Paddy compact blocks attract Mexican team

Venkatapuram(Eluru district): A Mexican delegation led by Maria Natividad Diaz, area director and Cecilia Elizondo, Member of the HLPE, the UN body on food-related issues, Government of Mexico along with Renske, Managing Partner and Leonardo Andrade from NOW Partners visited the paddy compact block of 16 acres in Venkatapuram gram panchayat in Eluru mandal on Friday.

The delegation visited the compact block wherein 10 farmers are collectively raising the paddy crop along with 30 vegetable crops on bund by widening it. In an addition to the vegetables the farmers are also raising banana and turmeric on bunds.

These farmers are following all natural farming protocols of APCNF (Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming). Moreover, all these farmers are tenant farmers.

One of the special things here is that the farmers were raising the vegetables on bund following the suggestions by the APCNF officials.

The delegation was impressed by the crops raised on the bund through which the practitioner was able to get additional income by selling the vegetables raised on bunds.

The farmers informed the delegation that they were getting additional income of Rs 30,000 per acre through raising vegetables on bunds in an addition to the income they are getting for the main paddy crop.

Then the team proceeded to Ammapalem village of Pedavegi mandal and visited one more paddy compact block being maintained in 38 acres of land by 29 farmers collectively.

The concept of compact block helps in stopping chemicals from entering surrounding fields. These farmers cultivate multiple crops on bunds in an addition to paddy.

Then the delegation visited Kotaru Rangaiah, a mentor to the farmer scientists. He is practicing natural farming since 2017 and growing Areca Nut, citrus, turmeric, coconut, lemon, banana, mango and sapota along with maintaining dairy and poultry in his 2.5 acres.

He just invested an amount of Rs 55,000 whereas gained back 6.10 lakh of rupees from his fields in a span of 1 year. It is meant that he got 10 times returns against his investment.

And then the team interacted with farmer scientists and mentors in the same village and discussed about their learning through course, application of knowledge to the fields, course designing etc and proceeded to Vijayawada.

Aruna, Suresh, Madhu Preeti, Saroja from RySS and District Project Manager Tata Rao, additional Project Manager Venkatesh, District Point Person of Academy Satya Sri, accompanied the Mexican delegation.