Sivaganga District Collector P. Madhusudhan Reddy has urged the organic farmers in the region to register their native seed varieties with the seed certification officials to get more recognition in the market.
While speaking at an event organised by the Vaiyai Organic Farmers Federation, at Keeladi on Sunday, he said, "People like Nammalvar and Nel Jayaraman have taken plenty of steps to reform organic farming and re-launch many native seed varieties. It is nice to see farmers of this region coming together to preserve the native seeds here."
The Vaiyai Organic Farmers Federation, which includes farmers from the districts of Madurai, Sivagangai, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar and Dindigul, decided to bring back to market, the lost native paddy seed varieties of the region and hence kick-started the search for the same, this January.
The federation leader A. Sethupathi said, “When I met organic farming crusader Nammalvar in 2001, he had asked me to search for the native seed varieties in and around Madurai region, just like how the Delta region managed to find 170 native varieties and marketed them globally. Though my groundwork began a long time back, I started doing the fieldwork, with the help of the farmers in our federation, from the beginning of this year.”
After a lot of travelling, they managed to spot and collect 29 samples of native paddy seeds like Thillai Nayagam, Kurangu Samba, Aanai Komban, Thidagaal, Varapu Kudainjaan and Kuzhiyadichaan, in the region. The federation is also in the process of retrieving some native palm seed, oil seed and cotton varieties in the region, he said.
At the launch event to re-introduce these seed varieties, they were distributed to interested farmers who could cultivate them and bring a produce of about 2 kg or more, which can be used for marketing the paddy variety on a larger scale.
The government will help the organic farmers to improve their produce, the collector assured. He further said that he was happy that as per the request of many people in the region, the Tamil Nadu government had recently announced the establishment of an agriculture college in the district.
