Suhasini Lamani - A success Story

A progressive farmer of Veeraihanadoddi is enjoying a great benefit from agriculture. Initially his agriculture system was with use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
He did not have any other additional income rather than agriculture for his livelihood.The yield that he reaped was not sufficient for his big family and had dragged him to debt.

About three to four years back he attend trainings conducted by GREEN Foundation on organic farming practices like vermicompost and mixed cropping.

He slowly switched on to organic farming practices in a small piece of land. He started taking mixed cropping thereby reducing the investment on pesticides. He even started using vermicompost on his land slowly reducing the use of chemical fertilizers.
At present he has a land holding of 6 acres wherein he has adopted all organic farming practices. The crops that he grows are paddy, ragi, cowpea, groundnut, horse gram, sesame, beans, banana, mulberry, coconut and red gram. With this is earns a net income benefit of Rs. 1, 68, 400 from agriculture alone.

This is due to diversified farming practices as well as use of onfarm inputs like local seeds, organic urea, compost, mulching and organic pesticides. Being a medium farmer he also practices sericulture and earns a good profit from it. Thus effective management is equally very important for better organic farming.

Farmers experiencing benefits from organic farming practicing are increasing. One such farmer is Jayadevaiah of Dasaihanadoddi, Tamil Nadu. Jayadevaiah is a model to many other farmers. The diversity in his garden is astounding that includes pumpkin, bottle gourd, snake gourd, six varieties of brinjal, four varieties of tomato, two varieties of okra, four varieties of redgram, three varieties of cowpea, six varieties of beans, raddish, carrot, tapioca, sweet potato, drumstick, greens included chakota, amaranthus, palak, rajgeera, curry leaves.

His interest in conversation of pure seeds extends to him personally taking care by of masking the plants to avoid cross-pollination. The fruit trees that adorn are banana, mango, sapota, pomogranate, jackfruit, guava, lemon, papaya, custard apple and wood apple. The commercial crops, which are grown are cardamom, coffee, coconut, arecanut, vanilla, ginger, turmeric, sugarcane and strawberry and green manuring crops included glyricidia and erythrina . The medicinal plants included aloe vera, long pepper, chakramuni, adathoda vasica, asparagus and mimosa podica.who is a medium farmer taking different crops on his land like ragi, pulses, mango, sapota, beans, cardamom and fig very efficiently.

Recently he took 0.3 acre of land (irrigated) on lease and started cultivating beans crop of anupama variety. Along with sowing he applied FYM and vermicompost. Application of vermicompost showed good germination. At an interval of 10 days, he applied Jeevamrutha as a growth promoter. Later for pest control, he started applying EM-FPE (Effective Microorganisms-Fermented Plant Extract) solution at an interval of 15 days for two time i.e., during vegetative and pre-flowering stage. He did not find any pest attack to the crop and harvested good yield. His neighbour, Krishna Reddy, who is also growing the same beans variety on 0.5 acres of land. His crop is infested with pest and had to spray pesticides.

Nanjamma, a small farmer who hails from Dinnur possesses a land of 1.5 acres and irrigated land of 10 cents. She had a small kitchen garden with few varieties of crops like Chilly, Bringal and Tomato, which were insufficient. She showed keen interest when GREEN Foundation intervened by conducting training on vegetable diversity and composting methods, which would help her in establishing more diversified benefits in terms of food security, income, nutrition and health. Nanjamma enthusiastically adoped the various components in her garden thereby increasing her diversity in an outstanding way.

The medicinal plants, which are grown by her, are Lemon grass and ginger. Trees like Pongamia, Chigare, Tamarind, Turudb, Kaggali, Lemon, Drumstick, Curry leaves, Guava, Gasgase, Papaya, Citrus, Castor, Custard apple and Jackfruit also adorn her garden. She sells vegetables in the local market and within the village. The income earned is used for paying their fees, purchasing the books and buying the groceries for the family and part of the income is deposited in the sanghas as savings.

Chudegowda and Nagarathnamma a couple residing at Marupally, own 2 acres of land with a backyard garden surrounding their house. They have always been keen on growing fruits and maintain their small garden extremely well. The couple have always been practicing agriculture and are receptive to learning new ideas and concepts. After their association with GREEN Foundation, they have realised the need to conserve agro biodiversity and have developed interest in growing indigenous varieties. This dedicated farmer couple are keen on conserving indigenous varieties and maintaining purity of seeds; they have set up a small seed bank on their own.

Apart from conserving they also multiply and distributes seeds to other farmers in the surrounding region. The space around the house is used for Kitchen garden, very noticeable thing in their garden is the usage of space even with little space they are able to grow good amount of plants. Now Chudegowda has become an expert in Permaculture gardening technique, a new way of sustaining and enriching life without environment and social degradation. Permaculture is usually done where the gardening area is limited. Lately a well-laid vermicomposting unit adorns their garden. As Chudegowda is keen on practicing organic farming, he makes his own bio pesticide and thereby perfected in the art of establishing perfect gardens with good diversity. Some of the rare varieties conserved in his garden are burmagowda - carrot, orange oxheart - Tomato, Tigris -Tomato, Majjige ragi, Musuku badane (brinjal) and many other vegetables. Under the guidance of this couple many women farmers have formed sangha and have been sensitised in conservation of seeds. His extensive experience has made him popular and is invited by many people and organizations to conduct training programmes. Now Chude gowda travels as a resource person all over Karnataka narrating about the magic of vegetable seed conservation.

Silagayanadoddi, a village, Kanakapura Taluk, Bangalore rural district, today has electricity, water supply and transport. The villagers here are swimming against the waves of the modern agriculture by adapting the traditional varieties and practices in agriculture thus heading towards self-sufficiency and sustainable development. A revolutionary brain behind the development of the village Silagayanadoddi, is Muniyamma, a tough women farmer. In the age where women are still considered as the second citizens of the nation, Muniyamma has proved it wrong by being a role model to the villagers. She has been the force behind initiating the programmes introduced by GREEN Foundation like farm ponds, kitchen gardens, community seed banks, community water supply for the animals, vermicompost units, agro-forestry and other income generating programs. She has showed how a woman can play a key role in the development of a village, even with out having a formal education, a woman with her instinct of caring and loving can bring about any sort of reformation. As this village is situated in the midst of the forest, movement of wild animals left the whole village remains indoors after sunset. There was no supply of electricity to this village, not even water. The dangerous situation is what led Muniyamma fight for the basic infrastructure to her village. Her request fell on deaf ears of the government employees; this was when she sat for a dharna in front of the government offices and received no support from her own fellow men, she solely fought tooth and nail with the officials for the much needed electricity supply. Muniyamma's effort in improving the basic infrastructure has been awarded with the whole village glowing.