1) A school in Tamil Nadu started an initiative to promote organic farming among local farmers by educating students and the community about the benefits of organic practices over chemical-based farming. 2) As part of the initiative, the students learned how to produce organic inputs like compost, pest repellents, and growth promoters. They established a demonstration farm and conducted outreach activities. 3) Workshops were held for local farmers where experts discussed organic techniques. Many farmers have now adopted organic practices and are seeing equivalent or higher yields without chemicals. The initiative aims to continue promoting a transition to sustainable organic agriculture.

1. SEVALAYA’S
Mahakavi
Bharathiyar ORGANIC
Hr. Sec. FARMING FOR
School
THE
PROSPEROUS LIFE
Composted manure is better than plough
– Saint Tiruvalluvar
“ஏரினும் நன்றாம் எரு இடுதல்” - திருவள்ளூவர்

2. Organic Farming
• Farming without any synthetic materials
as growth promoters, herbicides and
toxic pesticides which spoil the soil
health and it’s produces
• Farming without damaging our ecological
systems
• should sustain and enhance the health of
soil, plant, animal, human and planet as
one and indivisible

3. Farming practices in our Locality
• 99.99% farmers are practicing intensive
chemical based farming and horticulture
• Even farmers don’t bother to consume these
products inspite of knowing that they have
used heavy amount of synthetic materials
• Farmers don’t take necessary safety
measurements when they handle highly
dangerous pesticides/herbicides
• Farmers buys farm inputs over the counter
without consulting concern agricultural
experts

4. Why we need to bring back Organic
Farming?
• To have Self-sustenance in farming
• To have Toxin-free food
• To protect living beings
• To have clean and green environment
• To save our foreign exchange on inorganic
fertilizers and pesticides

5. Our initiatives to bring back traditional
ways of Organic Farming
• Students from farming family joined as a group to
work on this – so that we can practice it in their
farms as well as make it easier to spread it to others
• Learning the fundamentals of Organic farming
• Learning to produce organic inputs such as growth
promoters, pest repellents, disease controlling
mechanism, importance of intercropping, mulching,
crop rotation etc from the experts in this field and
using it in our farms as well as teaching to others

6. Learning to prepare Organic Inputs
Vermi compost
Panchakavyam
Enriching
compost
with Bio
fertilizers Pest repellent

7. Hands on experience through our model farm
Ridges and
Furrows
Growth promoter
and pest
repellent mixture
Greens and
papaya saplings

8. Spreading to Local Farmers
Interested local farmers take
our pest repellent & growth
promoter for their farms
Group members take their
own produce for their
parents’ farms

9. Rally was conducted in 3 villages on 10 Sep,
2011

10. Few slogans from our Rally
• Leave the Earth for future generations
• Forests are the lungs of our mother Earth
• Soil is as precious as your eyes protect it
• Forests and irrigation lands are our two eyes
• Earthworms are farmers’ friend
• Earthworms – intestine of irrigation lands

11. DFC members invite Local Farmers for
“Meet the Experts”
Door to door
Street to street

12. Meet the experts
• On 17th Sep, 2011 we have organized a half
day session on Fundamentals of “Organic
Farming” for the local farmers, parents’ of
our group members and for the higher
secondary students from agricultural branch
• Around 20 farmers and 40 students
participated and benefited
• Many interesting questions were raised and
answered by experts

13. Minutes of the session
• Nature of nature and why we shouldn’t act
against nature
• Food chain & Recycling system of natural wastes
• Recipe for various growth promoters as well as
pest repellents were taught
• Important of inter cropping in the aspect of pest
management
• Role of bio fertilizers in management of soil
nutrients and disease control
• Scope for marketing organic produces
• Success stories of Shri. Bharathy, Shri. Murali and
sridhar were shared

14. Continues…….
• Few farmers approached resource person’s
individually and took advices for their farms
• Participants took contact details of resource
persons’ for further correspondence
• Shri. Bharathy* offered the invitation to
participants to visit his farm anytime
• Staff from Institute of Sustainable Developments,
an local NGO also attended
• * see the profile

15. Meet the experts

16. Profile of Resource persons
• Shri. S.R. Sundararaman, Leading organic farmer cum trainer
from Erode, Tamilndau
• http://adisiltrust.blogspot.com/2010/07/sundararaman.html
• http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/04/stories/20070604040505
00.htm
• Shri. Bharathy, Leading organic and innovative farmer from
Thiruvalankadu, Tamilnadu. Maintaining variety of sheep for
both milking as well as to control the weeds in his farm, VIPs
from throughout the nation buy his produces for its toxin free
nature and for the rich taste and quality
• Shri. Murali, TN Govt. employee in Secretariat who maintains
an organic farm near our school and he is trying to spread the
system

17. Visit to Model Organic Farm
6th Oct, 2011
• Shri. Murali’s farm at Pakkam, Tiruvallur
District
• Around 12 Local farmers and 15 students
visited the farm
• We have learned about Fruit ghadi, Fish
Jaggery mix, Pest Repellent, Egg mix, Azola,
Mulching, etc.
• Ill effects of inorganic farming
• Scope of productivity increase through
Organic Farming

18. Visit to Model Organic farm

19. Demonstration farm at our school campus
We grow the following plants in our
demonstration farm using our own inputs
which we prepared during learning session
• Manathakkali green
• Pappaya
• Akathi green
• Beans variety
• Gourds (Bottle, Ridge)

21. Changes
• Farmers in our locality got awareness on Organic
farming
• Good number of local farmers shows interest in
adopting organic farming and used our organic
inputs in their farms
• They were able to control the pests and got the
yields equivalent to chemical based farming
• Local farmers are approaching us for their crop
related issues and we consult our experts on
behalf of farmers and give them solutions

22. Continues…….
• Local farmers and parents of our DFC students
are producing organic inputs for their farms
• Around 8 farmers converted part of their
farms into organic farm
• Our team mates are helping their parents in
implementing organic farming in their farms
• DFC students spread the techniques to their
neighbors in their villages

23. Changes
Local farmers take
Growth promoter & Pest
repellents from DFC team
Pest repellent by
DFC member

24. Link to view Video on our
initiative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfAZa_
N3_lk

25. “The End”
But our initiative will keep
continuing