, Sheela would always find herself surrounded by paddy fields. Around that time, she happened to see a farmer spraying pesticide on the crops ruthlessly. She could see the farmer getting exposed to the dangerous pesticide too and tried to explain to him the health hazards. However, the farmer explained her that the rice he grew was a hybrid variety and could not be harvested without the use of chemicals.

This was an eye-opener for Sheela, and she was hell-bent on looking for a solution to the farmers’ concerns. During her many farm visits, Sheela started to learn about the diversity of rice that India once had. She also researched the different nutrients and medicinal values that these rice varieties contained. Being indigenous, these varieties grew well in Indian soil and climatic conditions without any chemical input. She then decided to grow only indigenous varieties in the 40 acres of land that belonged to the NGO.

Sheela also came across a festival of grains called Nel Thiruvizha being organised in one of the villages called Adirangam and started conducting this festival in Manjakkudi in 2013.Through this festival, Sheela met more than 500 farmers each year who helped her get the seeds for the indigenous varieties of rice.

She started with just four varieties of rice and within four years, she has preserved nearly 30 varieties.

“I was sure about one thing right from the beginning, that no chemicals will be used in our farm. We have 43 cows, which are organically fed, and their dung and urine was enough to make excellent manure for the entire 40 acres. The first variety that we grew was Mapillai Champa. The rice is very good to keep our body in balance and is an excellent energy booster,” informs Sheela.

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After the first festival, more farmers came to know about the success of AIM for Seva’s farm and joined them in the next year’s festival. This year, Sheela took the opportunity to spread awareness among these farmers about the benefits of growing indigenous varieties organically. Many farmers were convinced by these sessions and took up organic farming of indigenous varieties.

“Nearly six farmers converted to organic after the second festival and now I know 9 of them who grow these varieties organically. I know it is just a small drop in the ocean. But then sometimes these drops fill an ocean. It is so satisfactory to see them change,” says Sheela.

However, even after knowing the health benefits and medicinal value of the rice varieties, farmers started growing these varieties only for their consumption and not for selling as there was no demand.

“After the second harvest we were left with so much grain that I started asking people if they want to buy it. But people were used to eating white rice. They did not even know the taste or aroma of these varieties. I understood that just growing them cannot save them forever. Best way to save them is to make people consume them. We need to popularise these varieties. Every individual can do it. Know your indigenous varieties and demand for it. When people will demand, automatically traders will ask the farmers to grow them,” Sheela says.

This idea gave birth to a store, Spirit Of The Earth in the Mylapore area of Chennai. Spirit Of The Earth stocks these varieties of rice for now – Kaatuyaanam, Kalajeera, Karuppu Kauvuni, Kichili Champa, Iluppai Poo Champa, Mapillai Champa, and Thooyamalli.

In a view to retain the essential nutrient value in all varieties of rice, all grains are hand-pounded and semi-polished to retain the husk, which would enhance richness and provide nutrients to the body.

The rice packaging has a line drawn map of Manjakkudi and a paddy stalk on the side, and the sticker has printed details (like rice variety name and if single or double par-boiled). Cooking instructions and health benefits are available in a brochure called Grains of Goodness. There are also trained staff at the store who guide visitors on how they can use the produce.

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According to Sheela each of these rice varieties has different medicinal and health values. Some of them are as follows –

Kaatuyaanam-

This rice variety is light red in colour. It is mainly cultivated in Tamil Nadu and grows upto over seven feet tall. It has the ability to hide an elephant; hence the crop was given this name. (‘Kaatu’ means forest and ‘Yaanam’ means elephant). The rice is said to keep diabetes and arthritis under control, boost immunity and protect against skin problems.

Kalajeera –

This is an aromatic rice variety. It is also known as the ‘Prince of Rice’ and its informal name is ‘Baby Basmati.’ A darker shade, it looks like cumin seeds. It is believed to increase hemoglobin levels and body metabolism. This fragrant grain is also said to have antispasmodic, stomachic, carminative, hypolipidemic, antibacterial, astringent and sedative properties. Ancient text explains that Kalajeera improves memory and controls diabetes.

Mapillai Champa-

This variety is believed to cure mouth ulcers and even cancer. It is very good for people with diabetes as it lowers blood sugar.This fibrous rice keeps the mind and body alert.

In red rice, the bran layer is rich in polyphenols, anthocyanin and has antioxidant properties. Their zinc and iron content is two to three times higher than what you would get in white rice.

