NE AGRICULTURE BUREAU
COIMBATORE, JUNE 17
In a landmark achievement, the Cauvery Calling Movement surpassed its ambitious milestone of enabling the planting of one crore saplings across Tamil Nadu in a year. The movement facilitated the uptake of 1,01,42,331 saplings by 47,022 farmers and the general public for planting on 25,500 acres across Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry from April 2022 to March 2023, says a release.
Cauvery Calling is a movement that has germinated from a seed that was planted by Sadhguru 25 years ago. Its approach has been painstakingly developed and refined on the ground for more than two decades starting from 1998. The movement aims to rejuvenate the Cauvery river and improve the economy of farmers who depend on it by enabling the planting of 242 crore trees in the farmers’ lands in the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
- The movement facilitated the uptake of 1,01,42,331 saplings by 47,022 farmers and the general public for planting on 25,500 acres across Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry
- It has germinated from a seed that was planted by Sadhguru 25 years ago
- The movement aims to rejuvenate the Cauvery river and improve the economy of farmers who depend on it by enabling the planting of 242 crore trees in the farmers’ lands in the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
Over the years, Cauvery Calling has consistently moved forward with meticulous planning by investing in providing quality saplings, educating farmers about adopting tree-based agriculture, and conducting mega-training workshops in model farms to learn from the farmers directly. So far, the movement has enabled the plantation of 8.85 crore trees in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Thamizhmaran, TN Coordinator, Cauvery Calling explains how this mammoth target was achieved. “Sapling production is majorly happening in 2 places and the produced ones are transported to our distribution centers across the state. One unit is in Cuddalore District, which is one of Asia’s biggest nurseries with a capacity to produce 85 lakh saplings for a given planting season. The second production unit is in Thiruvannamalai District with a capacity to produce 15 lakh saplings in a given planting season.”
The two production centers provide saplings to 39 distribution centers established across Tamil Nadu. The nurseries provide around 20 species of high-value timber tree species including – Teak, Red Sandalwood, Rosewood, and Mahogany to the farmers at a subsidized cost of Rs 3, he explains further.
Looking at the enthusiasm of the farmers, Cauvery Calling has furthered its goal of planting 1.1 crore trees in Tamil Nadu in 2023. Explaining how the movement aims to achieve the figure,
Anand Ethirajalu, Project Lead, Cauvery Calling, says, “In addition to the 2 Isha-owned production nurseries, in order to scale up the movement in the coming years, Cavery Calling has started farmer-driven nursery production activity as a pilot in 2022. As a result of this pilot, 29 farmers were trained in setting up and running nurseries as a livelihood model. This will not only build the capacity of quality sapling production with farmers but also enhance their incomes.”
To build awareness, over 120 field executives of the project personally visited more than 20,000 farmlands and provided free consultations to the farmers to adopt tree-based agriculture. These workers conduct soil and water testing at the farms and on the basis of the results suggest trees suited for their farmland. The recommendations are made after considering the varieties of the trees endemic to the region and the income-cycle expectations of the farmers.
Apart from this, direct meetings with the farmers through Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO), Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK), Agricultural Expos, Gram Panchayat Level meetings, etc played a pivotal role in building awareness on the benefits of tree-based agriculture. Currently, the movement is nurturing around 17,000 farmers through more than 100 WhatsApp groups, resolving their queries using farmers’ resource leaders and in-house technical experts.
In particular, the four Mega Training Programs in FY 2022-23, resulted in the participation of over 3,200 farmers with more than 70% of them requesting farm visits by the Cauvery Calling team members. Experts from reputed agriculture institutes, and scientists from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore; ICAR- Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru; amongst others, joined these training programs sharing practical field inputs on tree-based agriculture.
Plantation drives on important days and events like- World Environment Day (June 5 ), Van Mahotsav Week (July 1- July 7), River Revitalisation Day (Sep 3), Gandhi Jayanti (Oct 2) amongst others mobilised popular support in planting the trees. 730 events were conducted during these events that led to the planting of 12.46 lakh saplings. Cauvery Calling also joined the “Pasumai Thondamuthur” (Green Thondamuthur) campaign as a part of rejuvenating the Noyyal river. Under this campaign, we joined hands with the Rotary Club of Thondamuthur and facilitated the plantation of 1 Lakh saplings. In Phase 2 of the project, an additional 1 Lakh saplings have been planted in partnership with Coimbatore Builders and Contractors Association.
