Kerala - Kozhikode   

Ward 7 turns to total organic farming

— Photo: S. Ramesh Kurup

Green sign: Kozhikode corporation agri working group chairman P. Divakaran releasing the logo for organic farming at Corporation’s Ward 7 by handing it over to Corporation’s development standing committee chairman C.K. Renuka Devi in Kozhikode on Wednesday.

Kozhikode: Ward 7 of the Kozhikode Corporation, spread across Vengeri and Kannadikkal, has set for itself one more target – to emerge as the ward where only organic farming is practised.

A logo for the ambitious project was launched at the Press Club here on Wednesday by P. Divakaran, councillor and chairman of the Corporation’s working group on agriculture, at a function attended by C.K. Renuka Devi, chairman of the Corporation standing committee for development, and K.C. Anil Kumar, ward councillor.

Ward 7 already has a number of feathers in its cap. It has earned the distinction of being the first ward in the Corporation to achieve total literacy; the only ward in the entire State to have a facility where one can learn swimming free of cost; a model for hygiene and sanitation; and the ward in the State where collective farming was launched to achieve food security.

The development schemes in Ward 7 have already evoked considerable public attention and won appreciation. At the spearhead of these programmes have been the local people and the NSS volunteers from Providence College for Women. Local residents associations and Kudumbasree neighbourhood groups also have contributed enthusiastically to the endeavour to improve the living conditions in the ward.

The managers of the organic farming project would make use of the incentives offered by the State government’s Agriculture Department and the city corporation for similar initiatives.

One of its immediate programmes would be to grow vegetables by organic methods.

The vegetables would be cultivated in 12 acres near Green World in Vengeri. Farmers in the ward have already decided to abandon the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

NSS volunteers of the Providence College who have been participating in the developmental activities for nearly three decades have decided to hold their annual camp in Vengeri from December 20 to 24. The theme of their programme would be “the theory and practice of growing vegetables by organic farming.”

An organising committee for the integrated organic farming project in Ward 7 has been formed with Mr. Anil Kumar as its chairman.

Mr. Bhaskaran, Mr. Divakaran, environmentalist A. Achyuthan, Principal of Providence College Sr. Ancilla, and Green World Research Centre chairman Shobhidran are its patrons and Sr. Ashmitha, NSS Programme officer of Providence College, is the convener.

Minister for Agriculture Mullakkara Ratnakaran would inaugurate the organic farming programme in the ward on December 20.

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