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Allopathic medicine drop out turns into farm expert through self-learning
“I dropped from the Manipal medical college in 1970s because I grew up in the farm and could not go far away from it,” says Mr. Johny Mathew. He grows wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, coffee and medicinal plants on his 51 acre farmland located at Thenpuzha, Mukkulam and Vermpala ward of Kokkayar Gramapanchayath, Kokkayar village of Peerumedu Taluk, Kerala. He speaks with us on his self learning journey and shares the important on-field technical guidelines on organic farming that is not available in the books! Excerpts:
Turning into a full time farmer during the period when green revolution on its full boom I realized chemical farming has not answers to my problems in farming. Agriculture university experts too had limited knowledge hence I decided to learn on my own!
To convert into 100% non-chemical farming without incurring losses is to adopt right food culture and practice multi-cropping. One should grow their food themselves instead of buying it from the market therefore I started growing different kinds of vegetables. Next the crops must be selected based on the climate, soil and farm elevation.
I found it is much easier to convert coffee and rubber plantation into organic while most difficult crop for conversion is cardamom. Intercropping is at ease with coconut plantation as there is enough space to grow other crops between two coconut trees.
There is too much fuss on nutrients in the soil but it has been proved 90% of the important nutrients precisely nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous is absorbed from the air! While rest 10% is taken from the soil. Weeds, dried leaves litter and live micro-organisms together produce natural humus around the crops grown that fixes the soil with the nutrients naturally. Further with multi-cropping the soil and air gets their nutrients balanced. Besides the humus always prevents soil erosion and holds the rainwater that reduces the water requirement in farming. In order to improve the number of live microbes in the soil it is best to feed it with dung and urine of indigenous cow breeds.
Lastly farmers need to be independent for its seeds requirement. They need to preserve the seeds and exchange with other like-minded farmers. I have good collection of seed varieties. Then I am extremely particular about the quality of my farm produce. If the taste, size, colour of the farm produce is not upto the mark I cut down the tree and start fresh to get the quality rich product.
All the produce is sold in the Farmers’ market in our vicinity. It is source to 100% organically produce farm produce. I serve as Secretary to this organization. We encourage the farmers to sell their products here as fresh as possible. We want to minimize the overheads expenses to the best possible extent and make the food products affordable for all instead of restricting to selling it to only some sections of society. Prices are fixed as per the cost of production plus a certain margin. We intend to sell our produces within the village hence the prices are affordable.
We aim to grow healthy nutrient rich and chemical free food for everyone by investing our time and energy. All what we expect in return is support so that the country grows health and attains economic prosperity.
Contact details:
Mr. Johny Mathew
Pottamkulam, Yendayar P.O.,
Kottayam- 686 514, Kerala.
Mobile: 04828 286138, 09447086138
Email: johnymtptklm@rediffmail.com
“I dropped from the Manipal medical college in 1970s because I grew up in the farm and could not go far away from it,” says Mr. Johny Mathew. He grows wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, coffee and medicinal plants on his 51 acre farmland located at Thenpuzha, Mukkulam and Vermpala ward of Kokkayar Gramapanchayath, Kokkayar village of Peerumedu Taluk, Kerala. He speaks with us on his self learning journey and shares the important on-field technical guidelines on organic farming that is not available in the books! Excerpts:
Turning into a full time farmer during the period when green revolution on its full boom I realized chemical farming has not answers to my problems in farming. Agriculture university experts too had limited knowledge hence I decided to learn on my own!
To convert into 100% non-chemical farming without incurring losses is to adopt right food culture and practice multi-cropping. One should grow their food themselves instead of buying it from the market therefore I started growing different kinds of vegetables. Next the crops must be selected based on the climate, soil and farm elevation.
I found it is much easier to convert coffee and rubber plantation into organic while most difficult crop for conversion is cardamom. Intercropping is at ease with coconut plantation as there is enough space to grow other crops between two coconut trees.
There is too much fuss on nutrients in the soil but it has been proved 90% of the important nutrients precisely nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous is absorbed from the air! While rest 10% is taken from the soil. Weeds, dried leaves litter and live micro-organisms together produce natural humus around the crops grown that fixes the soil with the nutrients naturally. Further with multi-cropping the soil and air gets their nutrients balanced. Besides the humus always prevents soil erosion and holds the rainwater that reduces the water requirement in farming. In order to improve the number of live microbes in the soil it is best to feed it with dung and urine of indigenous cow breeds.
Lastly farmers need to be independent for its seeds requirement. They need to preserve the seeds and exchange with other like-minded farmers. I have good collection of seed varieties. Then I am extremely particular about the quality of my farm produce. If the taste, size, colour of the farm produce is not upto the mark I cut down the tree and start fresh to get the quality rich product.
All the produce is sold in the Farmers’ market in our vicinity. It is source to 100% organically produce farm produce. I serve as Secretary to this organization. We encourage the farmers to sell their products here as fresh as possible. We want to minimize the overheads expenses to the best possible extent and make the food products affordable for all instead of restricting to selling it to only some sections of society. Prices are fixed as per the cost of production plus a certain margin. We intend to sell our produces within the village hence the prices are affordable.
We aim to grow healthy nutrient rich and chemical free food for everyone by investing our time and energy. All what we expect in return is support so that the country grows health and attains economic prosperity.
Contact details:
Mr. Johny Mathew
Pottamkulam, Yendayar P.O.,
Kottayam- 686 514, Kerala.
Mobile: 04828 286138, 09447086138
Email: johnymtptklm@rediffmail.com