Introduction

CIKS maintains a 11.14 acre organic farm in a village called Sukkankollai which is in the Maduranthakam taluk of Kanchipuram district in Tamil Nadu. It is 4 kms from the famous Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary.

Our experimental farm at Sukkankolai. The farm serves as an important hub for our experimentation, conservation and training work.

The farm is an important hub for several of our activities – experiments, conservation and training. Having a dedicated farm to carry out experimental work is a huge advantage – we can conduct experiments in tightly controlled environments as well as in natural field conditions. We also have facilities for conducting training programmes so that classroom sessions and field demonstrations can be easily carried conveniently at the same venue.

We also produce a variety of inputs on the farm that are made available to farmers in the area. These include biopesticides, green manure, medicinal plants and seeds.

The farm serves as an in-situ conservation centre for over a 100 indigenous paddy varieties and 30 indigenous vegetable varieties, many of which are rare, and have been brought back from the brink of extinction.

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FACILITIES / INFRASTRUCTURE

Training Centre

Our training centre at Sukkankollai.

We also have a small training centre in our farm. We have finished the first stage of construction and are in the process of raising resources for the construction of the second phase of the centre. Currently we have a training hall which can accommodate 60 trainees and a dormitory which can accommodate 25 people. The hall has audio-visual facilities that can be used to screen instructional films and digital slide presentations during training sessions.

We would be taking up the construction of the next phase shortly.

Rural Library

Next to the training centre is situated a small rural library, which will be stocked with a variety of books that would be useful for organic farmers. The library will include all the publications from CIKS, as well as a large number of books from other publishers. This library will cater to the trainees and also to the villagers in the vicinity.

Biopesticide unit

Some of the equipment at our Biopesticide unit.

A biopesticide unit functions from this farm which produces plant based biopesticides for the farm and also for the nearby villages. These biopesticides are produced by the local village women who are given training by our staff. Standardised storage forms of biopesticides are also prepared here.

Shade House

We have a shade house of 750 sq.ft. We raise medicinal plant saplings for our project villages in this shade house. We also conduct a number of experiments in this shade house.

The shade house.

The green house at our farm.

Poly house

We also have a poly house of 350 sq.ft. Here again several controlled experiments are undertaken.

Cattle

The Sukkankolai farm currently has 16 heads of cattle.

The farm has currently 16 heads of cattle maintained in a clean cattle shed. They are allowed to free graze during the day time and are also provided with organic fodder cultivated in the farm itself. The dung and urine are utilized for farming. The dung is used for vermicomposting and other composting methods. The urine is collected and diluted with water before it is used for the crops. Different products like panchakavya, amirtha karaisal are made utilizing the products obtained from the cattle and used for organic farming.

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CONSERVATION / CULTIVATION

Seed conservation and multiplication

A nursery where indigenous paddy varieties are conserved.

One of the main activities undertaken in this farm is indigenous seed conservation. Every year more than 100 varieties of paddy and 30 varieties of vegetables are cultivated (according to the seasons). This enables farmers and other visitors who visit this farm to understand the characteristics of different varieties and choose the variety according to their requirement. The indigenous seeds are also multiplied year after year in this farm and the purity of the land races are maintained. It is a delight to watch the biodiversity on the field - a 100 different varieties of paddy can actually be seen growing here. In the months of October – December one can see the maximum number of standing crops in the field. The farm also serves as an in-situ conservation centre for preservation of these rare varieties.

Medicinal plant garden

A view of our medicinal plant garden at Sukkankolai.

The farm also hosts a medicinal plant garden which has around 75 types of important medicinal plants. There are display boards with scientific and common names and when you visit this farm the importance of these medicinal plants are also highlighted by our staff. Rare medicinal plants are also grown here.

Trees in the farm

The farm also maintains more than 50 varieties of trees. Some of them like mango, sapota are fruit yielding, some like neem and pongam are biopesticide yielding and some like teak are timber yielding. We have nearly 25 neem trees in a picturesque grove. We also have indigenous tamarind trees from Urigam in Tamil Nadu.

Biodiversity of Banana

Currently we cultivate 12 different varieties of banana in our farm.

Other crops

Besides paddy we also cultivate groundnut, sesame, toordhal and other pulses organically.

Organic fodder

Separate plots are maintained for cultivation of organic fodder. Different species of organic fodder are cultivated and provided to the cattle.

Model Kitchen garden

Our model kitchen garden demonstrates how a 2 cent plot is sufficient to grow enough vegetables for a family of 4 throughout the year.

A model kitchen garden is also maintained in this farm in about 2 cents. This is to demonstrate how a two cent plot is sufficient to grow enough vegetables for a family of 4 throughout the year. Different vegetables are cultivated in this plot according to the season. The families that live on the farm make use of these vegetables for their daily use. Besides this, visitors are also provided with organic vegetables in the food that is served for them.

Green manure and green leaf manure cultivation

We also cultivate a number of green manure crops like Daincha, Sunhemp before the main crop is cultivated. This is ploughed in before paddy is transplanted. Seed production of green manure is also undertaken. For obtaining green leaf manure we have planted gliricidia, subabul etc. as hedge plants.

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EXPERIMENTS / DEMONSTRATIONS

Experimental work

We also do experiments to standardize biopesticides, manure application etc. These experiments are done using the RBD method and is monitored by our technical team.

Our vermicompost shed.

Demonstration of composting techniques

The farm produces vermicompost on a large scale. Demonstrations of the production of vermicompost at different levels (commercial level, farm level and household level) are done in this farm. Besides vermicomposting other methods of compost preparation like the pit method, heap method and Nadep method of composting is also demonstrated here.

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