After three decades of using chemicals to cultivate food, a Naikpod tribe farmer returns to the natural farming her mother used to practise. Now Kanthamma embraces year-round intensive cropping, which is bearing fruit for her in ways she never imagined.
“For years and years I was growing only one crop – cotton.”
Saren Kanthamma smiles as she talks. The evening sun lights up her face and the shade of the trees casts shadows on her forehead.
“For that one crop I needed chemical fertilisers to ensure it grew,” Kanthamma, 42, admits. “It’s different now. I grow over 50 crops all naturally. That means I need nothing external to farm well and be happy,” she added.
Wearing a yellow sari with a petal-shaped tilaka on her forehead, the farmer, who belongs to the Naikpod tribe in Khammam district of Telangana, is preparing to go to the Bathukamma festival that celebrates femininity. For Kanthamma the festival is also about preserving nature.
“The flowers we find in the forests or our fields are used to create a layered flower offering that we dance around during Bathukamma and celebrate nature,” she explains.
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As the sun sets, women of the village arrive to dance and soon form a circle. Kanthamma has collected marigolds and other flowers from two sides of her 1.5-acre field in Mallaigudem village in the Aswaraopeta block. She has sold flowers worth Rs 2000 today from her fields. In the festive season alone, she will be able to earn over Rs 40,000 just by selling flowers.
“These hands which hold flowers now used to sprinkle chemical fertilisers on crops in the past,” said Kanthamma, showing her palm. “But, today, not an ounce of fertiliser is used on my land,” she said proudly.
Since she was a young girl Kanthamma had been farming a small plot of land, like many women throughout India, and she was influenced by the consensus that the only way to succeed in farming was using pesticides and chemical fertilisers.
But that was not how her mother had farmed. For centuries her tribe had only used natural farming practices, but they gradually became replaced with unsustainable farming from the 60s and 70s that was chemical dependent and soil-eroding.
Kanthamma always knew there was a better, more natural way. Eventually, in 2022 she rediscovered it.
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), under its agroecology-based programme JIVA, supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and implemented by WASSAN, – was able to instil in Kanthamma a vision to practise agriculture differently from her fellow farmers. She started replacing biochemical with natural manure like Ghana Jeevamrut-II, a type of dry manure prepared using jaggery and cow urine.
“The JIVA team members guide and train me in natural cultivation,” said Kanthamma.
She has also prepared her soil through the pre-monsoon dry sowing method (PMDS) – a system of sowing, tilling and tending the land wherein the farmer grows crops before the monsoon. She has used paddy straw, dried leaves, groundnut shells, paddy husk and other crop residue to mulch them in the soil at the later stages.
This method helps enrich the soil by increasing healthy microbes and trapping dew in the soil, reducing dependency on groundwater consumption and thereby helping Kanthamma in cost-cutting. “When my soil is healthy, my body will also be healthy,” contends Kanthamma.
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“PMDS acts as an umbrella for the soil, covering it from the heat, incessant and untimely rain and also tornadoes, which are unpredictable due to climate change,” said Satheesh Kumar, a natural farming enthusiast who helps lead the JIVA project, who has been working in the region for over two decades.
By helping my soil, I am helping my country.
“PMDS helps my soil in the face of climate change,” agrees Kanthamma. “By helping my soil, I am helping my country,” said the farmer.
She grows over a dozen varieties of crops, including sunhemp (Crotalaria juncea) and coconut. She has planted many varieties of fruit trees such as sapota (chiku), pomegranate, amla, papaya and banana adding beauty to her farmland and income to her pocket.
“This year I have also planted ridge gourd and beans, and prepared wooden ladders for them to climb. Now, I grow bottle gourd, chilly, beetroot, palak (spinach), methi (fenugreek), coriander, gongura (local leafy plant), radish, maize, tomato and brinjal. That is mostly for consumption, but I also sell the leftovers,” explains Kanthamma. “Even doctors in the village buy milk and vegetables from me and tell me that they are delicious compared to what they get from the market,” Kanthamma said, beaming.
She has three cows that produce 20 litres of milk a day, which is less than what it used to when it gave birth to a calf. Nonetheless, villagers come to her asking for milk. “What you have is different from what is available elsewhere,” the villagers tell her as they gather for the milk. Sometimes the demand is so great, Kanthamma sells what she had kept for herself.
“I also have 30 desi birds, chickens primarily. I can sell them when I want, or also sell their eggs,” she says, sprinkling bajra and rice for them to eat. She also has a small pond where she has fisheries. “The cow shed was gifted by JIVA and they also gave me some birds to begin with,” she revealed.
The Naikpod is an agriculture-practising tribe and Kanthamma’s mother was also a farmer. “I do not remember my mother using any fertiliser in our field or anyone else’s fields she worked on,” she says. It was after marriage that Kanthamma, pressed by the need to feed many mouths, and encouraged by the example of others using fertiliser on their farm, turned away from natural farming. “That trend was increasing and in a few decades, it (chemical farming) has damaged our earth. I think about undoing the harm chemicals caused,” she explained.
Now that she practises natural farming, Kanthamma says that she earns far more than what she did as a chemical farmer. “Last year from bitter gourd alone I earned Rs 5000 and from beans Rs 6000,” she revealed.
“The work can be tedious,” admitted Kanthamma. “But I’m happy. I feel healthy and satisfied that I’m helping protect nature,” she said, signing off.
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The lead image on top depicts Saren Kanthamma, a member of the Naikpod tribe, on her farm. (Photo by Amir Malik)
Amir Malik is a freelance journalist with over five years of experience. A curious explorer, he focuses on understanding emotions, colours, sound and nature. Guided by grief and grounded by celebrations, he continues his journey. Though he’s still searching for the perfect shoes, he hasn’t stopped walking.
Please note: This story has been updated to include the local project partner.
