Man's Effort To Save Lost Plant Seeds Hasn't Been Slowed By Spinal-Cord Injury

A 29 years old, Adaikkalam Anandhan, is always striving to make a difference in the lives of those around him and hadturned himself into an organic farmer. He is reframing the significance of his own existence through his search for the preservation of lost plant seeds. The fact that made him extraordinary is when he was 16 years old, he made a blunder that nearly lost him his life. The desire to climb it and hug it led to life-changing events, including a fall, a spinal-cord injury, and a life in a wheelchair. While the hits were powerful enough to extinguish one's will to live, they had the opposite effect on the lad. The incident changed his life physically but did not affected his love for the nature.

Adaikkalam has so far recovered four varieties of vegetable seeds that were on the verge of extinction, as well as a collection of thirty native vegetable seeds. Adaikkalam gives out the seeds to other farmers so that they can grow the vegetables. He is also the coordinator of the Aruppukottai taluk's Spinal Injured Persons Association (SIPA).

Adaikkalam told that he has 30 variety of seeds with him, comprising two paddy varieties, ten brinjal and ladies' finger variants each, and seven tomato varieties. He explained that he is planting crops in four cents inside the Nadar Middle School at Puliyooran village in Aruppukottai.

Adaikkalam credits environmental campaigner G Nammalvar's publications, which he began reading in 2014, with inspiring him to pursue his current purpose. He wanted to collect native seeds of particular nearly-extinct but crucial plants that he named, in accordance with one of his beliefs. That's how I became involved with this. After that, he began gathering paddy and vegetable seeds and became obsessed with collecting unusual and lost kinds in no time. He added that he had successfully rescued two tomato and brinjal types apiece.

Adaikkalam explained that heobtained ten or fifteen seeds from someone, developed them, and distributed them to farmers who grow them on a vast scale and distribute them in markets.