Today I happened to see the interview from Lower Bhavani Farmers Association President S. Nallasamy in a TV interview on Farmer's day special. He was worried about the current state of affairs of agriculture in India. Besides many important and very good points that he spoke, one thing hit me hard.
It is about breakage of link between city garbage and farm yard manure after the industrial agriculture era started 40 years back. He said while on the one hand, for lack of manure and ease of application, farmers have switched to chemical fertilizer, on the other hand the cities are heaping piles of garbage
without doing anything about it. Both are bad.
40 years back, the city garbage will be converted into compost mature and supplied to village. The Village inturn will export farm produce to cities. It was a win-win situation.
To put thought into action I spoke to Subbu and restarted the same topic which I left half finished since month.
Earlier, I had assigned him to visit a busy fruit juice shop in Valliyoor, a nearby town and enquire about the leftover fruit cuttings. Subbu had enquired the owner and found that the shop doesnot waste any fruit. Not even the spoilt ones. The business secret is all of them go into juice making. The only waste is coconut kernal and banana peel. So the attempt was left at that.
Today I assigned him to visit nearby towns vegetable markets and find what they do with their green waste. I must tie up for atleast one lorry load of vegetable market discards a month. Well that must be brought into the farm and used for generating manure using cowdung solution. The only expense must be some nominal payment to municipal, loading and the transport.
As a first step and a pilot, a 10 feet by 15 feet brick tank has to be built in the farm. Digging a pit in the ground is ruled out as it will get filled with water. Moreover I feel the tank should be used for vermi composting also in case...
Why brick ? we have already some leftover bricks and we need to just buy some more. The bricks must be placed with 3 inches gap between them and cemented to create a grilled appearance for airflow and water out.
Luckily today Paramu, our all round carpenter/mason was available in the farm beside Subbu. My farm is a great place for them to meet. Otherwise what our lonely Subbu and Kandan will do? Today they were attempting to put the Kerosene engine water pump to take some water out of the fish pond for irrigation. Spoke to Paramu asked him to start the work right away. Estimate around Rs. 10000/-. The compost tank to be built near the High Tension Electricity Tower as place will not have any buildings or tall trees in future.
Good Job.
It is about breakage of link between city garbage and farm yard manure after the industrial agriculture era started 40 years back. He said while on the one hand, for lack of manure and ease of application, farmers have switched to chemical fertilizer, on the other hand the cities are heaping piles of garbage
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| Illustration : Courtesy Internet |
40 years back, the city garbage will be converted into compost mature and supplied to village. The Village inturn will export farm produce to cities. It was a win-win situation.
To put thought into action I spoke to Subbu and restarted the same topic which I left half finished since month.
Earlier, I had assigned him to visit a busy fruit juice shop in Valliyoor, a nearby town and enquire about the leftover fruit cuttings. Subbu had enquired the owner and found that the shop doesnot waste any fruit. Not even the spoilt ones. The business secret is all of them go into juice making. The only waste is coconut kernal and banana peel. So the attempt was left at that.
Today I assigned him to visit nearby towns vegetable markets and find what they do with their green waste. I must tie up for atleast one lorry load of vegetable market discards a month. Well that must be brought into the farm and used for generating manure using cowdung solution. The only expense must be some nominal payment to municipal, loading and the transport.
As a first step and a pilot, a 10 feet by 15 feet brick tank has to be built in the farm. Digging a pit in the ground is ruled out as it will get filled with water. Moreover I feel the tank should be used for vermi composting also in case...
Why brick ? we have already some leftover bricks and we need to just buy some more. The bricks must be placed with 3 inches gap between them and cemented to create a grilled appearance for airflow and water out.
Luckily today Paramu, our all round carpenter/mason was available in the farm beside Subbu. My farm is a great place for them to meet. Otherwise what our lonely Subbu and Kandan will do? Today they were attempting to put the Kerosene engine water pump to take some water out of the fish pond for irrigation. Spoke to Paramu asked him to start the work right away. Estimate around Rs. 10000/-. The compost tank to be built near the High Tension Electricity Tower as place will not have any buildings or tall trees in future.
Good Job.
*****
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