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Health care officer turns into a farmer for good health and progressing towards prosperity with value addition. Cultivation and processing done strictly the natural way!
“I was growing sugarcane through natural farming process. So instead of selling raw sugarcane to others I decided to process it to make farming a lucrative venture. People told me jaggery powder is excellent and has good demand. So after many trial and errors I succeeded in making jaggery powder. Similarly I process all oilseeds and desi cow milk into oil and ghee respectively in the farm premises. The quality of value added products is supreme because the cultivation and processing is done 100% natural without any use of chemicals. I sell it all at premium price not for earning more money but it is deserved value of the product,” says Ms. Vijaya Alluri, health care officer turned natural farmer since 2012.
Ms. Vijaya Alluri
Ms. Vijaya is doing farming on 20 acres farmland, located 50 km from Vizianagaram while 100 km from Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Crops grown are fruits, sugarcane, desi paddy varieties, oilseeds, spices and seasonal vegetables. Value added products produced are oil, ghee and jaggery. In addition the farm has native breed of cows and bulls. The herd size is 40. “I have Gir, Sahiwal and local breed cattle. These are reared for milk, excreta and animal power. These cows are the foundation of farming that makes agriculture profitable and sustainable. Secondly intercropping is another important aspect of natural farming as the crops are grown in inter-dependence,” she asserts. Few combinations recommended are ginger-banana, groundnut-sugarcane, banana-maize, marigold flower-sugarcane and chilies, marigold with black gram.
Quoting natural farming as magical and miraculous she shares, “My farm successfully survived the very scary tropical cyclonic storm, Hudhud in the year 2014. The day we faced the storm in the farm I was sure of losing all the crops grown at that time precisely red gram, banana and traditional paddy variety. But the loss incurred was minimal! It happened so because I practice exclusively natural farming in my farm. I am convinced with this agricultural method as it is in alliance with nature thus endures the natural calamities. My farm is the living proof of the same.” Also value addition method is natural. Being new to the field of processing farm produce, Ms. Vijaya went around many villages to learn the process of jaggery making and was shocked to see the horrifying processing method! All sorts of chemicals and sugar were added to solidify the sugarcane juice into jaggery. “I was being told there is no natural method at all! I took the risk, did many experiments and at last was successful in making three different products from sugarcane.” The value addition process is solely dependent on animal power. “The natural methods are elaborative and time consuming but worth for good health. Our production is quite low yet the demand is high! The buyers are from all strata of society, even the farm laborers happily pay Rs. 400/liter of sesame oil, Rs. 100/kg for jaggery to attain good health!”
Ms.Vijaya Alluri with Subash Palekar
Per day oil production in one extraction is 12-14 liter. One extraction takes 1.5-2 hours time. Bulls are used extensively throughout the oil extraction process. The bulls are trained for the work on oil extraction. Speaking about quality of the products produced using natural process, Ms. Vijaya highlights, “These products are light in weight, easy to digest, very tasty and consumed in less quantity when compared with its counterparts produced inorganically. Besides the byproduct obtained from the processing is used as agri input. Like the butter milk produced during ghee production is fermented and sprayed on crops as fungicides. So it is cost effective too.”
Immediate plan is to expand oil production of coconut, sesame and groundnut by installing one more gunny for oil extraction. “Secondly I want to focus on growing best quality fodder for my cattle to boost the milk production. Next, I am working on setting up the company as Sahaja Farms and all the processed products shall be packed and sold under the brand name ‘Sahaja,” she reveals the plans.
Ms. Vijaya holds MSc in Community Health and Nutrition. She has worked as Health Care Officer for Government of India. As she wanted to live close to the nature she opted to become natural farmer and now she is into farming not for money but for passion! Today her farm is an open-research lab cum factory that produces nutrition rich food. The response received from end-user for her farm produced value added products is amazing thereby, “I want to scale up the operations. Natural methods of cultivation and processing always will be lucrative in the long term. This is the right way of doing agriculture! No matter if it is difficult I am determined to do it for the good health of my countrymen!” she signs off.
