Organic farming helped yield more profit, say farmers
Suryapet: Farmers have a responsibility towards society by producing healthy food grains and avoiding use of chemical fertilisers for cultivation, several farmers said at a national level farmers’ conference in Suryapet on Sunday. KVK Rythu Mithra Foundation and Gandhi Global Foundation jointly conducted a national level farmers’ conference titled “Sustainable Agriculture” on the occasion of International Pulses Day.
Narrating their successes after switching over to organic farming from chemical fertilisers, these farmers exhorted others to avoid use of chemical fertilisers which reduces soil fertility besides producing unhealthy food grains.
A farmer from Adilabad G Rameshwar said that farmers should keep it in mind that producing healthy food was also more important than achieving high yield. The food grains cultivated using excess chemical fertilisers should harm the health of the people. Moreover, the excess use of fertilisers would also impact the fertility of the soil, he said. Though there may be fewer yields of the crops in organic farming, it would protect our agricultural lands in terms of fertility and also safe to the health of the people, he added.
A woman farmer R Naga Lakshmi from Guntur of Andhra Pradesh said that though she was a woman from a Brahim community, she has first taken up the roof vegetable cultivation. With the confidence given by the success of her first effort, she has decided to take up cultivation in her four-acre agricultural land on her own from the next crop season instead of leasing it to others.
A farmer from Jaya Shanker Bhupalapally district V Sambaiah said that he has been doing cultivation with organic farming method for the last eight years. Getting inspiration from him, 150 farmers were following his steps at his native place Bhupalapally. He urged the State government to extend a cow to each farmer, who would have an interest to shift to organic farming.
A women farmer from Nagarkurnool Lavanya told that after adopting innovative methods in cultivation, her income was increased to Rs 11 lakh from Rs 11 per year. When she did cultivation with traditional methods, she got only Rs 11 profit in a year, which made her to think about innovative cultivation methods to increase the profit. She was cultivating 30 types of crops in four acres of land by taking up inter-crops cultivation. She would not purchase seeds from the market and use the crop produced by her with organic farming as seeds, he added.
Energy Minister G Jagdish Reddy, who attended the programme as chief guest, distributed Pudami Mithra Awards to selected 90 couples of farmers from 46 districts from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States.
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