Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
For advocates such as Thanal and the Biodiversity Board, these early
outcomes reinforced the ecological and social viability of organic farm-
ing. To them, the organic farming project at Padayeti, despite a few set-
backs, exemplified their ideal of what agriculture could and should look
like in Kerala.17 Not only was the pilot producing several tons of food
but initial research was proving that organic farming was improving the
biogeochemical and ecological conditions of the area. Organic agricul-
ture was protecting Padayeti's agrobiodiversity. The two organizations
also used Padayeti as an example to illustrate concretely that organic
farming could make individual farmers and communities self-
sufficient,
especially in making their own fertilizers, pesticides, and food. Usha and
others at Thanal argued that the pilot project demonstrated how farmers
could break their reliance on external markets for their basic nutritional
needs—a stark contrast to the existing, Green Revolution-based agro-
food system in Kerala.
Additionally, during ongoing policy discussions with the Agriculture
Department and its new Organic Farming Programme, Thanal and the
Biodiversity Board held up Padayeti as a model of successful local self-
government planning based on organic farming principles.18 Much of
this assessment was based on their interaction with the local
padakshera
samithi
,
an
existing farmers' group created by the LDF government in the
late 1980s to encourage effective joint management of financial, natural,
and human resources. During decentralization, the LDF relied on these
groups throughout Kerala to foster local self-government, in collabo-
ration with the Agriculture Department. Thanal and the Biodiversity
Board worked with and through Padayeti's padakshera samithi to make
decisions about the entire organic farming process—from what seeds to
plant to how to market their surpluses, from plow to plate. Both Thanal
and the board believed that their efforts upheld the values embodied in
the People's Plan, an LDF priority.
Padayetti's success had a ripple effect in the state. Under the new
Organic Farming Programme, the Agriculture Department initially se-
lected twenty block panchayats, dispersed throughout each of Kerala's
fourteen districts, to follow Padayeti's example. The northern district
