She also has saved up to nearly 50 local varieties of seeds
Anjamma inspects the crop in her field in the Gangwar village of Medak district. She uses traditional methods of farming, achieves a high yield and avoids the use of chemicals.
(Photo: S. Surendra Reddy)
Hyderabad: Expertise in traditional methods of agriculture has placed Anjamma, a woman farmer from Gangwar village of Medak district, among the top scientists and officials from Central and state institutions as a member of Telangana’s Agri-Biodiversity Committee.
Apart from her decades of on-ground experience, she also has saved up to nearly 50 local varieties of seeds.
Ms Anjamma was informed of the recognition given to her expertise by the state government, by the correspondent.
She and her husband Sangappa rose from being agricultural workers to own 10 acres of agricultural land along with their two sons and a daughter.
Despite being illiterate, facing social backwardness and poverty, Ms Anjamma’s faith never wavered in the traditional methods of farming.
She relied on rain-fed farming of millets and pulses utilising the knowledge passed on through generations about sowing the right seeds according to the season and utilising the technique of multi-cropping without adopting mechanisation and borewell irrigation.
She did not use fertilisers, insecticides, pesticides, fungicides or even bio-pesticides.
Ms Anjamma — who is above 60 years of age — was married at the age of 10 or 12.
When she and her husband worked as agricultural labourers, they saved money by living in a small thatched hut. They saved up enough money to take two acres of land on lease about 30 years ago.
The farmer couple successfully cultivated up to five varieties of millets on the land. After that, there was no looking back as they took more land on lease. As their earnings increased, they bought land.
The couple still lives in a small one-room house in the village, and rears a cow and a calf.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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