natural farming

For Reddy, the satisfaction of seeing his crops and his home town thrive are a big enough incentive to continue natural farming practices for the foreseeable future.

“It was always a dry region but we knew when it will rain and people used to farm accordingly,” said 69-year-old Malla Reddy, who runs a non-profit that encourages natural farming practices in the region.

Manohar quit his job as a mechanical engineer in Bengaluru, sometimes called “India’s Silicon Valley,” to take up natural farming in his home town.

Reddy, the director of Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre, and the farmers his organization supports use methods known as natural farming and agroforestry to avoid spoiling the land.

Natural farming replaces all chemical fertilizers and pesticides with organic matter such as cow dung, cow urine and jaggery, a type of solid dark sugar made from sugarcane, to boost soil nutrient levels.