Has Water Reached The Root

Being in an IT industry I make sure that 10000 miles away servers are up so that production does not go down. I happily sacrifice my Saturday night to make sure that server maintenance activity goes as per schedule starting at 4 AM. 100 kms from my place crops are getting destroyed and productivity of field is going down, and the irony is "I am not bothered"

25 Km from Gauribidanur, Bandarlahalli is a beautiful village in the lap of nature. This village surrounded by hills with rocky red soil texture hosts our first project. NDDB Safal is doing contract farming with 17 farmers over 37.5 acres of land in this village. This was our second trip to the village.
With so much anxiety and anticipation farmers showed us their farms. You will feel the need to extend your support to these people once you see their faces.
Few highlights from our trip.
1) Farmers have the Safal contract to grow tomato in their field.
2) Climate is cold, Soil is damp and humid and they use traditional farming techniques.
3) Farmers have land holding of 2-3acres on an average.
4) All farmers use flood irrigation.(Bore well irrigation)
5) Their plants are infected with Late blight disease.(Caused because of fungus attack on the plants due to damp and cold weather)
6) They use Jowar or Maze as crop rotation.
7) Some of them have Grameen bank account.
8) They use pesticides for disease infected plants.
9) NDDB Safal, people visit the village and give them assistance when required.
10) 24 hours electricity and water supply in the village.

Question for you:- Why is it that a village with 24 hours water and electricity supply facing such issues? How can this happen in a place just 100 kms away from Indias IT hub and Silicon Valley Bangalore? Just imagine those villages in India where we don’t even have basic tools and assistance to do farming. As professionals we are taught to reduce the error and add value to our work, how many farmers add value to the fields? Can we assist them in adding values to the fields? How we can disseminate information and good practices?
The reason for asking you so many questions is, we at CropEx Technology don’t like sentences with full stop. We like to question, we like to question ourselves, we like to question the existing system, we believe the child who is born with so many question is better than a grown up person with all answers.
Our View:-
For all the time we were there we kept thinking of the ways we can help them. All our discussions drilled down to same answers, “LACK OF TECHNICAL KNOW HOW”, “INABILITY TO DEAL WITH VAGERIES OF NATURE”, “INABILITY TO REACH RIGHT MARKET/FORUMS” and most importantly “GAP-------GAP-----&-----GAP”.
Our Solution:-
1) Advice farmers on the modern techniques of irrigation like drip irrigation. Make them aware of good agricultural practices being followed elsewhere. Make use of IT on field to add value to the soil.

2) Make concerned person aware of the field condition. We believe in “monitoring and mentoring”.
3) In our visit with the help of our agronomist and by ourselves we were able to find that the plants where infected with late blight which is dominant when in the cold weather condition.

4) Equip farmers with technical knowhow in case of some unforeseen events. We will act a messenger between, farmer & nature, farmer & co-operate, farmer & market and farmer & you.
5) Our target is farmer’s limitation to spend money on information and your limitation of lack of time to get information from the field. Our vision is to make use of IT to bridge the gap, for wholesome development.
There are lot many issues that we have to address there are lot many miles we have to cover. We are not alone because we are empowered with ability to

Innovating Fields: Our First Visit to Dodaballapur Village Farm

Innovating Fields: Our First Visit to Dodaballapur Village Farm

Our First Visit to Dodaballapur Village Farm

This story is the story that needs to be told. So much of our country’s population longs to hear stories from the farm; they long to know how their food is produced and who is doing it. So why not share agriculture’s story?

Last Saturday our CropEx team was on farm visit to Dodaballpur. We met Sadanand a progressive farmer from Tapsahalli region. We spent around 4 hrs with him learning about his farm and methods of cultivation. It was surprising when we came to know that, with his 2.1 acre of land and he generates profit of 22 lakh per year. (He is earning more than any high paying corporate jobs!!).

So, how he manage to do this?

If you look at his methodology, it’s not less than Toyota or GE Lean Six sigma initiatives.

