Tag: agriculture

Balvikas students of Sri Sathya Sai Organisations, Chennai Metro (North) functioning at the premises of Saitech Informatics, Kolathur celebrated their Pongal at Farm Guru, an agricutural farm developed by Sri. Sai at Athur, near Karanodai, Red Hills around 25 km from Chennai.

Nine children started with omkar, sloka, bhajan, role play and finished the morning prayer with mangala arathi.

After the welcome drinks, Sri. Sai, M.D. of Farm Guru conducted a class on importance of farming to all children and parents assembled under the shadow of mango trees.

Sri. Sai taught children in detail about different stages of cultivating paddy viz., ploughing, seeding, transplanting, harvesting, threshing, winnowing and milling. He also discussed about water management like drip irrigation and latest techniques like mulching, green house farming, organic farming, vermiculture, etc.

When every student was taught practically how to plough with the support of bulls, they were thrilled in the first stage itself. The farmer who supported the ploughing explained the children how this ploughing helps the loosening up of soil and prepare it for cultivation.

Children were served with seeds of paddy for seeding on the ploughed field after loosening up the soil and some irrigation of water.

After seeding the children transplanted the partially grown paddy and understood the need for weeding too practically. Some children recollected the lesson they were taught in their schools and realized that seeing is believing and involving in the task really helps one understanding the concept. This has made them to have a memorable experience.

வரப்புயர நீர் உயரும் (Varappuyara Neer Uyarum)
நீர் உயர நெல் உயரும் (Neer Uyara Nel Uyarum)
நெல் உயரக் குடி உயரும் (Nel Uyara Kudi Uyarum)
குடி உயரக் கோல் உயரும் (Kudi Uyara Kol Uyarum)
கோல் உயரக் கோன் உயர்வான். (Kol uyara Kon Uyarvaan)

Avvaiyaar

There is a great tamil poem by Avvaiyaar. When the ridges raises, there is a raise in water level. When there is plenty of water, there is raise in productivity of more crops. When the productivity of crops is more, the standard of living of the subjects raises. When there is good standards in the subjects, the quality of reign raises. Finally, when the quality of reign raises, the reputation of the King is raised to sky.

The farmers neatly arrange the paddy in different rows and columns like a matrix and wait for the complete growth of the paddy. Our children learnt how to harvest after the paddy is fully grown up after transplantation.

We have a family doctor.

We have a family lawyer.

We have family friends.

We should have a family mentor!

We should have a family farmer!!

All children thoroughly understood how the farmers really struggle to get rice, starting from the first stage of preparation of earth.

They also learnt how to separate the rice from husk.

It was an amazing experience for all children to have a handful of paddy after the different stages of cultivation.

All children clearly understood the importance of agriculture and hard labour of farmers. They pledged there itself not to waste even single rice when they take their food.

Meanwhile Mr. Sai explained about the need for bee culture and its role in pollination.

He explained the three types of bees viz, queen bee, female worker bees, and male bees (drones) and showed a hive where around 3000 bees live together in a colony happily and narrated how they coordinate each other and also help in pollination of flowers.

Since all children were maintaining silence, there was not even single incident of bee biting!!

There are lot of other vegetables like lady’s finger plant, brinjal, raddish, tomatoes etc. planted besides paddy. There are many trees in and round the field.

Childrent leant the importance of drip irrigation as one of the important water management techniques.

There are more than 100 short hybrid variety of coconut trees. We can hand pick the coconuts from the tree just by standing on earth.

The children enjoyed bullock cart riding along with some of their parents.

They did not spare tractor riding also. All of them enjoyed the friendly environment at Farm Guru.

Sri. Sai also explained about green house farming and added how the green roof protects the plants from strong wind, torrential raining and from insects.

He explained about the need for mulching and how it effectively saves water from direct evaporation.

He also explained how our forefathers had already discovered the natural mulching technique by using coconut fibres to catch hold of water and help the plant in prolonged watering by preventing evaporation of water under hot sun.

Farmers assemble at one place and celebrated “Mattu Pongal”. They invited Balvikas Guru to show mangala arathi. It was really awesome to celebrate Pongal with such simple people with huge generosity.

Balvikas Guru presented clothes to farmers on behalf as requested by the managing director of Farm Guru.

After the lunch there were lot of fun and games. Our Balvikas children enjoyed a lot and participated in all activities happily.

Play and fun make everyone happy especially during festival time.

Swami has already insisted on agricare in the village integrated programme. Agricare means integration of all land based activities like agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and other land use activities and train the farmers in organic farming and preparation of compost manures.

Agricare also supports in promoting additional revenue generation through mushroom cultivation, setting up kitchen gardens, medicinal plant cultivation and training in floriculture. Rain water harvesting is done to help not only the farmers but also the urban dwellers in saving precious water. Additionally farmers should also be trained in low cost cultivation method by minimising the resources & maximising the output.

We can even think of envirocare services and events in the district level along with Balvikas children and their parents. Balvikas children study many concepts in their school books and their visualization should be limited to text books and conventional concrete classrooms. They should be taken to such places where corporate gurus like Sri. Sai do their silent services!! Thanks to the parents of Sri Sathya Sai Balvikas children who encouraged such trip and made a grand success. Jai Sairam!!