In the year 2021, there were news reports that the district administration in the Nilgiris was expecting about 2,000 more farmers across the district to adopt organic farming practices. As reported by The Hindu, the Joint Director of Horticulture, Suvasubramaniam Samraj, said that a total of 4,800 farmers have already adopted organic farming practices in the past few years. This means that about 1,600 hectares of farmland gets cultivated without any use of pesticides.
Such is the situation, that the Nilgiris is leading the way by adopting safe farming practices.
In the budget of 2021, the state government announced a separate wing for organic farming. The government added Rs 26 crore for organic farming in the agriculture budget which the farmers welcomed. Now, in Ooty (short for Udhagamandalam), the efforts of organic farming have been showing great results and grabbing the headlines.
In the Kulicholai area of Ooty in the Nilgiris, organic farming was being done on two and a half acres of farmland by Gopalakrishnan and Ramesh. The duo have been practising this way of farming for about two years and are finally reaping the benefits of the natural method. Till now, the duo has earned about 21 types of vegetables using natural methods. A company called Aroma Pharm in Kulicholai are known to organically produce green vegetables including seeds which are ready for sale.
The farmers can detect the nutritional level of these organic vegetables through a nitrate metre that can detect the quality of organically produced vegetables. The majority of the seeds are brought from abroad and are then stored and maintained here naturally without the use of any pesticides. The next step is to collect the naturally produced seeds and sell them to farmers who are a part of the organic farming method.
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