“In 1910 the first rice milling machine came to India and that changed our entire eating habit. Today it is believed that white rice is harmful for our health. But every grain is as good as other, we just have to eat it right. In India, the first thing we give to a baby to start solids is rice and we spread rice at someone’s death too. Rice is so much a part of our culture because our geography and our climatic condition make rice the least allergenic and most nutrient grain. So don’t be afraid of rice. It is the queen of cereals. There is no better cereal in the world than rice if you eat it well,” she concludes.

Spirit of The Earth is located at 3^rd Floor, Srinidhi Apartments, No. 4, Desika Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004. Phone Number – 91 95000 82142, 91 44 2498 7955 / 2498 7966

You can also mail Sumita at spiritoftheearth2017@gmail.com for more details or follow their Facebook Page.

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Vallabhbhai Vasrambhai Marvaniya, a 95-year-old carrot farmer from Khamdhrol village of Junagadh district of Gujarat, was one of the recipients of 9th National Grassroots Innovation Award this year.

His story started back in 1943 when he was around 13. Vallabhbhai had to leave his education after class 5 to help his father in his 5-acre farm where pulses, grains and groundnut were grown to sell,and maize, jowar, rajko (a kind of grass meant for fodder) and carrot was grown to feed the cattle. No one in Gujarat knew back then that these grains and vegetables could also be consumed by humans.

However, while feeding the fodder to the cattle, once Vallabhbhai also tried some carrot and found it very tasty. He then suggested to his father that they should sell the surplus carrot in their farm.

But his father found this idea very funny as carrot was only considered fodder for cattle back then and he ignored Vallabhbhai’s suggestion. But Vallabhbhai was so sure about this that he himself dug out the carrots and took them to the market to sell.

As a young boy, it was hard for him to take them out from the ground without any help but he did not give up. He took two gathri (sacks) of carrots to the market and asked one of his regular customers to taste it. The customer loved the taste and bought one sack, which was almost 5 kg, for Rs 4. He also brought another customer who bought the other sack too. Vallabhbhai earned Rs 8 from his first lot of carrots.

“Those days, even 50 paise was too much money for us. My father was surprised to see an extra Rs 8 when I handed over the day’s earnings. He thought that people might have returned the money for the vegetables taken on credit. When I told him that this is the money earned by selling carrot, he could not believe it. Rs 8 was something we could not even earn in entire month sometimes,” says Vallabhbhai.

“I would give 25 paise to the tangawala to go to the market, that day while coming back home I gave him 50 paise. He was so happy, I can’t forget his face,” laughs Vallabhbhai.

After this, his father supported him to grow and sell carrot. People would also approach them to buy this new vegetable that they had only heard of. A vegetable that was sweet, strong and could even be eaten raw? People loved it!

However,a few complained about the branches that had to be cleaned before consuming the carrot. Vallabhbhai then started working on reducing these branches so that the vegetable grew straight into the soil. He applied various methods of sowing and watering to achieve this goal. He would also extract the carrots carefully from the soil to keep the shape intact.

Soon, word spread and the Nawab of Junagadh, Muhammad Mahabat Khan III came to know about this wonder vegetable.Life took a turn from here and Vallabhbhai became the regular supplier of carrots for the langars at the Nawab’s palace. However, after the partition of India and Pakistan, Mahabat Khan left Junagadh and settled in Karachi and Vallabhbhai had to depend on the market for his earnings.

“The Nawab of Junagadh still has to give me Rs 42 for my carrots,” he laughs.

But within this short span of four years, carrot farming brought immense prosperity to Vallabhbhai and his brothers.

In the coming years, he also adopted drip irrigation and mulching methods in his farm and slowly expanded his farms from 4 acres to 40 acres.

His methods also made the carrots’ quality better day by day. Hence, though his yield was good there was a huge demand for these carrots in the market. Vallabhbhai then thought of growing the seeds of his variety of carrots and started distributing them to other farmers. He selected best plants for seed production and grew them in a small area.

With time, the demand for the seeds also increased. And so by 1985 he started growing seeds on large scale and named the variety as Madhuvan Gajar.

“When we planted the carrot seeds all over and it started flowering there were lakhs of honey-bees visiting our farm, so my father named the variety Madhuvan,” says Arvindbhai, Vallabhbhai’s son.

