A brand icon for organic farming

Trichy: At a time when farmers are facing a crisis maintaining agriculture as a livelihood, a 56-year-old guest lecturer has been successfully pursuing organic farming by alternating three crops for three decades. What makes the efforts of R Srinivasan alias Sridhar unique is that he has managed to stick to organic cultivation braving labour shortage, lack of avenues for marketing the produce and issues involved in carrying out cultivation in the heart of the city.

A native of Ariyamangalam near Thiruverumbur in Trichy city, Sridhar was working as a guest lecturer in a private college when he was passed on the ‘responsibility’ of taking up agriculture as a profession by his father. Nurtured by an agrarian family, Srinivasan readily accepted the baton and plunged into full-time cultivation. Banana has been his main crop while paddy and pulses are his changing crops. Over the years, he has been adopting various techniques to get more yield of banana, paddy and pulses by adopting organic method.

“To minimize labour cost, water and fertilizer, I took to drip irrigation without flooding the banana field. To safeguard the surface from getting dry and mulch the ground using dry banana leaves. We get to enjoy lots of benefits when using drip irrigation method”, he said. According to him, SRI (System of Rice Intensification) is the best method to get a high yield in the case of paddy as well as pulses. Srinivasan is regarded as a pioneer in using SRI in Trichy.

However, irrespective of the crop, Srinivasan has been using Panchakavya, Amirthakaraisal, neem oil, green manure and cow dung as fertilizer instead of chemicals. He firmly believes that farmers must bring down labour cost by using machinery and fertilizer cost by administering organic manure and pesticides. That would be the only way to sustain this profession, he opined. “However, since pursuing organic cultivation is a little costlier than the conventional method, many farmers opt for a mix of both. I have never gone for the conventional method,” Srinivasan said.

“People purchase my produce because they trust me. So, I don’t want to cheat them. However, the government should chart out plans to encourage organic farmers like me. Only then will farmers pursue it further which will pave the way for make more farmers go the organic way”, he added. Srinivasan points out that with a considerable number of people preferring organic produce, many outlets claiming to be organic ones have been mushrooming around the city. There was no guarantee whether they sold genuinely organic stuff. “To avert fraudulent activities, the government should come forward to procure organic produces from farmers and supply it through the public distribution system, which would benefit the farmers enormously”, he added.

Srinivasan has been producing certified quality paddy seeds like ‘Seeraga Samba’, ‘Vellai Ponni’ which he sells to farmers and also agriculture department. Srinivasan has also raised vegetables under shade net. His only son, Adhithya Srinivasan, is practising as an auditor in Mumbai. According to Srinivasan, he has plans to return to Trichy to take to the fields. “Nowadays, youths are not showing much interest in agriculture. If my son decides to return for the sake of agriculture, it will be a great joy for me”, he added.

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