Rooftop farming set to cover 15,000 city homes

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State Horticulture Mission-Kerala is embarking on an ambitious mission, that of extending vegetable farming to as many households and areas as possible.The project would see the launch of rooftop vegetable farming in nearly 15,000 households under the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and municipalities under it. It would be formally inaugurated on Tuesday.A peri-urban (referring to peripheral areas of the city) vegetable initiative on a cluster basis, it has been envisaged against the backdrop of the reality that urbanisation is taking us away from agriculture and the younger generation is totally ignorant of the same.It aims at comprehensive vegetable cultivation both in the city and the rural areas. “The project is a dream-come-true for SHM-Kerala. We have been working on it for nearly three years. We have been submitting proposals to the Centre to launch the innovative concept of vegetable farming clusters. In fact, when  Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee allocated Rs 300 crore in the 2011-12 Budget for setting up the vegetable clusters, we were proud about the fact that the nucleus was our proposal,” said Dr K Prathapan, director, SHM-Kerala.Nearly Rs 12 crore has been sanctioned for the project, which would see 25 grow bags being given to a household with the saplings of five kinds of vegetables - amaranthus (‘cheera’), long beans (‘payar’), bitter gourd (‘paavakka’), lady’s finger (‘venda’) and snake gourd (‘padavalam’). Each beneficiary would receive seeds/saplings and gardening tools/equipment free of cost. “The project is being carried out in the Corporation areas and municipalities too on account of the fact that the city limits are getting extended. This initiative is being undertaken integrating the proposed projects of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and the District Panchayat,” Prathapan added.The selection of households has been done in coordination with the Federation of Residents’ Associations Thiruvananthapuram (FRAT). “The bags will be distributed through residents’ associations to each household by FRAT,” said FRAT president Vennikkulam George Varghese and secretary N Babu in a statement issued here.Interested people should convey the same to the residents’ association heads who, in turn, would give the list to FRAT office-bearers through the zonal office-bearers.Meanwhile, it is learnt that SHM-Kerala is planning to extend the same to schools, farmers’ group and other associations in the coming days.