Lending a helping hand to the farmers

This week for our Community Wise edition, we bring to you an initiative by Marico industries, that aims at impacting the lives of farmers.

Shikha Duggal

Founded by Marico industries, Parachute Kalpavriksha Foundation is here to make a difference in the life of Telangana farmers too. Working towards the welfare of the farmers, their agronomists pay regular visits to the farmers, educate them on scientific farming practices, and also help them increase their productivity. What attracted us to the point was: paying tribute to the southern farming communities too.

And, who were they supported by? The popular Telugu stars Aishwarya Lekshmi, Lakshmi Manchu, Kalyani Priyadarshan, Sarath Kumar, Anupama Parameswaran and Samyukta Hornad.

“I have been working as an agronomist for them since 2017. As an agriculture graduate, I use my knowledge to train and guide the farming community. My typical day starts with planning my visit schedule for the day. Once I reach the farm, I meet the farmer and help him identify issues in their farm, give them proper recommendations to resolve those issues, and follow up with them regarding implementation. It gives me immense satisfaction at the end of every day when I see how my knowledge of agriculture is able to improve the lives of farmers. As an agronomist, I get a lot of exposure and learning opportunities about farming through various pieces of training and seminars from experts and collaborations through agricultural colleges and the state department of agriculture,” tells a hard-working agronomist from the foundation.

The foundation becomes all the more interesting to know about, because it was launched on World Coconut Day to provide awareness to farmers. The initiative aims to focus on enhancing their income truly! They have so far enrolled 62,918 farmers across 2.55 lakh acres under this program.

Koshy George, chief marketing officer, further tells, “The objective is to appreciate and highlight how every farmer rises above their circumstances to feed the people. We want to build yet another way to create deeper connections in the communities to understand and support them at the ground level. Thus, trying to make a difference in their lives significantly. We also help coconut farmers increase their yield by training them in all aspects of farm management, including nutrient, pest management, disease, and water management.”

Knowing the tale of a farmer from the spokesperson himself was also quite interesting. R. Thripurasundari says, “I am involved in farming practices for 25 years. Stem bleeding disease affected my trees, and so I called this foundation. They came for an inspection. Their team of agronomists suggested remedies and I applied those exact techniques. I heaved a sigh of relief! The nitrogen level of my soil increased and I got a higher yield.”