Know Your Farmer
An MBA by qualification, Mr. Reddy initially worked in manufacturing and construction domains and he was also a supplier of IT Hardware components to the defence sector. He has setup his own IT consulting company and has advised clients across the world. In the year 2002 he wanted to pursue his dream of providing healthy nutritious food to the community and he along with few likeminded people acquired 800 acres pristine farms near Nellore. He started farming in the year 2007 a year of global economic turmoil and he withstood the difficult times, and he has brought the entire land parcel into cultivation with state of art Infrastructure and technology.
He is currently cultivating 200 acres of pulses and 500 acres of rice in one season and in the second season he is growing leguminous crops in the paddy fields as part of sustainable agriculture practices. All the pesticides, weedicides plant nutrients used are completely organic and are produced within the farm. His products are tested and certified by an internationally reputed laboratory as residue free and free from harmful pesticides as per APEDA and FSSAI standards.
He also has a mango plantation of 100 acres and is growing “Bangenpalli” a native variety of mangoes. The farming activities are based on “Natural Organic Farming” methodologies and the mangoes are grown, harvested and handled without using any chemicals.
He has also set up an organic manure-manufacturing unit with three hundred A2 desi animals. The animals are reared on “free range” approach with no commercial intent which means happy cows and happy young lot. The animals are milked only to make curd, ghee and Butter milk which are used along with cow manure to make organic plant nutrients, weedicides and pesticides Jeevamurtham and Panchakavya for captive consumption.
Mr. Venkat Reddy a postgraduate in management studies from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. After passing out of my college I took up marketing jobs with few companies and in the year 2005 I returned to my village near Pullipera Near Guntur and started natural farming. I’ve started this with few of my friends and today we are have grown to over 100 acres of natural farming with backend connects with many farmers from our village. Today we have over 22 employees of which more than 15 members are woman. We are in the process of registering our FPO.
Kollipara mandal farmers association” We do lot of value added products like flavoring powders with curry leaves, flax seeds, moringa leaves , turmeric , chilly powders, grounded coriander and jeer powders. We also do many varieties of sweets and savories using organic and naturally grown ingredients and supply to many customers Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana.
Anusha Jookuri, did her B.Pharmacy, MS in Australia, worked as IT consultant for Infosys in USA and returned to India in pre Covid. As she always wanted to be social entrepreneur, she realized that access to ‘pure honey’ is a huge task to consumers and decided to be a Beekeeper. She quit her IT job and took up beekeeping as her profession. She firmly believes that growing bees is the best way to protect the environment. Anusha got trained on beekeeping from NIRD and started with 10 boxes and now expanded to 100 boxes.
As a beekeeper, Anusha not only extracts pure honey but helps farmers in pollination through which farmers get better production.
She keeps her bee boxes in the organic farms across Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, where there is no exposure to pesticides and chemicals. It creates a great ecosystem for the bees to roam around and provide pure honey for all of us. Anusha is also planning to start Beeswax, Bee Pollen, Royal Jelly and many other byproducts of honey extraction.
Sudhanya is grateful to Ms.Anusha for being such a progressive
Thanks to our progressive farmer Mr. Paradha Saradhi who is committed to cultivate the best farming possible for all of us.
Mr. Paradha Saradhi is well known for using natural and organic farming practices, but not many are aware of his educational background of having an MSc. in Computers with over 11 years of work experience with notable MNCs. So having left his stable job and years of hard work in that area might sound surprising to some, but having generations of famers as part of his heritage, it made complete sense.
He is completely self-taught! He wanted to farm but realized there wasn’t enough rain to help him, so he did his research and found Natural Farming techniques, and started from scratch. Soon, he was doing so well that he could leave his job and the security it offered and pursue his dream full time. Talk about being bold! He not only uses Natural Farming techniques but he also teaches them to other farmers, so they too can benefit from this. He formed a group with farmers and they produced 100 tonnes of organic fruit and vegetables which generated over 1 crore in revenue for the farmers. Mr. Paradha Saradhi organizes workshops and spreads his knowledge to tell farmers and every day people that there is income to be made in farming and that a corporate job isn’t the only way to live a full life.
He has started M/s. Anatha Naturals Farmers Producer Company and is working closely with sector experts and knowledge institutions in promoting natural farming practices. Sudhanya is proud to be partnering and promoting M/s. Anantha Naturals!