Mysuru Karnataka: 23-12-2018: Mysuru Winter Festival Logo | Photo Credit: M_A_SRIRAM
Over 60 farmers and women’s groups likely to set up stalls
The Krishnaraja boulevard in front of the Law Court complex here will be converted into an organic farm produce mela between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on December 30 as part of the ongoing Mysuru Winter Festival.
An estimated 60 to 80 organic farmers and women’s groups are expected to set up stalls on one side of the boulevard, starting from Mahatma Gandhi’s bust in front of Law Court complex till the Crawford Hall premises.
Deputy Director of Agriculture, Mysuru, Somashekar told The Hindu that organic farm produce and value-added millet products will be available at the mela.
Ramesh, president of the Federation of Mysuru, Mandya and Chamarajanagar Regional Organic Farmers’ Association, said about 35 different organic items, including rice, ragi, jaggery, pulses, spices, dry fruits, besides value-added eatables like chakli and chutney powder, will be made available. Mr. Ramesh said the federation is represented by more than 6,000 organic farmers from the three districts, besides scores of women’s self-help groups that deal in value addition of the organic produce.
Chitra Santhe
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Krishnaraja boulevard, a Chitra Santhe or exhibition-cum-sale of artefacts will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Mysuru district administration has cancelled the Open Street festival during the ensuing Winter Festival in the backdrop of complaints of alleged harassment and molestation of women during the event held at Krishnaraja boulevard during Dasara earlier this year.
In view of the complaints, the district administration has not only scrapped the Open Street festival, but has also issued instructions to wind up Chitra Santhe and the mela by 5 p.m.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Mysuru – December 24th, 2018
Y. Eshwar Rao has taken up natural farming on his entire 25 acres of land.
Ballari farmer opts for Palekar model of agriculture
Y. Eshwar Rao, a progressive farmer in Vijayapura camp of Ballari taluk, has opted for natural farming on a sprawling 25-acre land.
He has been following the Palekar model of agriculture, including integrated farming, in his experiment since two years.
Mr. Rao says the yield, as of now, is not important. But what matters is that the soil health has been considerably improving and this has a lot of value.
“For 25 years, I adopted the conventional method of cultivation. I have used chemical fertilizers and pesticides and got good yield too. But after getting to know about organic/natural farming and the Palekar model of agriculture with thrust on zero budget farming, I decided to give it a try and adopted it on my entire piece of land,” he told The Hindu.
Mr. Rao said that he has never met Mr. Palekar, but acquired knowledge by reading his books and watching videos on the subject.
Sharing his experience, he said under natural farming, the input cost was less compared to farming using fertilizers and pesticides.
Presently, Mr. Rao has cultivated sugarcane on about 10 acres, fig on 8 acres, banana on about 2 acres, guava in 3 acres, and paddy on 2.5 acres. In addition, he has also taken up inter-cropping raising beans, cowpea, and drumsticks, which will not only supplement his income but also help increase nitrogen fixation. He has made use of drip irrigation, a facility that he had already had. The drip facility is also used to supply organic fertilizer. He uses manual labour for spraying organic pesticides.
According to him, the labour cost was on the higher side in the initial stage but dependence on it was coming down gradually.
“I will be happy to share my experience with other farmers and also guide them properly if they are willing to adopt natural farming,” he says.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by M. Ahiraj / Ballari – October 03rd, 2018
Raahul Khadaliya, 36, founder, Studio ABCD, started the dialogue around reusing waste in 2011. That was when sustainability had yet not become a buzzword. “Clients didn’t want to pay extra for sustainable practices,” says Khadaliya, a NIFT Bengaluru graduate, whose design firm helped businesses with branding and visual communication with a focus on sustainability.
With an idea to launch a project that was sustainable from a social, innovation and environmental impact, Khadaliya, started The Second Life Project in 2012 that was upcycling newspapers using traditional block printing technique to turn discarded paper into gift wrapping paper.
“Block printers are losing their livelihood to machine printed products. The idea was to think of an alternative livelihood for these craftsmen. It had three purposes — waste management, sustainable livelihoods and to raise consumer awareness on reusing waste,” he adds.