Since then, he, along with his family, has been working for conservation and development of this variety.

The average yield of Maduvan Gajar is 40-50 tonnes/hectare and is cultivated in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan successfully.

During Kharif 2016-2017, National Innovation Foundation (NIF) India conducted validation trials for this variety at Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute (RARI), Jaipur.Madhuvan Gajar carrot variety was found to possess a significantly higher root yield (74.2 t/ha) and plant biomass (275 gm per plant). During 2016-2017, a trial was conducted at farmers’ fields by NIF in different states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan; the reports showed that the performance of Madhuvan Gajar carrot variety was excellent in terms of yield. The variety is also used for various value added products like carrot chips, juices and pickles.

At 95 now, Vallabhbhai still visits his farm twice a week, and his son Arvindbhai and his family work under his guidance.

The family has not recruited any labour and the entire process of growing to packaging of the seeds is done by the members alone. Arvindbhai says that the family earns approximately Rs 1 lakh from 1 acre of carrot farming and are more than happy to guide any farmer who visits their farm. Villabhbhai has also penned a booklet to give to any farmer visiting the Madhuvan farm.

Vallabhhai has received various awards and recognition for development and promotion of Madhuvan Gajar carrot variety and was recently conferred with the 9th National Grassroots Innovation Award by the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

On the basis of his experience of more than 6 decades, Vallabhbhai suggests that every farmer should grow carrots to improve their yield.

“I have observed that after you harvest carrot and grow groundnut or cotton on the same farm then these crops don’t catch fungus and other plant diseases,” he says.

He urges agri-scientists to innovate more value-added products from carrots, which are a rich source of beta carotene and sugar.

To order Madhuvan Gajar seed or to know more about Vallabhbhai and his work you can call on 9377635148

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In the words of Tenzing Bodosa, “If you respect nature, nature will respect you. It is that simple.”

Tenzing’s two farms in Bodoland territorial area of Kachibari village in the Udalguri district of Assam have recently been certified as the world’s first elephant-friendly farms.

But there was a time when Tenzing did not want to become a farmer like his father and grandfather.

He dropped school after class 6. He left his home when he was 10 to work and help his mother, who was looking after their 2-hectare ancestral farm after his father’s death. Tenzing  was just 6 years old at the time. He did odd jobs for the first few years and then joined a Malaysian construction company, where he learnt to drive, repair machinery, work on the internet and even speak English fluently.

“In those 13 years, I learnt everything – driving, mechanic work, how to control the machinery and how to set up a small factory. This made me gain a lot of confidence to do almost all jobs,” says Tenzing, while speaking to TBI from his farm.

However, as his mother was getting older, she wanted Tenzing to come back home and take care of their farm. And finally on December 12, 2006, Tenzing returned to his hometown in Assam.

His family used to always grow paddy and vegetables, but by the time he came back, everyone was growing tea in Assam. When Tenzing visited several farms, he came to know that tea could be easily exported and many tea companies were buying tea, making marketing easier for the farmers. Tenzing too decided to grow tea in his farm. But as his family had never grown tea, he had no idea how to do it. Hence, he went to his friends who were growing tea to learn from them.

Most of the tea experts that he met suggested him to use chemical fertilisers and pesticides and advised to buy genetically modified seeds. According to them, this was the best way to get the fastest and highest yield. Being a layman in this field, Tenzing followed their instructions.

But whenever he would spray pesticide on his farm, he would get a headache and feel nauseous.

His mother, too, did not like the idea of using chemicals as they had never done this before.

“My father, grandfather and my mother had never used chemicals in our farm. They always used organic fertilisers made of cow dung and urine. We could not stand the smell of the chemicals. And then I saw that the fishes were dying in my pond. The pesticides were nothing but poison. Everyone starts their day with tea, I couldn’t have fed them poison,” says Tenzing.

He started looking for alternatives.However, everyone told him tea couldn’t be grown organically. Tenzing did his research online and came to know about Dr. L Narayan Reddy from Doddaballapur in Bangalore, who was doing it organically. He then went there and learnt organic farming. He also took up many classes, but still was not very satisfied with the training. Finally in 2007, he connected with a Canadian NGO Fertile Ground, and invited them to his farm. That’s where they trained him.

Thus, Tenzing started growing tea organically in 2007. Though initially he had to face some challenges, slowly he started getting better yield and quality of the tea leaves. Tenzing was the only farmer among 12,000 others who was growing tea organically.

