Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Organic farming ! What exactly is it ?

My recent venture into farming provided me a great learning experience about the food that we consume every day. It also gave me an insight of what comes free with the food items from the farms that produce fruits and vegetables that we consume. Oh yeah they are good for health only if they didn't come from chemical processed cultivation. What does it mean ? I was saying if the cultivation is not done in organic method, sure it is going to create trouble by giving lots of unwanted chemicals along with the food items.

So, I decided to venture the organic way of producing the fruits in my farm, the first thing is the mangos. Now the organic farm outputs are really tasty and they are healthy mangos. I spent almost all weekends in the farm harvesting the organic mangos as the summer turned out to be Mango season at my farm. If I remember there was no single instance of fertilizers usage in this farm for the past one and half year.
I strictly say no for the ripening process with Calcium Carbide, hence the natural way of ripening method is been used. I use the paddy grass with the mangos in a dark air tight room for about 3-4 days for the tasty and healthy output.
Just to make the entire process neat and to produce the mangos in a hygenic way, the mangos were handpicked personally and loaded them on my Jeep to transport to Chennai.
In fact it was too tiring work as much as most body muscles needs to work climbing on the mango trees and picking them down. I took couple of breaks in while harvesting the mangos from tree, again the Jeep worked me as my shelter.
The jeep was loaded with dry paddy grass and mango bags to transport back to Chennai. Earlier week I used my Jeep with trailer as the quantity was more.
Last week, The farm produced around 800kilograms of fully organic grown and rippend mangos and this week around 400kilograms. Not that the quantity is reduced, but the farm contains couple of mango varieties and they will be harvested in a time difference.

Hurray! I'm supplying the organic mangos to anyone who really like natural comodities at the same price of dangerous fruits available on the market. Now I'm really proud to be a farmer.

BEWARE of Calcium Carbide ripened fruits (Just for the information sake):

the Calcium Carbide ripening .. which is too dangerous and toxic. If anyone who reads this thread please understand not a single mango that are sold in Chennai's open market is organic and the ripening process is mainly using Calcium Carbide stones. Calcium Carbide when mixed with water produces acetylene which is highly combustible substance and when mixed with oxygen can be used for welding and cutting metals.

Rather said that besides acetylene, ethylene which is also a plant hormone regulator is also produced and this characteristic helps in ripening of fruits. As the science says, Calcium Carbide is carsogenic in nature and it is not in purified form and contains traces of arsenic which too is toxic.

5 comments:

Shrinidhi Hande said...

recently learn about a company called eFarm who occasionally sell organic vegetables in front of departmental store near my place-haven't studies about eFarming much...

sriram said...

Hi siva.Good work.I used to visit your blog regularly.FOr that also good work.One request if possible like that of your vehicle maintanance blogs can you start a blog for farming and add thing like what a beginner shud do for getting agri land and maintanance tips etc.Hope that will be more usefull to people like me and helpfull in many ways.Expecting your farming blog soon.

Sivakumar said...

@ Sriram

Actually the farming blog is already on my plan. The only problem now I have is how much information I can post.

Currently the farming is only on my last priority as I work in a urbanized world and doing my farming activities in the weekends. Much of my farming works are shared by either the villager who is at the farm or my father, not lots of missing links when it comes for farming blog.

I hope I will be able to patch up the issues soon and come with a complete farming blog to share variuos corps and bio-fertilizer information.

unny said...

Hi,
Came here through GDC. It is organic farming that interested us. Are you running a farm? Where is it and what all do you grow? Want to know whether you have been able make it a self sustaining venture ?

We are also in GDC.

tks
Unny/Bindhu

Sudha said...

Hello sivakumar,

I find your blog really interesting, especially your Japan experience. I was looking for organic turmeric. Do you grow it or know anyone who does? I want it for my mother in law who has joint pains and I read in Time magazine that it helps. If you find anyone who grows it, let me know, Onegaishimasu :)