Karimnagar: MBA graduate becomes organic farmer

Karimnagar: Higher education and a good job in a reputed organisation couldn't stop him from taking up his family profession of agriculture. Katla Srinivas, native of Thirumalapur village, Ramadugu mandal, has MBA degree and worked in Red Chillies organisation for some time. Though he came from an agricultural family, he doesn't know much about farming. But, an inner force drove him to leave his white collar job and to take up farming.

Decided to do organic farming, he discussed and got information from Agriculture University scientist Dr RVSK Reddy, Mallepalli Ravi of Kothagudem and Vinod Kumar of Gadwal and agriculture expert Rohini Reddy of Sara Organisation. Then he started organic farming in 2014 and within no time he started experimenting and got good yields.

With the confidence after getting maximum benefits from his organic farming, Srinivas decided to experiment by cultivating crops that are beneficial for the health of people. He was successful in producing hybrid bitter gourd (Boda Kakarakaya) in his field from 2016 through organic farming and other farmers started to take his suggestions to follow his footsteps.

Later, Srinivas turned his focus on cultivating fig (Anjeer) farming, which has medicinal properties, with organic manure instead of chemical fertilisers.

Unlike other farmers of Telangana, who cultivate Anjeer of Diana variety like Punefig and Ballarifig, Srinivas cultivated rare variety of Anjeer of Brown turkey variety, which has high demand in market. This variety of Anjeer was developed by Pune University in the country.

Speaking to The Hans India, Katla Srinivas said that he chose to cultivate Brown turkey variety of Anjeer fruit after he came to know about that this fruit is the king of Ayurvedic medicine, which gives relief from blood related diseases, increases immune power and many others.

He informed that he purchased around 900 saplings of Brown turkey variety from Ramchander Rao, a farmer from of Rajachur in 2019 and started to grow them in one acre by planting them with eight feet distance between each and with a gap of 12 feet for each line and used drip irrigation method and organic manures. The life of each crop is about seven to eight months and will yield maximum 15 kgs fruits for each acre, he added.

Expressing happy to be able to motivate other farmers towards organic farming, he informed that he wants to cultivate blue berry variety of Anjeer after studying weather conditions of this region. Planning to prepare Anjeer powder and jam along with syrup keeping in view of its medicinal values, he added.

State Planning Commission Vice-Chairman Boinapally Vinod Kumar inspected Anjeer fields of Srinivas and appreciated him his efforts in using advanced technology in agriculture. Vinod Kumar appealed other farmers to adopt crop rotation methods to achieve good results and maximum benefits.

Agriculture Officer Yasmin appealed to the farmers to get motivation from the achievements of Katla Srinivas and to cultivate wide variety of crops instead of taking up traditional farming of the same crops every season.