Telangana’s Enabavi organic village is leading the way in natural farming

Telangana’s Enabavi village can lead the path to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

You have to look closely in order to figure out that the stone board that is leading into Enabavi village once declared ‘chemical-free village.’ Well, that was the story 13 years ago, when there were only 52 families in the village and they shifted to natural farming. They ditched the use of chemicals or pesticides. This village is located about 85 km away from Hyderabad. They have got the tag of Telangana’s first organic village.

This after having earlier witnessed what so-called technological revolution in terms of chemicals and fertilizers and even seeds, did to farmers. The Warangal region shifted in a big way to a commercial crop like cotton, witnessed the highest number of suicides and accidental deaths due to exposure to pesticides, distress due to the vagaries of weather and market and agricultural indebtedness.

The shift was slow in the beginning. Ponnam Mallaiah who is now 75 years old says:

“he found that when he increased the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, his yield increased. But in subsequent years, while the input burden kept increasing; neither his yield nor income grew. That is when he realized what his grandfather used to tell him is true.” in the words of his grandfather “This is a slow poison. Don’t succumb to it.”

It’s been almost 19 years that Mallaiah is practicing natural farming. He believes what Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced about the Zero Budget Natural Farming route to increase the farmer’s income is the right path to choose. He said:

“Just one farmer doing won’t help, everyone has to do, only then the health of Mother Earth will grow. That is why we all decided in Enabavi to practice chemical-free agriculture and the results are there for all to see.”

He also added:

“Before each farmer used to have a minimum of 15000 rupees loan, now no one has debts here, each house has tractor, bicycle, so life is going very smoothly for all of us.”

Source