But now the marketing of organic tea was a big challenge for him. He then decided to have his own processing unit, through which he processed the tea and packaged it all by himself.

“I set up a small processing unit and started selling my tea in Canada, German, US and UK through a tea company which helps me export. It was very difficult for me to find a global market. I visited Hong Kong and Australia for the royal expo to find a market. Everything was a big challenge,” he says.

Today he has 25 acres of land, in which 7.5 acres is used for tea plantation, and he grows almost all types of fruits and vegetables. He also grows paddy in the rest of the land. His yearly turnover from the tea plantation is around ₹60-₹70 lakh per annum.

The most interesting part of his farm is the buffer zone, which is the area at the end of his farm from where the jungle begins at the Bhutan border. He has left that part of the farm as is. He does not cut down the trees or start a fire there, instead he has planted bamboo trees on which the wild elephants feed. He has also not put any barriers in and around his plantation, so that the wild animals from the jungle can freely move in his farm.

At times,  you can see at least 70-80 wild elephants in his farm. Hornbills, wild pigs, deers, peacocks and a variety of birds is a common sight there.

“If you grow organically, you can grow every seasonal crop in a tea farm, and you can maintain the ecological balance. When you maintain the ecological balance, you can see more birds and animals too,” he says.

According to Tenzing, tea companies mislead farmers to grow only tea on their farms. Indian climate is suitable for growing anything from apples to strawberries and from tea to rice, but the farmers don’t intercrop. This is because when you use chemicals, it is difficult to grow consumable fruits in the same farm and the soil slowly becomes infertile, as microorganisms also die due to pesticides. But if farmers grow organically, then all the seasonal fruits, vegetables and even paddy can be grown in the same tea farm. This makes the farmers self sufficient. Moreover, growing one’s own food will ensure that there is enough food for everyone and farmers can get a chance to export their produce for bigger benefits. He also urges the urban population to learn the basics of farming and grow as much they can on their rooftops or balconies. This will increase the food security of the nation and thus, the government will help the farmers to export too. Also, it’s only if one grows organically will the entire ecosystem get back into place.

“When I started growing organically, it brought back the ecological balance and even elephants loved to stay here. Yes, they are also damaging some tea plants and sometimes my house too, but it’s fine by me. Even they need to survive so I am growing for them too. Why should I be selfish to grow just for myself?,” he adds.

Tenzing’s success inspired many, and farmers from Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh also started coming to his farm to learn organic farming. He has trained about 30,000 farmers so far.

For farmers who want to grow organically, Tenzing suggests that they should not buy anything from the market for their farm. He recommends the ‘1 family, 1 hectare and 1 cow’ formula, which means that the fertiliser made from cow urine and dung is sufficient to grow in one hectare of land which is sufficient for one family.

Though Tenzing’s farms were very popular in and around Assam, he came into the limelight two years back when an elephant died in his farm due to elephant conflicts. Tenzing was so upset with this that he kept writing to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to visit his village and help. After persuading them for two years, they finally visited his farm and were very happy to see the wild animals roaming freely. It was then that both his farms were certified as the world’s first elephant-friendly farms.

Every year almost 100 tourists visit Tenzing’s farm from various parts of the world like Japan, China, UK, Australia and Germany.

Some are tea buyers, some come to learn, some to know about organic farming, and some come to see the wild elephants in his farm. There are many people who also come to volunteer. There are guests who stay for more than  two months and Tenzing loves hosting them.

“I love the jungle because I grew up in a village. I love every tree. I respect every microorganism, every creature, every animal of the jungle. I love to grow. I am happy with my life,” he concludes.

You can contact Tenzing at tenzingb86@yahoo.in

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What do you associate memes with? The first few words that come to my mind are comedy and satire. But 24-year-old Santhosh, an agriculturalist, uses them to inform farmers about various techniques and tips that will benefit their practice. This meme-crusader comes from a farming family, and is armed with a B.SC in agriculture from Annamalai University, Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. Santosh is capitalising on the popularity of memes, by using them to educate people.

Santosh is capitalising on the cultural currency of memes, and using it to make a difference in society.

While studying, he was frequently asked on Facebook about certain agricultural practices, and that is when he understood the utility of social media. While he was able to help a small community, he and his peers realised that larger sections of society would benefit from the dissemination of such information. Seeing the e-popularity and reach of memes, Santhosh and two of his friends, Prakash Thangavel and Mahim Antony, created ‘Learn Agriculture’, a page on Facebook dedicated to promoting sustainable farming. In a month the page had more than 70,000 subscribers and is an active forum for queries related to agriculture.

