It has nothing to do with the Facebook game Farmville in which Net aficionados engage in digital farming activities. But Facebook community Thrithala Peruma, with 4,500 members, is now reviving the rich legacy of paddy cultivation at Thrithala and prompting the youth to consider food security as a prime concern.
After successfully conducting group farming of paddy on 10 acres of vacant land last season, the community is now planning to replicate the success in more vacant paddy fields.
Group farming of vegetables, pulses, millets, and cereals too is being planned.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We initiated community cultivation of paddy on 10 acres last year. Sixty members contributed Rs.1,000 each to meet the expenses. We were able to give each of them 10 kg of rice and could make a profit of Rs.1 lakh by selling the rice in the open market. It was a huge success, and we are planning a similar initiative next season,” says Sudheer Peringod, an administrator of the Facebook community.
The community members attribute their success to V.P. Sindhu, an agricultural officer based at Pattambi. It was her theoretical and practical knowledge that helped the community launch the project. The community is also grateful to V.T. Balram, the local MLA who uses social media as a powerful tool to propagate his ideals of social transformation.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The idea of group farming evolved through discussions. But we were unable to translate the ideas to reality initially,” says Sudheer, who works with a local Ayurvedic products manufacturing company.
Apart from implementing group farming of paddy in the last season on 10 acres of land, the community could prompt farmers to cultivate in 40 acres of vacant land for several years. The community also inspired the formation of half a dozen similar groups in the locality.
Prominent persons who visited Thrithala and complimented the group members include Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president V.M. Sudheeran.
“The community was formed in Facebook without any concrete agenda. But it turned solid when the members replanted an uprooted banyan tree by resisting the Public Works Department’s move to sell it to timber mafia. Then a series of discussions on food security began. In the next season, we hope to prompt more people to launch paddy cultivation,” says K.B. Sudheer, another active member of the community.