RAWALA VILLAGE (AMRAVATI): Vasant Futane is a farmer with a difference. He is completely into organic farming since 1982, growing grains, vegetables and fruits. But the urge in him to do something creative prompted him to do something really innovative.
He brought mango seeds from all over the country — not the grafted ones, but the desi varieties — and grew them as trees. In the hot and non-irrigated land of Rawala village, in Amravati where Futane practised his farming, some survived, others didn't. However, real innovation began when he decided to develop these into special varieties. He cross pollinated the mango varieties and in the process, created some marvellous trees that bore mangoes having a unique smell, taste and size. That was the beginning of a success story and an experimentation no one else has apparently tried so far.
"I was in no hurry so I concentrated on the experiment of cultivating mangoes using only seedlings. I would plant four seeds at one place and continue with the best one after germination. Now I have developed about 40 varieties, almost ten very good ones. They will live for hundreds of years and that is my contribution for my future generations," says Futane. His sons, Vinay and Chinmay, have followed in his footsteps and work on the 35 acres of land at their disposal. The mango orchard covers only six acres of this land.
His wife Karuna's initial efforts with Futane has resulted in the family enjoying this success. "We don't publicise our work. But people have heard about our produce, and come by —even from neighbouring states — to buy our mangoes. We never sell anything in the market. Instead, the market or the buyer comes to us. Our prices are not very high. Yet it is we who decide the price of our produce and not the market," she says with a visible sense of pride.
Futane had to also add modern horticulture methods like grafting into his cultivation practices for commercial reasons. Since the past few years, he also has grafted Kesar, Rajapuri Ratna, Sardar and Langda variety of mangoes. "I took up grafting only for economic reasons. But I did not compromise on my ideology of only doing organic farming. All grafted varieties are also organic. Truly speaking, they are better than their non-organic counterparts. That's the reason I get orders for Kesar and Rajapuri from Pune, Mumbai and even Konkan," he says.
Futane's farm is an ideal example of a self-sufficient sustainable agriculture system where they buy nothing from the market. They grow just enough wheat, rice, vegetables and even oil crops like groundnut to meet the family's needs and are happy and content. Their annual turnover is just Rs 2.5 lakh from 25-50 quintals of mangoes, earning them a profit of Rs 1.5 lakh.
The Futanes also do not believe in getting the produce certified as 'organic' as they feel their thirty years of experience in following organic cultivation is certification in itself. "Who will certify? Agencies which are not even thirty years old?" asks Chinmay. Point noted.
He brought mango seeds from all over the country — not the grafted ones, but the desi varieties — and grew them as trees. In the hot and non-irrigated land of Rawala village, in Amravati where Futane practised his farming, some survived, others didn't. However, real innovation began when he decided to develop these into special varieties. He cross pollinated the mango varieties and in the process, created some marvellous trees that bore mangoes having a unique smell, taste and size. That was the beginning of a success story and an experimentation no one else has apparently tried so far.
"I was in no hurry so I concentrated on the experiment of cultivating mangoes using only seedlings. I would plant four seeds at one place and continue with the best one after germination. Now I have developed about 40 varieties, almost ten very good ones. They will live for hundreds of years and that is my contribution for my future generations," says Futane. His sons, Vinay and Chinmay, have followed in his footsteps and work on the 35 acres of land at their disposal. The mango orchard covers only six acres of this land.
His wife Karuna's initial efforts with Futane has resulted in the family enjoying this success. "We don't publicise our work. But people have heard about our produce, and come by —even from neighbouring states — to buy our mangoes. We never sell anything in the market. Instead, the market or the buyer comes to us. Our prices are not very high. Yet it is we who decide the price of our produce and not the market," she says with a visible sense of pride.
Futane had to also add modern horticulture methods like grafting into his cultivation practices for commercial reasons. Since the past few years, he also has grafted Kesar, Rajapuri Ratna, Sardar and Langda variety of mangoes. "I took up grafting only for economic reasons. But I did not compromise on my ideology of only doing organic farming. All grafted varieties are also organic. Truly speaking, they are better than their non-organic counterparts. That's the reason I get orders for Kesar and Rajapuri from Pune, Mumbai and even Konkan," he says.
Futane's farm is an ideal example of a self-sufficient sustainable agriculture system where they buy nothing from the market. They grow just enough wheat, rice, vegetables and even oil crops like groundnut to meet the family's needs and are happy and content. Their annual turnover is just Rs 2.5 lakh from 25-50 quintals of mangoes, earning them a profit of Rs 1.5 lakh.
The Futanes also do not believe in getting the produce certified as 'organic' as they feel their thirty years of experience in following organic cultivation is certification in itself. "Who will certify? Agencies which are not even thirty years old?" asks Chinmay. Point noted.
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TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2012
Indian man single-handedly creates forest on sand bar
A man in his mid-50s grew a huge forest on a sand bar in the middle of the mighty Brahmaputra in Assam's Jorhat district. The 30-year-long effort of Jadav Payeng, known among local people as 'Mulai', to grow the woods, stretching over an area of 550 hectares, has been hailed by the Assam Forest Department as 'exemplary'.
Mulai began work on the forest in 1980 when the social forestry division of Golaghat district launched a scheme of tree plantation on 200 hectares at Aruna Chapori 5km from Kokilamukh in Jorhat district. Mulai not only looked after the plants, but continued to plant more trees on his own effort slowly transforming the area into a big forest.
The forest, known in Assamese as "Mulai Kathoni" or Mulai forest, houses around four tigers, three rhinoceros, over a hundred deer and rabbits besides apes and innumerable varieties of birds, including a large number of vultures. It has several thousand trees among which are valcol, arjun, ejar, goldmohur, koroi, moj and himolu. There are bamboo trees too covering an area of over 300 hectares.
A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every year and generally stay for around six months. They also gave birth to 10 calves in the forest in recent times. Mulai, an avid nature lover, has constructed a small house in the vicinity of the reserve and stays with his family. He earns his living by selling milk of cows and buffaloes he has kept. Mulai has one regret, though. The state government has so far not provided any financial assistance to him to carry out his 'mission' except for the Forest Department which from time to time supplies him saplings for plantation.
Mulai began work on the forest in 1980 when the social forestry division of Golaghat district launched a scheme of tree plantation on 200 hectares at Aruna Chapori 5km from Kokilamukh in Jorhat district. Mulai not only looked after the plants, but continued to plant more trees on his own effort slowly transforming the area into a big forest.
The forest, known in Assamese as "Mulai Kathoni" or Mulai forest, houses around four tigers, three rhinoceros, over a hundred deer and rabbits besides apes and innumerable varieties of birds, including a large number of vultures. It has several thousand trees among which are valcol, arjun, ejar, goldmohur, koroi, moj and himolu. There are bamboo trees too covering an area of over 300 hectares.
A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every year and generally stay for around six months. They also gave birth to 10 calves in the forest in recent times. Mulai, an avid nature lover, has constructed a small house in the vicinity of the reserve and stays with his family. He earns his living by selling milk of cows and buffaloes he has kept. Mulai has one regret, though. The state government has so far not provided any financial assistance to him to carry out his 'mission' except for the Forest Department which from time to time supplies him saplings for plantation.
He is a real man.
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ReplyDeleteI write to you from Bhoomi Magazine.
We would like to use the image of Mr.Jadav in our next issue where we have featured him as a pioneer.
Please do let me know if it is acceptable to you?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Adil
www.bhoomimagazine.org
www.bhoomicollege.org
ok from me
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