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How a farm in Visakhapatnam is popularising natural farming techniques -Nivedita Ganguly

-The Hindu

Shankar Lingala of Rythu Mitra has been spearheading a silent movement to run sustainable farms applying the science of the soil

Ongole bulls, native cows, the intermittent fights of country chickens, sunshine yellow butterflies and the peaty smell of fresh dung... that’s Shankar and Padma Lingala’s farm for you.

Shankar, despite being a city boy is an integral part of the Rythu Mitra group, where a team of farmers is bringing back natural farming techniques. An IT engineer, Shankar quit his corporate job in Hyderabad about four years ago to shift to his home-town in Visakhapatnam to be closer to his parents. His wife Padma, a post-graduate in Pharmacy from Hyderabad, joined him and soon the couple adopted natural farming practices in their farm in Kothavalasa about 30 kilometres from Visakhapatnam.

Laws of Nature

Natural farming is a system where the laws of Nature are applied to agricultural practices. In the first year, he spent about 8 lakh and ended up incurring heavy losses. “The main hurdle was market mediators who buy produce at a cheaper cost from farmers and sell it at a much higher rate in city markets. There was a huge gap between consumer demand and the farmers’ reach. I realised the only way out was to break this chain,” says Shankar.

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