The innovative farmer | Fusion - WeRIndia

Doddinduvadi, which is a small village that is located in the Kollegal taluk of the Chamarajanagar district, has been one of the worst areas plagued by the recent devastating drought occurring in India. However, despite this current condition, one stretch of land has managed to pull through as a thriving place of vegetation.

It is all because of one innovative farmer.

It is possible that he took extreme methods to prepare his land in case of a drought such as this one, or otherwise that he simply got himself lucky.

Amid these miles upon miles of barren, dried land, the farmland retired bank worker Kailash Murthy almost seems to function as its own separate ecosystemcrops are grown and harvested  to the surrounding places.

Murthy follows the approach of “doing nothing”, which does not mean that a lack of effort is put into the farming, but rather that the crops are grown and harvested with out manufactured tools, equipment, and substances.

Thus, his harvests have prospered over the years where those of other farmers have fallen short or failed.

Beforehand, Murthy had taken the approach of other farmers, using pesticides and fertilizers just like anyone else. However, when his crops began deprecating from the years 1984 to 1988, he did some research into why this could be happening to him, and he decided to change his method of farming.

Intrigued by the method he found in the book called The One Straw Revolution written by the Japanese farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka, he started to use it on his own crops himself. He planted seeds in the ground and just let them grow, only using basic irrigation.

Nothing else has been provided, and in fact, the water table has been naturally rising since the implementation of the method.

The crops have since prospered, with the farm recovering from its deprecation in about two years. His success has led him to critique many commonly used techniques such as dams and reservoirs, speaking of how they drain the groundwater table through their evaporation.

Scientists have been coming from all around to see Murthy’s three thousand plants, including medicinal plants, vegetables and fruits.

Murthy says he knows why this method is discouraged, due to the amount of money large pesticide companies would lose, but he himself encourages it both for the benefit of the plants and for the overall environment.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia