"The mountains I climbed, the butterflies I counted, the
streams I swam, the jungles I walked along, all called me back. The urge
to go back to nature was very strong," says Tibin Parakal from Trissur
who quit a lucrative engineering job in Delhi to start a restaurant but
then ultimately became a farmer.
Tibin Parakal at their farm in Trissur
Educated youngsters show no
interest in carrying on the farming tradition of their forefathers. But
one 26-year-old chucked his job as a networking professional in Delhi to
be a farmer in Kerala.
Moreover, he has chosen to farm without the use of pesticides.
Tibin Parakal's father was a farmer, but he discouraged his son from
being one. So, Tibin studied Information Technology and networking, and
worked as a networking professional in Delhi.
"From the cradle of nature, I was thrown into the concrete jungle
that is Delhi. I felt suffocated. I didn't see human beings around me;
only machines that worked to earn lots of money.
"The mountains I climbed, the butterflies I counted, the streams I
swam, the jungles I walked along, all called me back. The urge to go
back to nature was very strong," Tibin explained.
Still in Delhi, he began planning an organic restaurant he would
start in Trissur on the lines of what his friend was doing in
Trivandrum.
He hid his plans from his parents; he knew they would be horrified if
their son quit a well paying job in Delhi to start a 'hotel' in
Trissur.
He only discussed the viability of the idea with some of his friends.
One of them, George K Jose, had just joined Infosys in Bangalore.
Tibin and two friends from Trissur, George and Aneesh, pooled in one
lakh rupees to start an organic restaurant called Pathayam, in Trissur.
George K Jose at their farm in Trissur
The restaurant opened during Onam in 2010.
Recalls Tibin, "We employed only the cooks; serving and the rest of
the work was done by the three of us and some of our friends."
They attracted excellent publicity in the media. At the evening
opening they served five types of puttu like ragi, wheat, vegetable,
corn etc, which went down well.
"Hundreds of people came and had to wait outside. It was
unprecedented. Everybody appreciated our efforts. We were soon making Rs
10,000 every day with a profit of around Rs 5000-6000," Tibin said.
As expected, Tibin's parents were horrified at their son's decision.
Tibin tried to scare them by saying, 'If you want to see me alive
till I am 60, let me do what I want to. But if I continue to work in
Delhi, you will see me only till I am 35!'
The restaurant had to close because of construction work in the
vicinity. Not able to find another place to suit their budget, the three
entrepreneurs abandoned the project.
"I was not dejected. I had always wanted to be a farmer, and I
thought it was a good opportunity to do it. We had started with organic
food made without any chemicals but the first step should have been
natural farming," Tibin said.
Tibin and George attended a five-day seminar on Zero Budget Natural Farming, by Subhash Palekar from Maharashtra.
"We were bowled over by Palekar's ideas. He understood the real
vibrations of nature. In those five days, it was not farming that he
taught us; he made us understand and feel the pulse of nature. He
introduced us to the most minute living beings in nature. It was an eye
opener for us," Tibin recalls.
Tibin's parents agreed to part with 10 cents of land (10 cents = 0.1
acre = 4356 square feet) to their 'crazy' son and his friend so that
they could experiment with natural farming.
"My father was not in favour of our experiment. He asked me, 'Do you
think we are fools? I have been cultivating paddy for the last several
years and you say we don't know anything? Even with pesticides, our
yield is only this much, and you want to show us that without
pesticides, you can have more yield?'
"He literally laughed at us. I begged him for a small piece of land to do our experiment just once. Reluctantly, he agreed.
Zero budget natural farming needs only one kilo of cow dung for 10
cents of land. "We must have the cow dung and urine from pure breed cows
and not cross breeds. With great difficulty, we found one person who
had such cows and I went on my bike to collect the cow dung and urine,"
Tibin said.
Tibin had learnt from Palekar that one gram of cow dung and urine of
pure bred cows contains 300-500 crore micro organisms. But the cow dung
of the cross breed cows contains only 40-50 lakh micro organisms. "The
Jeevamrutha solution (that is added to the crop) acts on the micro
organisms and help them multiply in large numbers," he said.
They planted paddy using the seed of an ancient variety of rice
called kuruvai, cultivated by adivasis. They tilled the land and did the
planting themselves.
They used no pesticides, only the Jeevamrutha solution made of cow
dung, cow's urine, jaggery, flour, soil and water, as created by
Palekar.
The resultant paddy was much healthier, greener and bigger than the one cultivated by his father using chemical pesticides.
"Our paddy looked so healthy, and when the paddy of the nearby areas
got infected, ours remained unaffected. That was when everybody realised
there was something right in what we did. My father was shocked when we
got more yield than he had ever got in his life!"
Most of the first yield was kept as seeds for the next season. "That
was in 2011. We even distributed the seeds. You won't believe this, but
today many people cultivate kuruvai in Kerala from the seeds we
distributed.
"My father now cultivates kuruvai on his entire one acre plot and follows zero budget natural farming!" says a triumphant Tibin.
Fans of this type of rice are former Chief Minister of Kerala, V S Achuthanandan and actors Mammootty and Srinivasan.
Tibin and George have inspired the film actors to start farming and helped them out.
The paddy cultivation expanded to embrace two acres of land taken on lease and made a profit of Rs 50,000 the second year.
The success of the first two yields prompted them to expand their
holding to 25 acres of land. The yield was worth more than Rs 15 lakh
but faulty marketing resulted in a loss of Rs 7 lakh. That did not
dampen their spirits because it was a marketing failure and not a
farming one.
Since then, they have been making a profit of Rs 2 lakh every season.
Other than farming, they undertake projects for the Agriculture department, helping families develop a kitchen garden.
Tibin has decided to concentrate on cultivating organic vegetables on
15 acres of land at Kattappana in Idukki district. Some 100 kilos of
vegetables are sold every day.
In due course, Tibin wants to develop a model farming institute to train youngsters in natural farming.
Tibin Parakal and George K Jose with their friends working in their farm
Tibin and George are indirectly involved in farming 400 acres of land, as advisers.
They continue to farm their 25 acres of land taken on lease. "Our
life is dedicated to farming. We want others to do zero budget natural
farming too. That is why we work as advisers.
"When actors like Mammootty start farming, we hope that it will inspire more people to engage in natural farming.
"We know we will survive as farmers. Our dream is to popularise
Palekarji's natural farming for the betterment of nature, people and
society as a whole," Tibin Parakal concludes.
