The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Leading by example

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Monday, Apr 28, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Leading by example

G. Nagaraja

An engineer by profession, Venkatasivaram Prasad takes to farming and adopts latest techniques to reap a rich yield

Venkatasivaram Prasad at his farm in Tadikalapudi.

TADIKALAPUDI (WEST GODAVARI DIST): Guduru Venkatasivaram Prasad, a technocrat from this upland village in West Godavari district, is a role model for the educated rural youths who are deserting their native villages in search of greener pastures.

Mr. Venkatasivaram Prasad, who did his Mechanical Engineering in Siddhartha Engineering College in Vijayawada in the early 80s, took up agriculture at a time when it dreads many a farmer.

Mr. Prasad returned to his native place after having worked in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab for 11 years as an engineer with a private company, thanks to his love for agriculture. Mr. Prasad might not be shortlisted for ‘Abhyudaya Rytu’ title. Yet, he adopts all the latest techniques in agriculture in his 25-acre land. He has raised oil palm with coco as inter-crop, cashew, lime, sweet orange, coconut and orange and undertaken drip irrigation coupled with organic farming through ‘Jeevamrutha’ technique. Mr. Prasad also has a couple of buffaloes of Murrah species, another pair of Ongole cows and a Shahiwala cross cow of Haryana breed. He uses milching machines for milking cows and buffaloes.

But the lack of motivation from the government agencies concerned and research organisations seemingly dampens his spirit. “My Ongole cows are on heat but they fail to conceive. My repeated queries to the authorities of the Department of Animal Husbandry failed to bring forth any solution yet”, he regrets. “Same is the case with scientists”, he adds. His oil palm plantations suffer crown damage and the problem was referred to the NRC for oil palm and the NRC scientists in turn sent the sample leaves to International Crops Research Institute for the semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) at Hyderabad for analysis. “It took eight long months for the outcome of leaf analysis to reach him. But my plantations continue to suffer crown damage,” he complains.

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