Transition is hard! Obviously changing governing principles of decades old practices are time consuming, testing of patience and hard work. However, change is inevitable, only the key is transition process. Yes! In last four years, tharunam is working on a mission to impact the food choices of people and thus change the crop patterns on field level. Since, telling/suggesting people to what to eat is comfortably easy rather standing at farmer end at farm. So, at tharunam we consider farmer side intervention is also very important and have been putting quality efforts for multi crop models and agroforestry farms development. It has been 16 months since our model farm taught us best lessons about agroforestry farm and appropriate operational goals for long term impact.
So, our intensive efforts for sustainable crop patterns are slowly impacting farmers’ community in Duginepally village and surrounding areas. Dear friends, well-wishers and kind supporters, it is time for the third quarterly Newsletter of tharunam for the year 2022. Here, we are happy to share the activities of tharunam from past three months
Trainings Programs
Our main plan was to bring farmers into farm and train them on agroforestry model. However, in the last three months unusual rains and floods changed entire plans. So, we decided to visit farmers at their farms and create awareness. We successfully interacted with 70 plus farmers on agroforestry farming practices and more than 30 agri professionals benefitted with our training programs.
Agroforestry farm
We planned to complete plantation in one acre during this quarter of the year. However, we found that wherever, we want to do plantation, fencing is one of the important step to be considered for protecting plants from animal and human movement. When we thought of fencing, the expenses were exceeding proposed budgets. So, we partnered with two farmers who have fence and irrigation facilities. So, our capital expenditure went down and able to allocate budget for two more acres of plantation since our goal of decentralization of model farms to empower more farmers in Telangana.
Now 
8 Months Ago
Participates and shared the story of tharunam at knock meeting
Knock stands for kanthari network of change and knowledge. The people those who graduated from kanthari international formed as a network to exchange knowledge. In 2021, first knock meet held at konark, Odisha and we were happy to become part of first meet. Second consecutive knock meet is planning to happen in Pune. So, knock India participants called for online meet to discuss agenda and plans by sharing the journeys of each project
Field visits for awareness programs
We are always innovative in designing awareness program to spread awareness on agroforestry. One of such innovative programs are influencing the influencers by inviting them into model farm or we are visiting them personally with our model. And secondly we advertised about tharunam and agroforestry in professional magazine and gave more than three interviews as podcasts, youtube and in university. And third important thing we done was creating virtual forum for farmers those who are interested in plantations. We believe these methods working well to achieve our strategical goals for next two years.
Kanthari 2022 participants visit
It was a great pleasure to host and interact (Sep2-sep4) with @kantharis 2022 participants on contemporary agrarian challenges; and role of food literacy and agroforestry models to address them. Thanks for kanthari participants for visiting tharunam, Telangana, India.
Consultation for Finish Society’s Eco Club formation in Schools
Our founder Lingala Naresh got an invitation from Finish Society, Guntur City, Andhra Pradesh for orientation session on Eco Clubs formation in schools. We are grateful for their invitation and glad to share our experiences of conducting food literacy campaigns in schools.
Founder’s corner:
Managing weed in the natural farming is becoming hard since shortage of labor and migration of people are hurting villages. Uncertain weather patterns, increasing input costs and lack of pricing situations are worsening agri crisis and causing migration and urbanization. Five years ago, when I (founder) made a statement that probably urbanization is intentional act to empty villages by few people. Taking a moment back and I am withdrawing that statement after experiencing village life since there is no single reason which we can say that it is causing urbanization. At present, our key responsibility is for sustainable agri sector and also nutrition security of the migrants in cities too.
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,
Team Tharunam
www.tharunam.org
Email- founder@tharunam.org
