Tuesday 4 September 2018

Growing Corn for Popcorn

Growing Corn for Popcorn 
Thought to start a small business. 3 basic Aim of my business.
1. Business need to be Agriculture Related.
2. Need to be grown and processed by ourselves.
3. The people in every age  need to like the product.
4. The cost of the product should be Low.
5. Should be easily delivered.

Thought of Popcorn, as it satisfies all the Five basic aims. At this period, Looking to take up the survey with the people. Need to analyse what the people are thinking. If the Popcorn business is started, need to analyse the sales.

you can also send your suggestions through facebook.

Wednesday 29 August 2018

Community Supported Agriculture in India

When I searched for "CSA meaning" in Google, the result is as shown below

Community Supported Agriculture

     CSA Stands for Community Supported Agriculture. CSA allows city residents to have direct access to high quality, fresh produce grown locally by regional farmers. When you become a member of a CSA, you're purchasing a “share” of vegetables from a regional farmer.

In most of the Countries CSA is implemented and was running successfully by the farmers. One of my collegue where i met him at Annadana has started a CSA in Italy. You can visit their page. https://m.facebook.com/camasarot/
  • Where they grow food in Raised beds. (To know about Raised bed Farming click here)
  • No tractors are used. 
  • They use simple hand tools like seeder, wheel hoe for ploughing, weeder, etc..
Community Supported Agriculture in india

      While searching for CSA in India I came through Navadharshanam Trust near Thally road, Hosur taluk. Where they Work with Partnership with the Local farmers and Consumers. You can Visit there page here.

here is a good book where you can learn about creating and managing FPO About CSA
   The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a partnership between the Growing farmers and the consumers where the profits and loss in the farming is shared.

How to Plan ?

  •  For the Delivery of the vegetables to the consumers, farmers need to plan up for the pickup centres where consumers will get their shares once a week or twice a week. 
  • The consumers has to choose the requirement of the vegetables, greens, fruits, at the time of registration.
  • They can choose to get a basket of 4-15 kg Mixed vegetables and 2-5 bunches of Greens every week.
  • The Local Farmers need to plan accordingly to Grow the quantity of vegetables and greens Ordered by consumers.
Conclusion :

The CSA Method is really a helpful for both the ends, as the Profit or Loss is equally shared between the farmers and consumers.
CSA can't be implemented in rural areas especially countries in India, as Maximum people occupation is farming.
CSA can work well in urban areas.
If Government takes some good Initiatives regarding Community Assisted Agriculture, we don't need to Import edible consumables from any other country.  India's agrarian import bill for 2015-16  Rs 1,402,680,000,000. Click here

References:
  • NFSM
  • Better India
  • Google

Friday 27 July 2018

How to know whether your vegetables are organic or chemically grown ?

we have some few ways to know whether the food or vegetables which we consume are organically or chemically grown. It depends on Appearance, Taste, Size, Insects, Smell Test, Cooking time, etc...

Courtesy: DNAINDIA

Appearance
     If it is naturally and organically grown, no two items will look identical... ever! It's just not possible to find two things that look absolutely alike in nature. No two leaves of the same mango tree will ever look 100% alike. Similarly, each apple, mango or even grain will always look different from another. Their colour, shape, structure will never be uniform. There will, for instance, be different shades of yellow in your moong dal instead of the uniformly bleached yellow of the regular packaged dal.



Size Up
    Fruits, vegetables and grains won't be huge in size. So while it is okay to go "ooh aah!" over huge potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, eggplants, cauliflower, capsicum and the humble lauki, or bottle gourd, it is better not to transfer them to your plate. There are, of course, special cases in which people do grow large-sized fruits and vegetables organically as well, but they are not the norm and are difficult to find.

Your Insect Friends
    Keedas (worms) in your grains are actually good news. Naturally grown sabut daals (like moong sabut, or urad sabut), atta, maida, brown rice, white rice and other grains will get keedas after two-three months and especially in the rains... because keedas too know that non-organic food is just not edible. So don't jump up and down when you see the worms; all you need to do is wash the grain or sun them out like our grandmothers would and still live on to a 100 years. Keedas don't contaminate your food, pesticides do. Similarly, if you see a few holes in the leaves of the greens you are buying, pick up the bunch; it means it is not heavily 'pesticided'. And one rule of thumb to follow with greens is this: after washing them well, give a final rinse of salt water for two-three minutes. This helps remove germs and residue.

Tasty
    Natural is just tastier. When you cook organic vegetables, you will realise that you need less spices as there is so much natural flavour. Similarly, organic fruits are juicier as they are allowed to ripen on the tree. Otherwise, fruits are usually plucked when green and then gassed to ripen and increase shelf life. In the case of a banana, your taste buds will speak up because the pesticide fruit has more water due to the spraying of acetylene gas. Unfortunately, most mangoes today are artificially ripened and apples have the maximum pesticides. The adage 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' is actually only for organic apples.

Healthier 
    Organic feels healthier, is far lighter on the digestive system and also helps reduce acidity and gas related GI issues. You will feel a perceptible difference soon enough.

The Smell Test
    The aroma and texture of organic food is totally different — very potent, in fact. Organic spices, for instance, will have a strong aroma and flavour as they retain their oil content. In non-organic spices, the oils have been extracted and sold separately so they are devoid of any oil. Plus they are usually adulterated, so you need to use more to get the same result. Try ajwain/laung/zeera... just eat it raw and you'll know the difference. Your tongue will have a strong sensation after half a teaspoon of organic ajwain. Similarly, organic apples have a divine fragrance; keep a crate of organic apples in the house to find out. One problem though is that industries now do a good job of recreating the original smell. The smell of pure ghee, for example, is added in the lab. Some just add the fragrance to make you think you are buying pure ghee, whereas you could actually be buying something totally nutritionless and worthless. So be careful.


Cook Faster
     Organically grown food always cooks much faster; in fact if you are a multi-tasker, be careful as you might just burn the dish if you go out to peep in the garden while it is cooking. Food with pesticides needs to be cooked for much longer periods.

Certification
      Though not a norm in India yet, sometimes fruits and vegetables meant for exports do land up in the local market and have a sticker on them that can be checked. (4 digit PLU — price look up code  the sticker basically means grown with pesticides; 5 digit codes starting with 8 means GM grown, 5 digit codes starting with 9 means organically grown. In India, we basically have the regular 4 digit PLU which indicates that it is grown with pesticides).

Shelf Life
      It is a myth that organic fruits and vegetables spoil faster; stored in a refrigerator they last for a long time.