He is not aware of Six sigma tools but he know how to optimize his available resources and make them run at its maximum efficiency in other way implementing lean into his field. He cultivates nearly 30 varieties of crop on his land, and constantly experiments with multiple cropping methodology. He cultivates ginger along with areca plantation (400 trees) in 1 acre land. He has planted 2000 rose cutting in 1/4^th acre of his land. He cultivates capsicum in greenhouse setup in 1/4^th acre. French bean acquire 1/2acre. Tomato is planted in 1/2acre. He also has a fish (Rahu & Katla) rearing pond which is 10 feet deep. Sadananda has also made space in his areca plantation for rearing 250 Giriraja hens. In the periphery of his land he ha s planted coconut, jackfruit trees, coffee plants, papaya, sapota and lime trees. His cows produce 80 to 100 liters of milk a day. He also breeds Rottweiler and Great Dane breeds of dogs

Let’s look at his few earning Highlights:

1. Tomato and Areca fetch him Rs. 2.5 lakh/year

2. Ginger fetch him Rs. 70000/year

3. Rose Plantation fetches Rs. 4 lakh/year

4. Capsicum fetch him Rs. 3.5 lakh/year

5. Rottweiler and Great Dane breeds of dogs to earn Rs.1.2 lakh/year.

6. French bean fetch him Rs. 6.25 lakh

7. Fish fetch him Rs 45000/year

He has bore well facility and use drip irrigation for watering his plant. It prevents weeds and also saves him about Rs. 400 a day in labor costs. Manure for the fields comes from vermin-compost and the slurry from a gobar gas plant, he avoid using chemical fertilizers. He prepares pesticide naturally by using vermin-compost, neem cake, and soap etc in-order to spray in his field. He has converted his old scooter into a spray machine which save 3 labor cost in-order to spray 1.5 acre land/per hrs.

He has demonstrated how farmer can optimize their land and resources to become profitable. If we look around we will found very few farmers with this kind of appetite. This is stirring my mind:

If I have to Vote for the best job in the world, will vote for farmer because they produce the world's food, fuel, and fiber and enjoy it to its fullest. Without them the world does not eat, our dependence on foreign oil would be even stronger, and stores would not be filled with clothes. But If you ask farmer most of them will reply NO because this is not the case for every farmer as its not paying them enough.

How can we make them Vote for their job?

1. can this be copied and pasted to other farms?

2. Do you think agriculture can plays a huge role in this whole scenario?

3. Is enough thrust is there to push agriculture businesses to accommodate the new economy?

We don’t know the answer as if now, but CropEx Team is working to figure out a plan to do so.

…………………Let me know your views on this……………………….

India is such an agriculturally diverse country. Looking at a map detailing all of our commodities, I am impressed. India is the largest producer in the world of milk, cashew nut, coconuts, tea, ginger, turmeric and black pepper. It is the second largest producer of wheat, rice, sugar, groundnut and inland fish. India accounts for 10% of the world fruit production with first rank in the production of banana and sapota. If we look at these stats, India has potential to become powerhouse of agriculture.

Let’s digitize agriculture!!

Your thoughts are welcomed…..

A thought....

Its 09:00 PM in night ,we are busy compiling some final mails to call the end of our 'Business Day'.And once we are back home ,we have 'wasted' another precious day of our life. I m purposefully calling it as wasted...reason will be obvious in just a while.

How many times we have felt,that 12 hours slogging has contributed 1% to our society,may be its contributing to our bank balances.Those millions lines of code ,those terrafic management capabilities is not helping the common man of our country,the developing India in any way.

I am pretty sure no one except your 'Dear Manager' is getting benefit from your terrific technical,strategical skills.I believe ,now time has come to give direction to our capabilities ,and with our combined effort we will surly able to change the face of our country,fate of our poor farmers.

At least this way will give us a sense of satisfaction, its due to my N number of lines of code and my managerial skills is bringing smile to many ,helping them to see a better tomorrow ,a face of developing India.

Lets all join hands and leverage the power of young India to bring prosperity in a field,a large Industry which has been feeding us since years without any expectation,'Agriculture'.

Lets do something about it

I am writing this letter for a noble cause. and need your help to make it a success. I come from India, where 70 % of population earns their living from agriculture.The net average income of a family of farmers in this region is approximately Rs.2700 (about $60) per acre per annum. Its too less to even have a meal/day.More than 17,500 farmers a year commit suicide due to debt and crop failure. So, when I ask my self, what my contribution to society, I have no answer and definitely I don’t want to be in that league.

Can we do something about it....

Agriculture is the single largest source of employment in India but its contribution to the national economy has been shrinking over the years. India has faced an agricultural growth rate of minus 0.2 per cent recently.As a result the government is forced to increase imports as the domestic farmers are not able to supply to fulfill the nations requirement.

The government is currently focusing on rejuvenating agriculture and taking the farm sector to a growth rate of 4 per cent.This can be possible only when the Indian farmers are empowered with information and latest technology to enable them to incorporate the best practices and improve productivity.