Over time, Khadaliya realised that a large amount of paper was also wasted in printing presses. “There is 5-8% of wastage when brochures and other such things are printed. On a large scale that amounts to a lot. These end up in landfills or waste because there’s no place to store them,” he says.
It was then that the idea of weaving handloom from waste paper began to take shape. After eight months of research, Khadaliya built a paper weave loom, a redesigned version of the handloom. Made from waste wood, it can weave flat substances into raw material to be used further. “While our current focus is on paper, in future, we have identified waste materials like rubber tube strips and flex banners, which are a great nuisance, to be turned into woven handloom. The loom works completely on renewable human energy and the entire process is green,” he adds.
While making garment is not possible from this woven handloom, it can be used for panelling in interiors, making removable partitions, linings, wall art, gift wrapping. “We are currently looking at funds to scale this up. In future, we will collaborate with nonprofits to increase production. The final aim is to build a cooperative like the Lijjat Papad and provide meaningful and sustainable livelihoods to artisans and people,” Khadaliya says
According to Sunitha Jayaram, product lead, Saahas Zero Waste, a socio-environmental enterprise that believes in a circular economy, an innovation like this can help raise awareness about not only waste produced by different industries but also how to put that to good use. “Using the waste of one industry as a raw material for another is what circular economy is. Once people see products that come out of waste, it can also help behavioural change towards reduce, reuse and recycle,” Jayaram adds.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / ET Home> Magazine> Panache / by Ipsita Basu, ET Bureau / May 24th, 2018
The proposed variety is an improvement on the Amrapali variety, to get red colour from Vanraj
The biggest mangoes (Tenneru variety from Andhra Pradesh), with each fruit weighing around 2 kg, alongside smaller varieties. | Photo Credit: Handout E Mail
If mango is the king of fruits, the Alphonso variety is the king among mangoes due to its taste, attractive colour and moderate size. However, horticultural scientists are in the process of developing another elite mango variety, which is said to be superior to Alphonso.
What is a matter of pride for the State as well as the Garden City of Bengaluru is that the research is taking place in the Hessarghatta-based Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR).
Dr. M. Shankaran, principal scientist in IIHR’s Fruit Crops Division, told The Hindu that the researchers are trying to get ‘red shoulders’ for the proposed elite variety from the Vanraj variety of mango. “The new variety is going to be an improvement on the Amrapali variety of mangoes by getting characteristics responsible for colour from the Vanraj variety,” he said. “The research has entered the fifth year,” he pointed out.
The new elite variety is expected to be preferred for exports, he said.
IIHR researchers are also working towards developing mango varieties that can be grown in saline soil. If successful, several non-mango regions of the country, particularly coastal areas, may see cultivation of the fruit, Dr. Shankaran said.
For this, the scientists have chosen root stocks from the natural varieties, which have resistance to salinity. These root stocks will be grafted with other improved varieties to get good quality fruits with resistance to salinity, he said. “Presently, such natural varieties do not have quality fruits while the varieties with quality fruits do not have resistance to salinity,” he noted.
Meanwhile, the three-day mango and jackfruit diversity fair began on Thursday at the IIHR campus in Hessarghatta with 350 varieties of mango and 150 varieties of jackfruits, including those grown by farmers, on display.
The varieties of mango on display include appe midi (used as pickles), table varieties and those preferred for juice. A dozen exotic varieties from various countries, including the US, too were on display.
The jackfruit collection had interesting variety in terms of taste, colour and size.
Custodian of genetic diversity
In a bid to encourage farmers to protect native varieties, the IIHR on Thursday nominated farmer Shankaraiah from Hulikatte of Gubbi taluk in Tumakuru district as custodian of an unique variety of jackfruit being grown by his family.
The jackfruit with copri red flakes is very sweet in taste and weighs around 3 kg. As per the agreement, IIHR scientists will take up multiplication of the variety and also sell them. Proceeds from the sale would be shared by the farmer and the institute.
