By Matters India Reporter

Patna: Hundreds of students and teachers from 22 schools on November 18 joined the harvest of organic rice at a farm attached to a Jesuit-managed bio reserve in Patna, capital of Bihar state in eastern India.

“These students are future of the country. If they develop interest in organic farming, it will pave the way for a sustainable agriculture growth,” said Jesuit Father Robert Athickal, the founder director of Tarumitra (friends of trees), addressing the harvesters.

The priest also said Tarumitra motivates and engages students to the join the harvest to make them understand agriculture, environment and the impact of climate change.

“Tarumitra has been promoting organic rice by cultivating in its organic farm and creating awareness for organic rice by engaging students, teachers and farmers in rural areas,” he added.

Bihar’s Agricultural Minister Prem Kumar, chief guest of the program, performed special prayers to Mother Earth before starting the harvest. The students and well-wishers sang songs and slogans as they harvested with traditional sickles.

Most students first gathered at Tarumitra dressed in their school uniforms.

Father Athicakl said Tarumitra started organic farming seven years back to bring health back to the dining table.

Tarumitra has been cultivating organic rice varieties of Mirchaiya, Manipuri and Jhilli, and also near-extinct varieties of paddy were being cultivated through organic methods, the Jesuit priest explained.

“We use no chemical fertilizers at all. Our cultivation of organic rice is real. It is fully based on organic substances prepared by the members of Tarumitra.”

He said in a bid to avoid use of pesticides, the Tarumitra members got dry branches of trees planted all over the field to attract Drongo birds which ate up many of the insects and thus controlled the pests.

“It is an old practice that we have been reviving for cultivation without pesticides.”

Devopriya Dutta, a Tarumitra official, said students were upbeat and expressed happiness over learning many things related to agriculture and organic farming for the first time.

Nandini, a student who joined the harvest, said the children had “a rare experience,” thanks to the initiative by Tarumitra. Another student said it was his first experience of harvesting in a farm. “Really, it was something different. I will not forget it and will spread the message of organic farming.”

Dutta said around 250 students from Patna, Delhi and overseas had participated in the plantation festival last July. “They got into wet, slushy and muddy field and actually planted rice seedlings,” she recalled.

This year, Tarumtra sowed three rare varieties of paddy — Bauna Mansuri, Kunjunju and Kakshan.

Veteran organic farmer trained in Japan, Margaret Molomoo, who supervises the entire organic farming, said it was time to take a break from the pesticide-laden rice cultivation which was further enervated by the heavily expensive chemical fertilisers.

“Poison is flowing out of our farms. It is high time we shifted our focus to organic farming — the only available option,” she said.

Tarumitra began the program in an effort to strike to strike an emotional chord between Our Mother Earth and students to help them practice and promote ecological sensitivity all around. This is the seventh consecutive year of organic farming where System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method is used for growing rice. SRI method was developed in 1983 by the French Jesuit priest Henri de Laulanié in Madagascar.