Parched lands, suicides, and compelled migration are the top three problems farmers in India face. Even after toiling under the sun for hours and growing meals spherical for the 12 months, farmers can not have enough money for food for days together. This is the irony of working in the agricultural region in our country. S. In a bid to enhance the circumstances of farming and trade, the manner farmers are perceived, Shankar Venkataraman, a techie, quit his thriving task within the United States and started natural farming on 23 acres at Vacaville, California, in 2008, after which he moved to India in 2015.
Shankar’s tryst with organic farming commenced when his 6-month-old daughter Kirthi was diagnosed with Eczema in 2005, a condition in which the skin becomes infected and itchy due to a mixture of genetics and environmental elements. Though Shankar was capable of having enough money for the great treatment for his daughter, as a father, he had to do something extra because the treatments did not clear up the foundation reason—the environmental pollutants that affect the immune systems of kids.
One morning, he chose to grow his food outside with encouragement from his parents. Through trial and blunders, Shankar developed sustainable approaches to develop food, and after three years of touring and operating in farms across California, he began his startup, Hillview Organics.’ He also attended conferences on sustainable farming and met numerous specialists in the discipline to achieve great results.
The firm supplied chemical-unfastened and 100 in step with cent natural products from its 23-acre land to nearby restaurants. During his more-than-a-decade revel in farming, he received great help from his spouse, Sujatha, a Software Architect in Silicon Valley. He owes his continuous paintings to the sacrifices she has made to assist him in journeying a long way away from the circle of relatives most of the time.
Once he had obtained enough expertise in organic farming, Shankar desired to help his roots. He took the hard decision of staying far from his family and moved back to India to empower the local farmers. Shankar began running at Mapletree farm in 2015 in collaboration with Infosys co-founder Shibulal and Kumari Shibulal, OnMobile founder, Mouli Raman. For Shankar, the largest project became to carry the farmers in the loop and convince them to grow vegetables without insecticides and chemical substances.
The other mission was to build soil in the tropical climate. The soil was in a terrible condition initially, and most flowers died in that soil, simply a few weeks after planting. Using the strategies he learned in California and traditional Indian farming methods, he built the soil to preserve extra natural nutrients. He also labored with human beings in Bengaluru who desired to consume guaranteed natural meals and built a large customer base through direct farm-to-home deliveries.
“Soil is the primary product, and fruits and veggies are byproducts,” says Shankar. “Soil fitness at once pertains to plant, human, and animal health. Soil can not be replaced or lost as it paperwork the basis of lifestyles on the earth. But current agriculture practices deal with soil building as of lesser precedence and chemical-based, unfavorable techniques because the way to move ahead,” he adds in addition.
Today, he has built farms and has more than 35 acres under his farming hobby. Instead of taking a theoretical approach and preaching to the farmers, Shankar promised farmers and their households solid profits, food, and lodging. Now, the fear of incurring losses has been removed. The firm officially started its sports with around 10 farmers. Meanwhile, Shankar taught them about seeding, planting, weeding, composting, farm mechanics, soil biology and chemistry, soil building strategies and greenhouse production methods, marketing, and natural products sales.