This is the second such farmers’ variety to be identified by the IIHR under the custodian of genetic diversity scheme. Recently, another jackfruit variety titled ‘Siddu jackfruit’ from the same district had been chosen.
Cine personality-turned-environmentalist Suresh Heblikar inaugurated the three-day fair in the presence of environmentalist Yellappa Reddy and IIHR Director Dr. M.R. Dinesh and Additional Director of Horticulture Dr. Parashivamurthy.
A mango that weighs two kg
It was not just the variety, but also the variations in size, colour and shape that mesmerised visitors.
The fair displayed the biggest mangoes with each fruit weighing around 2 kg (Tenneru variety of Andhra Pradesh) and several small-size varieties whose fruits weighed just around 40 gm.
There was one variety from Andhra Pradesh titled ‘elephant head’, as it resembled the head of a pachyderm.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by B S Satish Kumar / May 24th, 2018
From suave bags fashioned from tetra paks, denim and other textile wastes to fancy tea coasters made using motherboards and vinyl records, Rimagined’s range of upcycled products is indeed a revelation.
India produces 1,00,000 metric tonnes of solid waste on a daily basis, and this amount is higher than the combined solid waste generated by many other countries.
While one can argue that the demographic and area-population ratio perspectives are skewed and debatable while comparing such statistics, it is high time that we admit that the country has failed to manage the insurmountable waste generated by an increasingly burgeoning population, and is in the throes of a crisis.
Therefore, instead of routing the waste to overflowing landfills and putting together half-baked and clumsy measures that are hazardous to the environment, we have to start looking for solutions that are sustainable and can reduce our waste burden.
India’s waste burden. Source: Flickr.
Come to think of it, before materials like plastic and styrofoam entered the country, what exactly were our grandparents or great-grandparents using in place of every synthetically generated item that we have become habituated to?
It wasn’t as though they weren’t practising waste management. On the contrary, their traditional way of life incorporated upcycling even before coinage of the term, and our forefathers truly believed in and practised zero wastage to perfection.
Upcycling is once again becoming popular in India but is currently an option for a limited few. This could be attributed to our age-old aversion towards garbage, and the offensive idea of using products that are made out of somebody else’s waste.
However, some ventures are making a mark with their range of upcycled products in recent times, and we bet that most people wouldn’t be able to distinguish from regular products if not enlightened beforehand.
Rimagined is one such entrepreneurial venture founded by Bengaluru resident Shailaja Rangarajan in 2016, which not only provides supercool and interesting upcycled products in diverse categories such as furniture, jewellery, clothes, and home décor but also employs women from underprivileged sections of the society to offer them a dignified source of livelihood.
With 15 years of experience as a business consultant in the IT sector, Shailaja’s tryst with waste management began when the local residents association began actively practising waste segregation and in-house composting.
The brains behind the venture, Shailaja Rangarajan.
This paved the way for her to begin volunteering with two NGOs—Whitefield Rising and subsequently, Solid Waste Management (SWM)—for about three-and-a-half years.
“This period was a great eye-opener for me, given the massive mounds of waste generated in Bengaluru on a daily basis. Looking at my little daughter, I often wondered what kind of world were we leaving for our children that was overflowing with garbage and extremely depleted of resources. During this volunteering period, I noticed that a large percentage of waste could be put to better use instead of being cast away to landfills. Recycling was an available alternative, but I felt that alone wasn’t enough,” says Shailaja to The Better India.
At that point, she knew many people who were already practising upcycling but in a restricted manner. For them, their customer base was confined to their friends’ circle, and their ventures weren’t about making money or profit.
Understanding that the waste crisis was man’s own creation, she decided to step down into the field herself and spent the next seven to eight months conducting extensive research on upcycling and meeting people associated with waste management in every possible scope.
This would eventually lead her to conceptualise and give wings to Rimagined.
She quit her job and in April 2016, she placed Rimagined on an online marketplace with 10 vendors and 60 products. To gain a greater reach and better visibility, she also put up stalls with these products at local events hosted in Bengaluru.
