Sowing the seeds of nature's love

In keeping with this year's theme 'Environmental Disaster and Climate Change', a stall at the Chitra Santhe 2018 encouraged children to get back in touch with nature through an interesting concept.

'Creative Seeds Agent Earth' by Gift My Gift innovations attracted the attention of crowds with their seed balls, shaped like the vegetable they would produce. The protective layer of clay in which the tomato seeds are embedded is shaped like little tomatoes.

Chandrashekar G M, who developed the product along with his team, said that through these seed balls, they want to create awareness among the younger generation about where their food comes from.

"Children in urban areas are losing their connection with nature. At this rate, soon they won't know where milk or vegetables come from because they get everything from shops," he said. With these seeds, they will know what vegetable to expect and they will nurture the plant and wait to see the real vegetables grow, he said.

Each ball costs Rs 50 and has enough seeds to sprout two or three plants.

Chandrashekar says he has used traditional knowledge of preserving seeds from villages where instead of coating them with chemicals, seeds were enclosed in clay balls.

Researching and developing the seed balls took the team about ten months. They have applied for a patent for their technology developed to create these creative seeds.

As of now, they have seed balls for six vegetables-tomato, brinjal, long brinjal, okra, carrot and green chilli.

"We have set up stalls at a few events now. At Makkala Habba we had a stall and many children were attracted to it. We want to encourage people to give these as gifts to their children, return gifts, and even as corporate gifts," he said.