Tenant farmer Katakam Srinivas, who is making profits in farming, treats crops like new born babies that have to be nurtured with love and care

For this tenant farmer, agriculture has a different meaning. “Plants are like new born babies and farmers have to nurture them with love and care,” says Katakam Srinivas, a farmer who had migrated from Kadiyam in East Godavari district to Medak in search of greener pastures about a decade ago.

Well, he seems to have found the greener pastures, as he has been successful in making profits out of farming, quite a rarity these days. But it didn’t happen in a day or a year. It took him over a decade of hard labour which finally has made him a happy farmer.

His day begins at 4.30 in the morning and ends late in the evening. And if it’s the harvesting season, the working hours stretches even further. At 10 in the morning, he is usually seen supervising the sale of vegetables like snake gourd and bottle gourd. And his two sons – Jeevan Phani Kumar and Ganapati – assist him and see to the finer aspects of growing vegetables.

Mr. Srinivas came to Medak in search of a job in a private factory, but failed to get one. After working as a daily labourer for some time, he approached some locals for help. As he had prior experience in cultivation, he was asked to take up farming and that changed his life for better. Now, he cultivates about 30 acres of land as a tenant farmer and has a dozen labourers to assist him. “I also have cattle to take care of. After supplying milk to the canteen of a local factory, I go to the farm,” says Mr. Srinivas. He is also into banana cultivation this year. “If the weather conditions are good, banana is one of the best crops that generate good revenue. We got saplings from East Godavari where banana crop is largely cultivated,” he says.

His belief that Mother Earth never deceives farmers only if they care for the crop they grow has yielded him good result. He suggests the other farmers to take up multi-cropping instead of a single one as it is profitable.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Telangana / by R. Avadhani / Kavalampet (Medak Dist). / November 13th, 2014