Journey of Palaniammal from being a landless women to a model organic farmer

“When I came to this house, we had nothing, no land and no livestock. Our relentless hard work for over 30 years has reaped benefits and now we have 170 native cows, 300 goats and 5 acres of land” says Palaniammal akka with her eyes brimming with confidence. Palaniammal hailing from Thotampatti, Kovilpatti is an inspiration and an epitome of success. “We were struggling even to manage basic amenities and we had 3 kids in the family as well. I asked my husband and father-in-law to buy a cow to manage the milk needs of the children. We have slowly improved from there and reached the position we are in.” She energetically shared her story while feeding me boiled thatai payiru (red cow pea) from her farm in the newly set up goat shed.

She is very interested in organic farming and a keen observer and learner. She has experimented by planting 23 varieties of crops including millets, pulses, vegetables and unique crops like cumin in a small home garden plot. She has an integrated rain fed organic farm with multi-cropping model and has dug a farm pond to conserve the rain water. She has segregated her farm into various plots and grows a combination of 11 crops – various millets, pulses and oil seeds in a plot and Ragi (finger millet), kambu (Pearl millet) and maize separately in the remaining plots. The maize crop failed this time due to lack of rain. However, she is fighting the uncertainty in rain and climate change with all her might and farms like hers are models of resilience for dry land farmers.

Palaniammal follows simple organic farming practices centered around livestock. Her husband takes the livestock for grazing every morning and returns in the evening. She manages the farm on her own and her husband is very supportive of her. “We are losing our grazing land due to various projects like solar parks. My husband walks 5-10 kms away for grazing our livestock” she said. Markets have also not been fair to farmers like Palaniammal. “We depend on local traders and local mandi for our markets. The price keeps fluctuating and we don’t get fair price for our produce especially during harvest time” she said. But, Palaniammal and her family continue to work hard and put their earnings back to the land. “I like goats a lot. If you are taking a photo, take it with a goat kid in my hand” was her parting words.