Contact details:
Ms. Vijaya Alluri
Natraj Towers, Flat 102, 10-27-4, Waltair Uplands, Vishakhapatnam – 530 003, Andhra Pradesh
Mobile: +91 097017 06432
Email: 1969@vijaya@gmail.com
“I was growing sugarcane through natural farming process. So instead of selling raw sugarcane to others I decided to process it to make farming a lucrative venture. People told me jaggery powder is excellent and has good demand. So after many trial and errors I succeeded in making jaggery powder. Similarly I process all oilseeds and desi cow milk into oil and ghee respectively in the farm premises. The quality of value added products is supreme because the cultivation and processing is done 100% natural without any use of chemicals. I sell it all at premium price not for earning more money but it is deserved value of the product,” says Ms. Vijaya Alluri, health care officer turned natural farmer since 2012.
Ms. Vijaya Alluri
Ms. Vijaya is doing farming on 20 acres farmland, located 50 km from Vizianagaram while 100 km from Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Crops grown are fruits, sugarcane, desi paddy varieties, oilseeds, spices and seasonal vegetables. Value added products produced are oil, ghee and jaggery. In addition the farm has native breed of cows and bulls. The herd size is 40. “I have Gir, Sahiwal and local breed cattle. These are reared for milk, excreta and animal power. These cows are the foundation of farming that makes agriculture profitable and sustainable. Secondly intercropping is another important aspect of natural farming as the crops are grown in inter-dependence,” she asserts. Few combinations recommended are ginger-banana, groundnut-sugarcane, banana-maize, marigold flower-sugarcane and chilies, marigold with black gram.
Quoting natural farming as magical and miraculous she shares, “My farm successfully survived the very scary tropical cyclonic storm, Hudhud in the year 2014. The day we faced the storm in the farm I was sure of losing all the crops grown at that time precisely red gram, banana and traditional paddy variety. But the loss incurred was minimal! It happened so because I practice exclusively natural farming in my farm. I am convinced with this agricultural method as it is in alliance with nature thus endures the natural calamities. My farm is the living proof of the same.” Also value addition method is natural. Being new to the field of processing farm produce, Ms. Vijaya went around many villages to learn the process of jaggery making and was shocked to see the horrifying processing method! All sorts of chemicals and sugar were added to solidify the sugarcane juice into jaggery. “I was being told there is no natural method at all! I took the risk, did many experiments and at last was successful in making three different products from sugarcane.” The value addition process is solely dependent on animal power. “The natural methods are elaborative and time consuming but worth for good health. Our production is quite low yet the demand is high! The buyers are from all strata of society, even the farm laborers happily pay Rs. 400/liter of sesame oil, Rs. 100/kg for jaggery to attain good health!”
Ms.Vijaya Alluri with Subash Palekar
Per day oil production in one extraction is 12-14 liter. One extraction takes 1.5-2 hours time. Bulls are used extensively throughout the oil extraction process. The bulls are trained for the work on oil extraction. Speaking about quality of the products produced using natural process, Ms. Vijaya highlights, “These products are light in weight, easy to digest, very tasty and consumed in less quantity when compared with its counterparts produced inorganically. Besides the byproduct obtained from the processing is used as agri input. Like the butter milk produced during ghee production is fermented and sprayed on crops as fungicides. So it is cost effective too.”
Immediate plan is to expand oil production of coconut, sesame and groundnut by installing one more gunny for oil extraction. “Secondly I want to focus on growing best quality fodder for my cattle to boost the milk production. Next, I am working on setting up the company as Sahaja Farms and all the processed products shall be packed and sold under the brand name ‘Sahaja,” she reveals the plans.
Ms. Vijaya holds MSc in Community Health and Nutrition. She has worked as Health Care Officer for Government of India. As she wanted to live close to the nature she opted to become natural farmer and now she is into farming not for money but for passion! Today her farm is an open-research lab cum factory that produces nutrition rich food. The response received from end-user for her farm produced value added products is amazing thereby, “I want to scale up the operations. Natural methods of cultivation and processing always will be lucrative in the long term. This is the right way of doing agriculture! No matter if it is difficult I am determined to do it for the good health of my countrymen!” she signs off.
Contact details:
Ms. Vijaya Alluri
Natraj Towers, Flat 102, 10-27-4, Waltair Uplands, Vishakhapatnam – 530 003, Andhra Pradesh
Mobile: +91 097017 06432
Email: 1969@vijaya@gmail.com
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