Few months ago, we imagined how our farm would look like in terms of crop diversity and forestry. Our imaginations are turning into right direction while small plants are energizing themselves to become forestry despite many challenges.
Now, our plants have entered into 10th month. Initially monsoon showers helped plants to survive and to come out from weather shock. The mango plants which were planted in 40 feet * 40 feet distance are growing healthily without any diseases. However, the fight between citrus plants and caterpillars is still happening. We believe if we could support citrus plants, they can overhand caterpillar attacks. We were lucky to see the first harvest of the Kashmir ber fruits two months ago. They were small in quantity. However, these fruits are small in quantity; we witnessed the sweet and cuteness of fruits. This model will play a vital role in preserving farmer friendly food varieties and to spark curiosity among fellow farmers.
However, we had a disappointment since this farm is surrounded by paddy fields and challenging for tillage and to grow inter crops. After six months, after harvesting the paddy fields, we got a chance to prepare the soil for inter cropping. And we turned soil into trenches and beds for growing some flora and root based crops. Now, we are growing the cow pea, horse gram, green gram inter crops and getting ready to start cultivation of turmeric. Except some pest attacks on farm, most of the activities happened as planned very satisfactory in this quarter of the year.
Dear friends, well-wishers and kind supporters, it is time for the first quarterly Newsletter of tharunam for the year 2022. Here, we are happy to share the activities of tharunam from past three months.
Virtual Observation visit for students from RGNIYD
The Department of Social Work, Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD) is successfully stepped into the sixth year and started our sixth batch of MSW with 75 students. They invited us to take students into Virtual Observation Visit (VOV) to Tharunam on Tuesday 08 February 2022 between 10:30-12:30 Hrs. Dr. Rambabu Botcha, Assistant Professor coordinated the programme and Lingala Naresh interacted with students about crisis and opportunities in agriculture
Vapra composter
To manage the food waste challenges, a team of people from Future-Steps developed first product Vapra which means “something born out of soil” at Vigyan Ashram for simple composting methods. Vapra is a machine which is cost-effective, time saving, user and environment-friendly and uses sustainable methodology to decompose organic waste into 7 days. Team tharunam visited vapra composter to know the feasibilities of turning agriculture residue into compost.
Founder of Agro Rangers, Siddesh visited our farm
Siddesh is a social innovator with technical background in mechanical engineering. He is a founder of Agro Rangers and passionate to develop cost-effective and environment-friendly social innovations devices to convert organic waste into compost. He is a farmer and experimenting on different crops. We are glad to host siddesh at our farm and get his advices on crop management.
Awareness programs in Schools
We conducted awareness program on agro forestry practices and the need of green innovations to address contemporary agrarian challenges. It is first school training program after covid pandemic.
Jury member at Vardhaman college of Engineering Hackathon
Vardhaman College of Engineering organized the internal smart India hackathon on 26th March 2022, where students presented their ideas /solutions to the problem statements. Ideas presented by teams will be evaluated and the best teams will be recommended to the smart India hackathon. We invited as a Jury member to evaluate the presentations given by teams. We got an opportunity to interact with students regarding the potential economic opportunities created by agroforestry farming.
Experts committee meet
A research project titled “A Study of usage of Digital transactions by young entrepreneurs and its impact on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) for running enterprise in Birbhum and Nadia district of West Bengal” as a Research Associate under the guidance of Principal Investigator, Dr. Sharmistha Bhattacharjee. In the process of collecting inputs about the Data Collection Tool from various stakeholders in the area of Youth Entrepreneurship and Digital Payments, Salman Ashraf conducted an expert committee meeting with a set of academicians, experts and practitioners. The expert committee meeting will be held from 02:30 PM on 14th March 2022. Naresh part of this consultation and expressed his views on role of digital transactions in agribusiness.
Intercrop harvesting
Intercrops are short term crop which we have sown among plants for increasing soil organic matter content and control weed at farm. Green gram, cow pea, horse gram grown well and we harvested the crops.
Radio interview
On Sunday, 20th March, at 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM, the founder of tharunam, Lingala Naresh got an opportunity to interact with host of marpu kosam program, Snigdha at tori radio in live and explained the activities of tharunam and its mission to use food as a medium for social change and make it universally accessible and affordable.
Listen radio interview at http://teluguoneradio.com/archivesplayer.php?host_id=MjM4&q=NDc3MDE=
Dear Friends, well-wishers and supporters
The tharunam activities would not be possible without your support and contributions. Therefore, on behalf of all, we say thank you very much for your ongoing support. Thank you also by sharing this newsletter in your circle.
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Have a healthy food!
With Green Regards, ‘tharunam’ team www.tharunam.org
Email- founder@tharunam.org