“People forward memes much more than just plain text posts. But it was frustrating to see so many memes just mocking society; that prompted me to use them better. Why not use this powerful medium to send socially relevant, and useful messages,” he says.

‘Learn Agriculture’ is perhaps the first page where memes guide farmers on sustainable agriculture, providing better cropping techniques, dispelling myths, and all of this while entertaining their audience too. “More than the likes we get, we get a lot more questions on the page. People keep asking us for solutions to their problems, and we reach out to them offline too,” he adds.

Santosh also runs another popular Facebook group called Azhvar Memes, which encourages organic and traditional farming techniques.“It is the way our forefathers tilled the land, achieving good yields and maintaining the soil’s quality without chemicals,” he says.

Santosh’s aim is to start an organic farm, more than just the commercial viability, he wants to prove the effectiveness of the method too. “I come from an agricultural family. My grandfather and uncles still farm, but even they follow chemical methods. I have told them about the benefits of organic farming, but they will not change their methods as they are used to chemical inputs. Until I am able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods, things won’t change. Which is why we are scouting for land now to start the farm,” Santosh elaborates.

To connect with Santhosh and stay updated you can join his Facebook pages ‘Learn Agriculture’ and ‘Azhvar’.

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While coming back to India after staying in Canada for four years, Deepak Gupta, a banker for 16 years, thought of something that would change the course of his life forever. Deepak and his wife Smita, who was a marketing professional for over 15 years, were tired of the rat race in the corporate world. They decided to change theirs as well as the lives of others, who were stuck with a not-so-healthy modern lifestyle.

Deepak was working as a deputy general manager in a reputed bank, and had been living in South Africa for a year and Canada for another four years for an assignment.

When he came to India in 2011, he found that the entire community wasn’t very aware when it came to health, which was directly affected by the food they were consuming. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides were rampantly used,  and people had no other option but to eat the poisonous fruits and vegetables. This was leading to dangerous diseases like cancer. More diseases spread due to lack of nutritious food as it meant lack of immunity. A resident of Gurgaon, Deepak then decided to visit the farms in and around Delhi and Gurgaon.

“In my journey towards figuring out the whole ecosystem of organic foods around Delhi, I was fortunate to meet several aware consumers and entrepreneurs, who were standing against all odds, in a community that was still broadly short-sighted on matters of health and well-being,” says Deepak.

Thus, in 2012, Deepak laid the foundation of his firm Organic Maati, which focussed on procuring organic fruits and vegetables from local farmers and selling it to interested consumers.

While this was going well as a part-time venture, Deepak also realised that the ill effects of modernisation were not limited to food. The deterioration of our health and environment was also caused by the clothes we wear and the poisonous dyes used on them; the cosmetics and hygiene products used by us, and of course, the air pollution.

“People were popping pills like never before as their threshold of pain was much lesser, and they developed issues like stress and anxiety. There seemed to be no getting away from it for the average city dweller,” he says.

Deepak’s wife Smita pitched in and added organic cotton herbal dyed apparel and natural wellness products to the list of the Organic Maati products.

The couple was running their brand successfully and could see the difference in the awareness level of the consumer as well. However, something was still missing.

“I could not help but notice the sharp deterioration in the quality of life all around me, in the name of advancement, but had no idea how to do something about it. I noticed children who were very social in their virtual life but introverts in the real world. Their physical agility and cognitive skills were quite low as they did not go out to the playground every evening, which we did as kids. Instant gratification and fidgety temperament were pervasive. The gap in health awareness and well-being between my community and the ‘advanced’ communities that I was fortunately exposed to, was too wide for me to ignore. I had to do something to change this,” says Deepak.

Deepak and Smita realised that only providing organic products was not enough. There had to be a holistic lifestyle change in the community.

Deepak quit his well-paying job in May 2016 and got involved full-time into farming.

He realised that a lot of landless farmers, who had a rich knowledge of natural farming passed on to them by their ancestors, were forced to use chemicals and work as labourers in others’ farms at very low wages. He hired those farmers as permanent employees of Organic Maati. After being sure about taking up natural farming, which he believes is the best therapy for all the environmental issues, Deepak and Smita started Organic Maati 2 – a rented natural farm not too far from the city, which can be a definite panacea for the city dwellers.  

Organic Maati 2 offers natural farming of vegetables on rent, wherein people can choose an acre (or more) of land in the vicinity of Delhi and ask Organic Maati to farm for them.

Costing less than a US air ticket, one can have a one-acre personal farm for a full year, which is within an hour’s drive from Delhi. This includes unlimited visits with the family and learning natural farming, picking up their own vegetables and fruits and being a part of nature.

“These farms are located at the small villages near Delhi and Gurgaon. Not only will it serve the purpose of connecting the urban dwellers to their roots and lead them to a healthy and sustainable living, but also, as we are using only natural farming methods, these farms will prove as a model for other farmers,” he explains.

OM2 offers three models to own a farm. If you own a farm, you can just hire OM2 to farm for you in your existing land. If you want to rent a farm, then the firm will help you with one and grow your veggies. If you want to purchase a land of your choice and grow on it, even that can be done.

Though one can earn by selling the produce too, Deepak encourages people to take up this model for personal consumption and not for commercial use.

The team signs a one-year contract with the consumer, in which they help them harvest at least three yields. If one wants to continue, they can still renew the contract or continue farming on their own. The entire responsibility of resources, logistic, labour, farming and even harvesting and delivering the veggies is taken care by the OM2 team.

So far 15 families from Delhi and NCR have taken up farming on an acre land through OM2. This has helped the youth from villages in getting a permanent job, and has stopped them from migrating from their homeland.

They also get to continue with their  family profession, which is farming. As these families visit the farms with their friends too, it has encouraged eco-tourism and the villagers get to showcase their skills as well.

“I am so happy my distant dream of passing on my childhood farm experience to my son has come true. And that too conveniently and affordably,” says Chiranjib Dhar from Gurgaon.

OM2 aims to scale up the natural rental farms in Gurgaon and add 100 acres of green natural farms within ayear. According to Deepak, this will help reduce the carbon footprint for the entire community too.

Organic Maati also conducts workshops on their demo farm at sector-92, Gurgaon, for those interested in natural farming (cow-centric farming, producing food with no chemicals, preservatives or GMO seeds) and building their own organic kitchen garden.

“Avoid looking at your farm as a financial investment instrument with assured rate of return. Look at it as a social enterprise instead, where you get safe healthy food and a farm experience, both of which are invaluable. Unlike conventional farming, which only focuses on productivity and yields, natural farming focuses on enriching the soil first. You benefit your own health, uplift the local farmers, better the environment, and fulfil your farm dream – all without having to give up your comforts of the city and your busy life,” Deepak concludes.

For more information you can log on to www.organicmaati.com

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Aneel Kumar Ambavaram has a masters degree in organic agriculture from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, one of the best schools for agricultural sciences.  After working with multinational companies like Dow Agro-Sciences and Dupont for 15 years,  he could have had a high profile career with a handsome package. But, during his trips across Andhra Pradesh, and especially his own village, Kadapa, Anil realised that all his work did was make him successful, but not help farmers grow.

“I was selling pesticides! That would have got me a fat salary job and a luxurious life, but it was not useful to farmers. That’s when I felt like I need to do something else,” says Aneel while talking to TBI.

So, he decided to quit his corporate job and dedicate his life to help farmers.

Aneel joined Grameena Vikas Kendram Society for Rural Development (GVK), an NGO working for agriculture, sustainability and rural development, as the President in 2009.

He met Sarat Babu Gidda, a mechanical engineer, who started working with GVK right from the time he was in college. The team also had Vidya Sagar,  who has a Masters in Sustainable Agricultural Development from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.  

Project Anvita :

The trio started with the mission of uplifting cotton farmers from Kothavalasa, Chinatalapadu and two other villages in Vizianagaram district.

“Anvita is a sanskrit word which means ‘weaving’. Our project brings people together to farm a social  fabric. Here, it is about global cotton supply chain wherein farmers in India and global consumers unite for a cause,” explains Aneel.

They ran campaigns in villages and were on the lookout for farmers willing to join them. Around 50 farmers had never seen a non-Bt cotton seed. The team helped them start organic farming.