“The whole purpose of taking this forward was to drive upcycling as a movement rather than just selling products. Also, this was an opportunity to push for conscious consumption in an otherwise consumerism-driven population. Because our products were skilfully crafted with a trendy finish, it took our customers by complete surprise when they came to know these were upcycled products. The wow factor and word-of-mouth together helped in gradually taking Rimagined to greater heights,” Shailaja remembers.
Seven months later, she launched Rimagined as a label.
This happened thanks to an intervention from Devika Krishnan, a well-known designer in Bengaluru, which led to a collaboration, with Rimagined becoming the retail face for Joy@Work.
Devika Krishnan (behind, left) along with the womenfolk of Bengaluru unit. Courtesy: Rimagined.
With a production unit comprising a group of women artisans from a low-income background, Rimagined now envisioned to provide them sustainable livelihoods through upcycling.
“This also proved to be a great learning curve as now I got to witness every stage first-hand in a social entrepreneurial venture—right from waste procurement to the end sales. With a growing customer base and greater demand of products, Rimagined finally had its retail outlet set up in Whitefield in July last year, which is more on the lines of a prototype store,” she says.
In November, Shailaja visited her friend, Debopriya Biswas in Kolkata, who was a teacher at a special needs school for children hailing from underprivileged sections of the society.
“What I had noticed here was that many mothers spent close to 4-5 hours waiting for their children in the school premises. These were impoverished women whose financial state was in shambles due to the lack of opportunities, and we decided to change that,” she mentions.
Shailaja decided to expand the scope of Rimagined’s workforce. Following a discussion with the women who readily showcased interest, she chalked down a training period of three months.
“They surpassed my expectations, and within a month, production-ready pieces with quality finish were laid before my eyes. Now, we have a production unit in Kolkata with around 45 women, and another batch of 35 women are waiting to be trained. There is another team of 15 women in Odisha which will shortly materialise to reality as another production unit,” she proudly adds.
While the implementation of upcycling to this extent in itself is a noteworthy factor, what makes Rimagined’s undertaking even more significant is how the venture is helping women from financially strapped households to take control of their lives with dignity and pride.
“These talented women have proved that if they are given right opportunities, they too can shine. Through this venture, we want the women to rise over their financial circumstances and feel empowered through their capabilities and skills,” Shailaja clarifies.
From suave bags fashioned from tetra paks, denim and other textile wastes to fancy tea coasters made using motherboards and vinyl records, Rimagined’s range of upcycled products is indeed a revelation for even the most cynics.
The best part is that these are not too expensive when compared to other upcycled products in the market, thus giving an opportunity to people from all walks of life to consider purchasing upcycled products and become conscious and responsible consumers.
Also, each product that you see on Rimagined’s website has an assigned score based on the decomposition rate of its content materials and its contribution to overall waste.
Optimal utilisation of Tetra packs, broken glass pieces and fabric wastes to make new products. Courtesy: Rimagined.Stools made of fabric waste and bed sheets fashioned out of denims. Courtesy: Rimagined.
“This will give one an insight over the quantity of waste materials that he or she just pulled away from a landfill by purchasing any one of our products,” she explains.
Having upcycled approximately 60-70 tonnes of varying categories of waste until now, Shailaja hopes to take the concept of upcycling across the country as a movement and bring back the traditional way of living practised by our ancestors, besides helping the country manage its waste in a creative and sustainable manner.
Folks in Bengaluru can reach out to Rimagined if they wish to contribute old denim, fabric waste, e-waste and any segregated solid waste that they think can power their vision.
Rimagined will shortly flag off operations in Indiranagar, one of Bengaluru’s busiest zones, from a new retail unit and we wish the team a great and successful journey ahead.
To check Rimagined’s awesome range of upcycled products, click here. You can reach out to the team at contactus@rimagined.com.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
source: http://www.thebetterindia.com / The Better India / Home> Bengaluru / by Lekshmi Priya S / May 04th, 2018
City will join Dutch programme to promote use of bicycles among urban commuters
Come May, Bengaluru will have its first ‘Bicycle Mayor,’ or BM, with as many as 19 cycling enthusiasts in the city vying for the post.
