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Creating Awareness about Organic food to Local Villagers
A local farmer producer company, organised an event at our village, Komerlingam, for creating awareness about Organic farming. Our full time member, Karthik, participated and shared our work with the villagers.
When we spoke about the health impacts of inorganic food, villagers listened keenly. During the interaction, villagers expressed the adverse health effects they are faced. An Old aged women told that, "Earlier we used to work hard without any problems. Now a days, even walking has become a problem for us".
After the session, we understand that the mainstream discourse on food, health and farming is so impaired that the ground realities are completely different. We understand that policy makers should visit villages and understand people before going to their drawing room to frame policies on food.
Farm Visit for Farmers
If you ask any farmer, anywhere India, they would say, "Let the misery of agriculture end with me. I don't want my son/daughter to enter into farming". This is the onground situation. Farming population has been in decline since the Green revolution started. This is one of achievements of the Green revolution. So, Organic farming is an elite concept for a common farmer. Since organic farming involves considerable risks as their land has been used to chemicals, the majority of farmers have no background knowledge or passion to do organic farming. One reason is farmers' produce don't get enough price. That is the reason farmers are demanding Minimum support Price. So, usually Indian farmers are trapped in debt. Colonial mindset of bureaucracy is fueling this crisis.
In this situation, we organized an event where farmers from nearby villages would get a chance to visit our farm and get an on-hand experience about organic farming and indigenous seeds. Farmers participated in this event and were happy to know that organic farming is possible in today's scenario. They had so many questions regarding the feasibility of Organic farming. Yet, People actively listened and interacted to learn about organic farming. But, a farmer said, “We are eager to do farming, but the price of farm produce is so low that we have to switch occupations. So, even thinking of organic farming is unaffordable to us”
Awareness Webinar on Genetically Modified Food
We conducted an online webinar to create awareness about Genetically Modified Organisms and its regulation in association with Yugma Network & SAPACC.