Lawyer turns prosperous farmer in Chinchodi taluk

Bengaluru: If life can imitate art, then art can also affect those who consume it. The best example is from the early 1970s Bangarada Manushya movie starring Dr. Rajkumar as inspiration for many people to resign their jobs in the city and take up farming in their native places. Case in point: the farmers' protest that began across Karnataka on Monday. As indebted farmers, who are demanding, among many things, against the new farmers bill. Now meet Srinivas from Sulepeta village of Chinchodi taluk, Karnataka who quit his advocate profession and emerged as a prosperous farmer.

Srinivas Rao T Panchal aged 45 completed his BSc, LLB and started his career as an advocate and worked free for many poor people. His younger days made him often travel to various districts with his friends, which dragged him to develop more interest in farming. "My dream was to become a successful advocate and to serve the general public who finds it difficult to pay fees for their court proceedings. I worked as an advocate for many years at Gulbarga and being an advocate my interaction with farmers was more and I used to travel more to Mandya, Mysuru which is popular for its greenery in the state. So that sparked me to start farming and convert my homeland as greenery which was actually a dry land".

Srinivas was shocked to see a lush green space in South Karnataka and decided to quit his advocate job and planned to start farming. He bought 5 acres of land in 2005 in his hometown Sulepeta village of Chinchodi taluk which was completely filled with rock.

"Entire 5 acres was filled with rocks and it was considered dry land. But I managed to get engineers to blast hard rocks and bought red laterite soil from Hyderabad and converted the barren land into a fertile one. For the first year, I started with a high-density plantation with 70-80 trees on a 1 acre of land and now it has increased to more than 10,000 trees which we planted a whole mix of species and I am happy to see this. As trees are essential not only for a healthy environment, but also for maintaining biodiversity, farmers need to get justice, only then many young people will show interest towards farming" Srinivas added.

Srinivas finally succeeded and now known as a successful environmentalist from Chinchodi , has single-handedly transformed a 5-acre tract of barren land devoid of vegetation cover, into a lush green forest, which is now home to over 10,000 trees including 1000 guava, 1000 lemons, 1000 mango trees. He also planned to spread it with Papaya, Curry leaves and other commercial crops in future. Srinivas claims that he earns 6-7 lakh from Guava, 4-5 lakh from lemon and 2-3 lakh from mango every year. Srinivas attracts students and researchers who come to his land to witness his research activities of farming. It is noted that traders from Hyderabad come to Sulepeta to buy his products.