The winner will get an opportunity to bring together the city’s cycling community and take up advocacy with the government to bring more bicycles onto the roads.
Honorary two-year position
The Bicycle Mayor, an honorary two-year position, is a global programme envisioned by the Amsterdam-based NGO ByCS. The group is targeting a world with 50% of all city trips covered by bicycles by 2030. Bengaluru will be the third city in the country to have a BM, after Baroda and Guwahati.
ByCS has joined hands with the Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF), an NGO, to introduce the programme in India. ESAF is one of the organisers of BCOS (the Bengaluru Coalition for Open Streets), which initiated the Cycle Day concept in October 2013.
The applicants for BM include cycling enthusiasts, activists and those who have been actively involved in making Bengaluru bicycle-friendly, said Manju George, Senior Programme Manager, ESAF, Bengaluru.
“The applications were open for ten days and closed on April 23. After May 12, we will make the announcement,” she said.
Cycling enthusiast and activist Murali H.R., involved with several bicycle projects in the city in coordination with the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), says there is a lot to be done to implement the existing regulations. “We have had DULT and BBMP for over 10 years now. We are partially successful. This [BM] will be a confidence booster for the work that we have been doing thus far.”
Nikita Lalwani, Bicycle Mayor of Vadodara. | Photo Credit: Email Handout
Nikita Lalwani, who was selected BM of Vadodara (Baroda) last year, is working to encourage corporate professionals and students to make use of bicycles regularly. Having represented India at the Bicycle Mayor summit in Amsterdam in 2017, Ms. Lalwani said, “We need to begin by changing the image that cycles have in our society.”
BM of Guwahati Arshel Akhter, who took charge recently, aims to start by working with educational institutions and corporate establishments to set up parking slots for bicycles, and encouraging more people to use bicycles regularly.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Shruthi H M / Bengaluru – April 30th, 2018
Kamala makes IRs. 30,000 a month after turning her Bengaluru house into a mushroom farm
A small house can turn into an urban farm, yielding a tidy income. That is what it did for 40-year-old Kamala, who gave up her job as a garment worker in Bengaluru and turned her house in a 1,200 sq. ft. plot into a mushroom farm.
Two decades of back-breaking work in different garment factories in the city convinced the woman, who has a pre-university education, that it was time to try something less strenuous. “The continuous hard work does not even give you enough time to visit the washroom. It started making me feel as though I was in jail,” she recalls.
She quit the garment job that was fetching her ₹8,000 a month and chanced upon an article on mushrooms in a magazine. Inspired, she went to Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), 4 km from her house on Tumakuru road on the city’s outskirts, and enrolled in a mushroom cultivation course.
“A short training session by experts was offered, after which I launched cultivation in my house about two years ago. It started with two to three kg a month. Now I grow 50 to 60 kg of oyster mushrooms a month without engaging labour, and earn a profit of about ₹30,000,” she says proudly.
What she cultivates is sold to hotels and vegetable shops regularly. Now that Ms. Kamala has mastered the basics, she has joined a training programme at IIHR on value addition: turning leftover mushrooms into sambar powder and ready-to-eat products.
Her quest now is to set up an unique hotel that is dedicated to mushroom dishes in her husband’s home town of Kushalanagar in Kodagu district. He works as a supervisor in a garment unit, and the couple have a daughter and a son.
“I know I have the potential to increase mushroom production five-fold. But I cannot raise the resources required for such an increase on my own. I am looking for government assistance in any form,” she says.
Ms. Kamala has become an example for her former colleagues in the garment industry, and some have adopted her business model. “People from farming families too can add to their incomes with mushrooms,” she says. On Thursday, she was honoured by the IIHR for her achievements at the inaugural session of its three-day national horticultural fair which attracted farmers from several States.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by B S Satish Kumar / Bengaluru – March 16th, 2018
Members of Savaya Krushika Grahaka Balaga re-packing organic rice purchased from farmers in north Karnataka. | Photo Credit: H_S_Manjunath
A group of consumers in Mangaluru has been purchasing produce directly from farmers in north Karnataka
The organic cultivation of foodgrains has brought some farmers in north Karnataka closer to a consumer group in Mangaluru.
