Blog post
Indian farmers' story: living the dream with nature-based solutions
Ms. Veda Manohar and her husband run an organic farm in the Chikkamaglore district, at the border of Bhadravthi and Tarikere Taluk in India. They worked hard to live their dream and to bring nature-based solutions into practice.
Time for a change
Ms. Veda Manohar and her husband had a dream. They envisioned to build an organic farm with a learning centre for those who interested in an organic way of living and farming. Ten years ago, at the age of fifty, they decided to live this dream. They took the courage to leave the political and social context in Bangalore behind to move to Guddadahatti village. The first years were really difficult and time consuming. As a start, they followed the neighbour’s way of cultivation in the Chikkamaglore district: sugarcane and paddy in open field and banana as intercrop in a coconut plantation. Unfortunately, they didn't make profit.
Organic farming
They decided to go for organic farming. Since they needed organic fertiliser for that, they added cows to their farm. But the animals did not stay healthy. They encountered a lot of problems, like mastitis, foot rot and repeat breeding. They used to call veterinary doctors every day. He was using heavy antibiotics, which led to other expensive and time consuming problems for them and the cows. Ms. Veda Manohar and her husband realised that they needed a more nature-based solution.
Natural medicine
They started to learn more about Ethnoveterinary practices, Ayurveda and Homeopathic medicine. Initially, they experienced that preparation time is more compared to allopathic medicine. But once they got used to it, the preparation was easy for them. They have more than 50 cows treated till now, without any antibiotics. Now, they have no mastitis in their dairy, or maybe one or two per year. They got a certificate of the Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, based on a test on antibiotic and pesticide residues in their milk, where none were found. They are growing their required medicinal plants organically on the farm, like turmeric, ginger, Aloe vera and Cissus quadrangularis and tulsi (holy basil). You can see her farm in the short video below.
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