Harvesting nature's bounty

For Kailash Murthy in Mysuru district, sun is the storehouse of power and water is the basis of life. Water conservation, with focus on rainwater harvesting, and nurturing his farm devoid of any chemical ingredients are the two missions of his life. A banker-turned- farmer, Kailash makes optimum use of sunlight and rainwater for both cultivation and processing of his crops.

Many experiments
According to Kailash,  shift from chemical  to natural farming is the need of the hour. It has many benefits for both nature and humans — from maintaining biodiversity to improving human health. He has been doing experiments on natural farming in his two ancestral farms in Mysuru district. He doesn’t use any fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides in his 10-acre farm in Doddinduvadi village in Kollegal taluk. He has developed this farm into a unique lab for experimentation on natural farming. Nearly 250 species of plants including areca nut, coconut, banana, sapota, mango and guava are grown in the farm. Banana plants with average bunch weight of 40 kg can be seen here. They are considered to be good indicators of fertile soil.

While he doesn’t use chemical fertilisers, he spreads the farm’s biowaste (dry leaves and stalks of the crops) on the entire surface area to retain moisture. Thus, the farm is covered with thick layers (of about nine inches) of leafy litter produced by the weeds, falling leaves and twigs from the trees.

Natural recycling of the waste is done by multitudes of soil organisms like earthworms. The leaf litter results in rich and efficient mulching of the soil thereby allowing the percolation of water. As a result, the entire farm works as a percolation pond and not even a drop of water is let out. The borewell in the farm is used to irrigate the crops only when it is necessary. For a visitor, it is difficult to believe that the farm had severe shortage of water a decade ago. While most of the nearby fields look like barren tracts for most part of the year barring monsoon, this farm remains green throughout the year. Similarly, he cultivates paddy crop in his 11-acre field in Madarahalli village in T Narsipura taluk with just about 25% of water a conventional paddy crop may require. 

The beginnings
Kailash, an athlete in his student days, landed a job in Vijaya Bank and retired in 2011, after three decades of service. Though he served at several urban locations, his heart was stuck in the village soil. For a considerable period of his banking tenure, he took posting in the Kollegal branch of the bank and would devote his morning and evening hours to farming. Though he started experimenting in the farm in 1984, he shifted to natural farming from 1994 onwards. After his retirement, he became a full-time farmer.

While tending his farm during his banking career, Kailash had realised that chemical fertilisers and pesticides were helpful in boosting the produce only in the initial  years. But their continued use destroys the friendly microbes that help the soil retain its fertility, and ruins its regenerative capacity. So, he followed methods that facilitate better utilisation of natural resources.

Scientists and natural farming enthusiasts have been visiting his farm on a regular basis. A group of scientists from various agricultural and horticultural institutes in Bengaluru, who visited his farm in 2008, made the following observation: “The farm is an experiment in zero input natural farming of perennial crops. It can be called as sustainable subsistence farming and can be emulated by marginal farmers too. The farmer (Kailash) is not incurring any loss, but has been making profit all these years.”

Kailash even opposes the killing of pests. “By sprinkling pesticides, we kill the natural defence mechanisms that play an extremely significant role in imparting nutritive value to the soil,” he opines. According to him, a farmer’s role is to utilise the natural resources and facilitate their use in a proper manner without interrupting nature’s balance. He says, “Humans need not interfere in the nature’s cycle. We are being misled by multinational companies who try to thrust upon their industrial products on farmers. It is basically sunlight that turns water and carbon dioxide into nutrition in plants, which in turn become food for the humans. It is time we understand the significance of natural processes like photosynthesis.”

Natural resources
He has set up a solar power rice processing mill near Mysuru three months ago. The power that he harvests from sunlight not only allows him to run the rice processing unit, but also enables to earn some extra money by feeding the excess power to the State power grid.

Nestled in a corner of the one-acre fenced land, the unit is topped with 95 solar panels which can generate as much as 1,705 units of power in a month. Currently, he uses only 25% of the power generated at the plant, and the rest is fed to the power grid at a rate of Rs 6.61 per unit. In the last three months, the plant has generated 8.4 MW of power. The unit cost him Rs 22 lakh. He also has a drier attached to the unit. He harvests all the rainwater that falls on this land. The water is collected in a sump and about one lakh litres of water is available here throughout the year. In this land, he plans to grow vegetables. Kailash has been a keen propagator of natural farming. He avoids using the term ‘organic farming’ as he feels much of the claims on this account are less than genuine and chemicals are invariably getting into these crops too.

Years of experiments in natural farming have made him an expert on various sustainable issues. He was invited to speak at the 28th conference of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) held at Jakarta in May 2006. He also presented a paper at the National University of Singapore on ‘Natural Farming and Ecological Issues’ in April 2012. He addressed a conference on ‘Soil Science, Practice and Policy’ held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi earlier this year. The Electronic Media Research Centre of Mysore University has prepared several short documentaries on the practices developed by Kailash.

He can be contacted on 9880185757.