The Savaya Krushika Grahaka Balaga (SKGB), a group of 45 like-minded consumers of organic produce in Mangaluru, have been purchasing organic foodgrains from 10 farmers in Bayaluseeme since August 2017.
The SKGB has purchased about 2 tonnes (2,000 kg) of produce six times since then. Members of the consumer group include doctors, engineers, bank employees, home makers and advocates.
The SKGB has a WhatsApp group and collects indents on the quantity of produce required by each member every month. The produce is purchased directly from the farmers.
Once the produce arrives in Mangaluru, members of the group repack it as per the demand.
The cost of produce, transportation, repacking is calculated and the price per kilogram fixed. The produce is then taken home.
“We don’t stock any produce, as only the required quantity of produce is purchased,” Sameera Rao E. Kinya, secretary of SKGB, told The Hindu.
Explaining the benefits to both farmers and consumers, he said that the consumers got produce at a cheaper rate as compared to purchasing from organic outlets or shops. “We have found that organic produce need not be costly like in the open market,” he said.
As the farmers have been identified after thorough examination and field visits by some organic farmers from Dakshina Kannada, the members need not have any doubt about the quality of the produce.
On the other hand, the growers got a good price for their produce.
Mr. Rao said that the SKGB mainly purchases foodgrains because they are not grown in the coastal belt. The suppliers are marginal farmers with land holdings of up to 20 acres.
If more consumers form such mini groups and purchase produce directly, it would ensure a sustained market for organic farmers. It would also prompt more farmers to go the organic way, he said.
To create more avenues to their suppliers, the SKGB organised a two-day organic mela in Mangaluru from February 24 at Balam Bhat Hall.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Mangaluru / by Raviprasad Kamila / February 24th, 2018
Dry grass from the savannahs is harvested between December and May every year and also used as cattle fodder during the trying summer months. | Photo Credit: M.A. SRIRAM
Soppinabettas are vital sources of mulch and manure, fruit and fodder
The small, door-less thatched hut — only large enough to shelter one person — looks out of place, standing alone on the forest’s edge. As we approach it, an acrid smell hits us. Grey smoke wafts from a wood fire on the floor, above which is a large batch of uppage or Malabar tamarind halfway through the process of curing.
Rudra Gowda, an areca and paddy farmer in Hukkali village in Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada district, collected the uppage from a soppinabetta (a forest patch allocated to him) nearby. “We get only ₹80 per kilo of uppage now, but it is very useful,” he says. “The oil from the seeds is good for cooking and we make alcohol with the fruit.”
The soppinabettas of northern Karnataka harbour a staggering diversity of trees, and fruit extraction is just one of the economic activities that these heavily-managed forests support. Areca (and sometimes paddy) farmers in districts including Shimoga, Chikmagalur and Uttara Kannada have usufruct rights over these foliage or leaf manure forests: they collect green foliage and dry leaf litter to use as crop manure.
The foliage also arrests weed growth and soil erosion, while maintaining soil moisture. Wood collected from these forests are a primary source of fuel. And as for medicine, “everyone in our village knows what plant to harvest from the forests for common illnesses,” says Rudra.
Post-monsoon bounty
Soppinabettas often comprise savannahs and grasslands, where farmers graze their livestock. Post-monsoon, several grasses — locally known as karada (often a mix of native grass species like Themeda triandra) and prized as a mulch plant for areca – grow in the bettas. Farmers take special care to fence off their livestock from the bettas during this time. Dry grass is harvested between December and May every year and also used as cattle fodder during the trying summer months.
While farmers have extracted these resources and nurtured these forests for around 2,000 years, they got official rights to use them in the late 1860s when the British allocated patches to farming households to prevent them from harvesting vegetation from natural forests. “The British gave us these lands,” says Raghunath Gowda, who owns a 25-acre areca farm in Ammenalli village in Uttara Kannada and has rights over almost 225 acres of soppinabetta. “Now the forest department has given us papers to support our rights after a re-survey.”