A firm in the U.S. has already committed itself to purchase the cotton lint produced by these farmers, while some European companies have expressed an interest too.  GVK also takes order from a brand that needs organic lint or T-shirts, gets cotton produce from its associated farmers, processes it through the ginning and spinning mill in Tiruppur and distributes the end product. In the Netherlands ‘T for Change’, a local company has sold the T-shirts twice on the eve of their national day.

According to the team, organic farming not only helps farmers get rid of the impact of pesticides and other chemicals but also reduces the amount of water needed.  A conventional cotton t-shirt needs about 3,000 litres of water,  but the organic t-shirt needs only 300 litres of water.

The immediate benefit for farmers would definitely be lesser expenditure. Usually, they spend Rs. 15,000 – Rs. 20,000 per acre, but now they have to invest only around Rs. 5,000.

The organic seed, when placed in soil that is used to being fed with chemical fertilisers, takes time to have a successful yield. Over the span of three years, the yield is normal. It must be noted, organic farming requires zero investment and hence the farmer gets better returns.

 “Anvita is implemented the way it is designed, at the end of 5 years, we see ourselves working with 5000 farmers, helping them increase their annual income by 80 percent,” says Aneel.

Project Hesperidin :

Once project Anvita was working well, Aneel wanted to help the farmers in his own village, Kadapa. Kadapa is a very dry region that suffers from chronic water scarcity.  The area is famous for banana and sweet orange cultivation. However, the farmers struggle with heavy investments required to grow these fruits and the inadequate market price at which they are sold at.

“Farmers are very optimistic people. Last year they got Rs.50/kg for the sweet oranges and they always expect and plan their expenses hoping to get the same price every year. However this time the market price was only Rs 20 per kg. Sometimes they can’t even recover what they have invested as these are perishable items,” explains Aneel.

A number of factors cause sweet orange trees to shed fruits prematurely. Aberrations in rain/irrigation, wind, cyclone etc accelerate fruit dropping. About 4 out of 5 fruits are estimated to be dropped at different stages, leaving farmers in a state of drudgery. Also, after planting, farmers have to wait for four years before starting revenue generation. They pinch off the small fruits to allow for the healthy growth of the plant, which is a labour intensive chore.

After much research, the team found out that a bioflavonoid called “Hesperidin” is present in these aborted sweet oranges. This natural compound has a positive effect on the human circulatory system and hence has pharmaceutical value. Collection, processing, quality management and supply of aborted small oranges can fetch additional income to these farmers.

GVK has set up farmers training systems under the project Hesperedin. Beneficiaries can collect and sell both fresh and dried fruits as per the quality standards.

“By enrolling the sweet orange farmers into collecting the aborted sweet oranges, we have increased the annual income of the sweet orange farmers by 50% and created an opportunity for the labour in the region to earn more income. We worked in 40 villages and collected 10 metric tonnes (after drying) in the first year. We have achieved more than 100% growth in the second year (82 villages and 23 MT),” says Aneel.

GVK has signed an agreement with a renowned European pharmaceutical company recently to export sun dried oranges.

Project Future Seed :

We consume about 14 grams of pesticide in a day. Organic food costs less to produce and hence increases the farmer’s profit. There is a need for a consistent and robust organic retail chain in India that is market driven so more farmers are ready to produce organic food.  Future Seed works with tribal and marginal organic farmers to establish Value Chains that continuously produce affordable organic food. The data is used to predict the fluctuation of price of food products and stabilise this as much a possible.

“Farmers are our business partners. We encourage community ownership, peer learning and attitude shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’,” says Aneel.

Project Suraksha

The team also believes that social and mindset changes are as important as improving income. Suraksha endeavours to tackle the issues of gender norms, power, entitlement and sexism in the society by working with boys and men through a project called “gender-transformative work”. It focuses on educating men and empowering women.

Tip4change

Technology is another aspect that the team wants to introduce to agriculture. Tip4change connects small farmers and rural artisans with global consumers by using Smartphone technology to achieve improved transparency, accountability and engagement in supply chains to drive sustainable and bottom-up development. It is a combination of 3 proven model viz., Fair Trade, Mobile Technology and Micro Philanthropy. 

The team is continuously working towards the betterment of farmers, one cause at a time.

“Innovation is in our heart. Making true difference on the ground really matters. Even if I am just one person and has my own limitations. I know what just one person can do. I can attract more people, I can create an ecosystem around the causes. I want to invite people who want to make this difference. Though we can’t change the situation of 100% farmers, we can move forward by changing just 10% at a time,” appeals Aneel to our readers.

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