Natural farming success story.
Success story of Organic farming
Farmer: Sri P. Seetha Rami Reddy of Kaza village of Movva mandal :
Prior to 2006, the farmer Sri P. Seetha Rami Reddy of Kaaza village of Movva mandal was following chemical intensive agriculture and got sunk by debts and came to the conclusion that better to stop farming. Later, he came across a press note on organic farming by Sri. Y.V. Krishna Rao of Nimmakuru village, who gave him jeevamrutha sufficient for ¼ acre. The result was visualised in just 4 days. From that time onwards he has been using organic inputs viz., biofertilizers, neem oil, Pseudomonas, Trichoderma viride given by Dept. of Agriculture on 50% subsidy. Then, he slowly turned into an organic farmer in a stepwise manner.
From 2008 onwards, he has been attending the meetings organized by sri. Subhash Palekar, who is a pioneer of ‘zero-budget spiritual farming’ and shifted from chemical agriculture to cow based farming in 6 acres. Though initially for first two years the yields were low compared to the neighboring farmers who are practicing inorganic farming, the ZBNF farmer continued ‘Natural Farming’ even everybody were making fun of him. He realized the fact that with a single cow one can practice natural farming in at least 30 acres. From one cow, daily 10-12 kg of dung and 8-10 L of urine can be collected. He explained the preparation of ghana and drava jeevamrutha. The ZBNF farmer says that the drava jeevamrutha has to be used in 4 to 10 days after preparation four times in the crop growing season starting from 30 DAP at 3 weeks interval, while Ghana jeevamrutha can be stored for 6 months after bringing down the moisture content to a minimum level by air drying. This may be applied in the field maintaining 1 inch level of water @ 100 kg per acre. The jeevamrutha will act as an excellent tonic to the field and tones the soil in terms of supply of the nutrients and also substrate (organic C compounds) for the earth worms and microbes. The farmer opined that nourishing the plants with jeevamrutha makes the crop healthy that resists the attack by pests and diseases besides giving good yields. For improved boldness of seed in pulses, the farmer suggests to spray the extract prepared out of seven grains viz., blackgram, greengram, cowpea, horsegram, bengalgram, wheat and gingelly.
For pest control, the natural farmer uses various asthras viz., agni astrha, neemasthra, brahmasthra and dashaparnikasthra apart from using fermented buttermilk and coconut milk for disease management. The farmer also is practicing mulching and crop residue management for improved soil health.
The crop under natural farming is generally harvested a week days earlier than normal crop. The natural farmer said that the yield decline due to adopting natural farming is only 2 to 3 bags per acre in case of rice, but he is getting premium price of Rs. 400/- extra per each bag of rice. For rice the farmer obtained a net profit of Rs. 35000/- per acre and for blackgram Rs. 50000/-. Natural farmers from three mandals viz., Ghantasala, Movva and Thotlavalluru formed into a society and got the organic certification. The ZBNF farmer compared the intensive chemical farming against natural farming. He opines that due to the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides the soils may turn saline and/or alkaline, the soil environment and ground water may be polluted leading to soil sickness. Continuous use of organics has improved the soil conditions and also earthworm population in his field. Sri P. Seetha Rami Reddy, ZBNF farmer also advised other farmers to take up natural farming for the benefit of human health, soil and environmental quality.
