Enthused by the wide publicity given by the State government to the Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) a couple in Dharmapuri village near Dharmavaram in Anantapur district took to organic farming without using chemical pesticides or fertilizer and has been reaping goodyields.
Polepalli Revathi and Kondarajugari Seetaramaraju, owning justtwo acres of land in this nondescript village, are seen as ‘different’ as they do not resort to farming in the way other villagers do, and use neem and castor cake in the soil, Jeevamrutham and neem oil for fertilizer and pest control and once their crop comes to harvest stage, they use fermented curd.
However,while they have more than 550 kg of processed and packed black rice with them, they are struggling to findtakers. “We expected some NGOs or government agencies to show ushow to market it, but getting back our investment of ₹30,000 per acre looks difficult,” Mr. Seetaramaraju told The Hindu.
Things have come to such a pass that at a time when organic black rice is sold at an average of ₹250 to ₹300 a kg in stores, entrepreneurs are asking for the stock for prices lower than the normal white BPT rice. The State government’s agriculture departmentis not providing any support, they lament.
“We have reaped very good results for the past three years and got enough seed for our use in the first year in 2019 and used BPT-2841 variety of black rice seeds sourced from Haripuram in Sangareddy, which gave us a healthy crop in 2020 Kharif,”said Ms. Revathi, who also doubles as a tailor at home toboost the family income.
Describing the health advantages and nutritional values of black rice, Ms. Revathi said 100 grams of it containsnine grams of protein, as againstseven grams in brown rice. It’s also a good source of iron, and several nutrients, protein, and fiber. Scientists at Agriculture Research Centre at Rekulakunta said thatblack ricehas over 23 types of antioxidants and has the highest antioxidant activity of all rice varieties. The couple can be reached over phone at 8147467521.