On paper, for every acre of areca crop, farmers have access to up to nine acres of forest; paddy cultivators receive up to four acres for each acre of rice in some areas.
Dry grass from the savannahs is harvested between December and May every year and also used as cattle fodder during the trying summer months. | Photo Credit: M.A. SRIRAM
Scientists studying the soppinabettas of Sringeri hill town (Chikmagalur district) in 2011 found that individual farmers collect around 31 metric tonnes of leaf litter and approximately 19 metric tonnes of green foliage every year.
Yet, despite such high resource extraction and human activity, soppinabettas remain crucial habitats for biodiversity. Scientists observed as many as 114 bird species in the areca-betta landscape of Uttara Kannada; other teams have recorded more than 220 species of trees and 41 orchid species in Sringeri. Then there are the mammals: Raghunath says he has seen wild boar, leopards, gaur and sambhar in these lands.
But today, encroachment and over-extraction threaten the bettas. Legal provisions to create more agricultural areas have also caused reductions in betta lands in some areas, says Sharachchandra Lele, Senior Fellow at Bengaluru’s Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment, who has studied the soppinabetta system in Uttara Kannada. “In some districts, there has been extensive conversion to coffee or other plantation crops,” he says.
A sense of ownership
In 2012, scientists found that areca plantations consume six times more compost than paddy fields but generate almost four times more revenue; so farmers in Sringeri were increasingly converting paddies to areca plantations, putting a strain on bettas.
And yet, “It turns out that betta use is sustainable because there is individual control over them,” says Lele. “It has belied the claims of British and Indian foresters that such rights would, or has, led to outright forest degradation.”
“The tragedy of the commons has been largely averted because of the sense of ownership each farmer has over his betta,” says Indu K. Murthy, consultant scientist at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute for Sciences. “A lot depends on the individual farmer and how he manages his soppinabetta.”
To ensure that farmers do not extract too much vegetation, Karnataka’s forest laws mandate that every hectare of betta should contain a minimum of 100 trees, of which 50 should be forest species. Raghunath however, claims he does not know of such conditions. And yet the importance of conserving the land is clear to him.
“Without soppinabettas, our areca plantations will not be productive. So we make sure it is well maintained and that we extract vegetation from different areas of the betta each year.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Agriculture – Field Notes / by Aathira Perinchery / January 06th, 2018
Alyia Phelps-Gardiner Krumbiegel | Photo Credit: Bhagya Prakash K
Following a report in The Hindu about the crumbling state of Krumbiegel Hall, Alyia Phelps-Gardiner Krumbiegel, Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel’s great granddaughter, expresses her displeasure over the neglect of the historical structure.
In her letter to The Hindu, Ms. Krumbiegel writes about how her forefather realised that he had found home when he first touched Indian soil at the age of 26. Excerpts from the letter:
My great grandfather was a master at economic botany, encouraging the exchange of plants and seeds. He continued this at Lalbagh Botanical Garden. His very last planning assignment for the Indian government when he was 90-years-old was to plan the Rajghat memorial gardens (New Delhi). Royalty protected him when the British saw an enemy in every German. He gave Karnataka so much.
The lecture hall which he spent so much time in was renamed Krumbiegel Hall in his honour. Which now brings me to the sad state of how Lalbagh (authorities) have treated a building named in honour of one of the five superintendents who made substantial differences to Lalbagh and Bangalore.
Was Krumbiegel Hall a heritage building or was is it not a heritage building? In 2013, it seemed to be a heritage building.
I really have heard it all ….. assurance that it was under restoration. Broken promises.
‘Whatever he touched he adorned’ is written on his tombstone. But, a man who gave so much to the country he found a home in – he always wanted independence for India and was never afraid to voice these views while he lived and breathed India — his life’s work is slowly being wiped away to be memories in the wind.
Krumbiegel Hall runs deep in my veins. I’m very hopeful that the department will recognise that Krumbiegel Hall needs to be rebuilt with the original frontage restored and reinstated once again.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / November 16th, 2017
