Preeti is going to grow vegetables after a PhD :- 'We Indians have forgotten what is good for us. Foreigners say oats are good, so we say the same, arrey, we have oats since ages!'
'When I tell my mother we eat ragi biscuits, she says, "big deal, we used to eat it like sattu or porridge".'
Preeti, who is about to finish a PhD in Entomology, tells me that if a small farmer has one cow, a patch of land and saves his own seeds he can cultivate his own land and sustain his family.
The Navdanya seed bank has 2,000 varieties of seeds. Farmers that come for training here are shown how to store them in cane baskets lined with a mixture of cow urine, dung and soil.
The Navdanya Organic Farm has 2,000 varieties of seeds, the most treasured asset of the farm
"It's simple, once you store seeds that way they will never get infected by pathogens. You don't need all those harmful chemicals," she says, taking us around the farm, in a weathered pair of sneakers.
"We lost our traditional methods of farming to the Green Revolution. The thought was that you can't do farming without chemicals if you have to feed the masses, but what we were growing traditionally was so much healthier," explains Preeti.
I am told there are 37 varieties of cows in India. "And we are stuck with the Jersey (not native to India) cow because it gives more milk. These cows may produce less milk, but are drug resistant and provide good labour," says Preeti, caressing the vermi compost, with tiny earthworms wriggling in between her fingers.
The natural manure made from kitchen and farm waste looks like used tea leaves and is a wonderful nutrient for the soil.
Everything that comes from the 60 acre farm is recycled. Most of the food served comes from the farm itself. Navdanya has a staff of over 35, has 122 seed banks in 18 states and has a large community of farmer members.
The organic farm also serves as a model for small farmers -- so that a farmer with a tiny patch of land can see how to make best use of it.
Full article in the link below
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Posted by: Ravi Narasimhan <ravi.narasimhan.in@gmail.com>
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