Organic farming by father and daughter converts wasteland into food forest

Father-daughter duo reclaim degraded land in Odisha by creating a food forest SRIKANT CHAUDHARY

IN 1988, Sabarmatee and her father Radhamohan were warned by the people when they decided to buy half a hectare (ha) of degraded land in Nayagarh district of Odisha to start organic farming.“It was a little known method then so we thought of experimenting with it to not just revive the small land but the entire area,” says Sabarmatee.Today, she has converted over 36 ha of degraded land into what she calls “food forest”.While 32 ha of the forests have fruit trees such as mango, coconut and lemons, 1 ha is used for growing paddy and half a ha for vegetables.The forest also supports a seed bank that has over 700 indigenous seed varieties, nearly 500 of which are of paddy.

The father-daughter duo achieved the feat by introducing soil and water conservation methods.“The first step was to revive the top soil.So we planted specific species like bamboo,sabai grass and hill brooms that arrest erosion. At the same time,we allowed natural vegetation to grow,”says Sabarmatee. They relied heavily on mulching to improve the moisture levels of the soil.“Soon insects and white ants started burrowing the land that further helped in percolating water. Next,we introduced leguminous plants to improve the nitrogen content,”she says.Over time,they created three rainwater harvesting ponds of varied sizes at different elevations that are connected to each other. The third pond,which is at the lowest elevation, has enough water for the paddy fields.It is designed in such a way that the water flows like a spring into the paddy fields,eliminating the need for irrigation.

Sabarmatee today runs a non-profit called Sambhav which trains farmers from across the country on organic farming. She has also started an initiative called “Adopt a Seed” where she gives regionspecific seed varieties for free to farmers on the condition that they will popularise it in the region. She says the right seed variety can sustain extreme weather events and provide a secure livelihood.The initiative also promotes crop diversification, which can protect farmers during extreme weather events or pest attacks.“In the case of monoculture, the entire crop can be destroyed during a natural calamity. But if farmers follow multi-cropping, then varieties that are resilient to a particular weather phenomenon will survive and the farmer will not lose the entire crop. During cyclone Phailin in 2013,she had cultivated 365 varieties of paddy. Of them, 34 varieties remained standing, the rest flattened. “We also have varieties that can sustain droughts, others that repel animals,” she says.

In 2018, Sabarmatee was awarded the Nari Shakti Award by the President of India for her conservation work.