This seed conservationist of Bailhongal taluk grows 15 to 20 varieties of vegetables and their seeds
In sharp contrast with farmers who committed suicide due to financial burden, a 46-year-old small farmer from Chikbagewadi of Bailhongal taluk shows that innovative farming with proper understanding of consumer needs and demands can bring a positive change.
Kallappa Pandithappa Neginahal says suicide cannot be a solution to crises in agriculture or in farmers’ lives. Farmers, particularly small and marginal, need to use available land innovatively with a proper understanding of the needs and demands of consumers. They also need to restrain themselves from wasting money and save for their future needs.
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Kallappa joined his father and started working in the three-acre agricultural land with the Pandithappa family when he was hardly 12 years old. Kallappa, eldest among four sons and four daughters, is a school dropout, not by choice but compulsions of life and living in a joint-family system. All four sisters are married and families of four brothers live together. Today, this family owns 12 acres of land and two borewells for irrigation, and earns about Rs.5 lakh annual only from agriculture and dairy activities.
Seed conservation
A couple of years ago, owing to losses due to use of certain hybrid varieties of cereals, Kallappa decided to adopt organic farming and also produce organic, healthy and disease-resistant seeds to help other farmers as well. He started with jowar and cereals and vegetables. Today, he has carved a niche for himself and acknowledged as “seed conservationist” in Bailhongal taluk.
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He grows 26 varieties of organic seeds of jowar (sorghum), 14 varieties of other cereals and 15 to 20 varieties of vegetables and their seeds. His vegetables are sold even in organic outlets in Belagavi city. In the process, he is not only conserving native varieties of cereals and vegetables but also multiplying them for posterity. In recognition of his role in conservation of native seeds, Kallappa was felicitated by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the presence of thousands of farmers at the valedictory of the three-day State-level Krishi Mela organised by Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project from January 25 to 27.
Message to society
Kallappa says: Today, neither any educated girl nor their parents are willing to enter into an alliance with a farmer. We need to prove that agriculture is a respectable vocation and lucrative. I appeal to all parents in rural areas to not give dowry. If they want to give something to their daughter at the wedding, they can donate an individual toilet if it is not built in the groom’s house.