: Retired bank employee Pradeep Soori’s family in Kulai-Hosabettu here has not purchased vegetables from the market for a decade. Mr. Soori grows chemical-free vegetables in this residential colony on 14 cents (about 7,000 sq. ft.) of land purchased specifically for the purpose.
With the rising demand for organic products in cities, consumers surround his four-wheeler on Panje Mangesh Rao Road in the heart of the city on Sundays, when he arrives to sell them at the weekly shanty (market). The sale has been organised over the last two-and-half years by the Savayava Krishika Grahaka Balaga (SKGB), a like-minded group of consumers and organic farmers. Mr. Soori’s vegetables get sold within an hour, says K. Ratnakar Kulai, secretary of the Balaga.
Self-reliant efforts
Mr. Soori, who retired from Canara Bank a year ago, mainly cultivates leafy vegetables, gourds, brinjal, papaya, banana, beans, green chilli and brahmi (a herb). He does not employ farm labourers.
While he was in service, it was bank colleagues and some customers who were consumers of his produce. The ‘urban farmer’ told The Hindu of his recent discovery that rotten banana helped control pests that attacked vegetables. “Hang out a plastic bag with rotten bananas in it. You can control pests to a great extent,” he advised. The organic farming enthusiast also uses cow’s urine, neem oil and sour butter milk as pesticides.
After his agricultural efforts became a success, Mr. Soori expanded cultivation to the terrace of his house, where a grapevine has started yielding fruit now. He grows other vegetables in ‘grow bags’.
Plenty of scope
“There is enough scope for growing organic vegetables on small patches of land in cities, like I do, and there is good demand for organic produce now,” Mr. Soori said, adding that he never suffered losses as there is plenty of demand, his farming is not labour dependent, and he prepares his own organic manure.
SKGB facilitates direct sale of organic vegetables grown by 12 such farmers on the road on Sundays, which is allowed only after the cultivation processes are verified. “There is enough demand; it is supply that falls short,” said president Addor Krishna Rao.
