The Role Model – G.Kavitha
G. Kavitha from a rural farm family, after joining in SHG and with subsequent trainings has become a master on organic farming. She supports 44 SHG members in the adoption of new practices of organic farming. She has demonstrated the cost reduction on organic farming; she runs a NPM shop in her village . G. Kavitha has descended from a rural agrarian family. They have 3 acres of paddy land and a small vegetable garden of 0.1 acre.
G. Kavitha joined in Mangai SHG in 2014, and she was selected as CRP in 2016 for her village Pathirivedu. Her involvement in agriculture and passion for organic methods made her a role model for the rest of the farmers in her villages and her cluster.
In these three years, she had undergone twelve different trainings including 13 trainee days by TNSRLM and NAF NGO on generic agriculture involving the fundamentals of crop science, the package of practices (PoP) of various field crops and vegetables.
After training, she started helping 44 fellow SHG members with:
• Demonstration of Agri-nutrition gardens
• Trellis for vegetable cultivation
• Various measures for pest and disease management
• Preparation and application of different organic decoction
• Crop fundamentals related to the seed rate of various crops,
• Spacing
• Organic manure preparation and application.
• Crop cutting techniques
Inorganic method of crop cultivation was prevalent in Pathirivedu village; indiscriminate use of chemicals had increased the cost of cultivation that nobody realised.
Kavitha started convincing farmers with ever increasing cost of cultivation due to the adoption of chemical agriculture. She started preparing organic decoctions and organic manure and have been selling it to farmers with reasonable price for promotion of organic farming. It clicked, and now it is not only farmers from her village, but orders are coming from neighbouring villages too. Slowly she has become a village level entrepreneur.
