Abstract

Sarvathobhadram-Organic–Farmers Cooperative was helpful in supporting small and marginal farmers in customizing, adapting, and tailoring the system to their specific requirements. The Farmers Club, which has 50 members, was founded in May 2020 to create additional cash while also encouraging farmers to shift to organic farming using System of Rice Intensification (SRI). The club’s mission is to ensure food security, livelihood, and entrepreneurship in the Anthikad Block Panchayat. The project addressed climate change and resilience, collaborating with government departments and utilizing convergence to maximize the schemes accessible to farmers in panchayath. The transformation was sluggish
initially, but it accelerated over time, indicating that farmers have variable levels of satisfaction based on a variety of circumstances. Very young rice seedlings are planted singly in a grid pattern in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a management strategy for irrigated rice production. Throughout the whole growth season, the soil is kept moist but welldrained. Rice cultivation in the wetland starts with dewatering low-lying fields. In most places, permanent bunds have been constructed around fields. A network of barrages across the canal and at estuarine mouths has stopped saltwater to move inwards into their fields. A pumping operation system (in and outflow) has locally developed to pump out water
surplus and at the time of shortage, water pumped into the canal and then into the field from the river. If saltwater from the estuaries enters the field water pumped using modern pump-sets, to channels around through bunds. In order to minimize the risks and calamities brought on by climate change, the farmers’ organisations are aiming to fulfil SDG13 on climate action, which calls for enhanced resilience and the capacity to adapt local solutions. This paper examines the changing trend in the area after adopting organic farming using the SRI method, the increase in production, and the success of the convergence method. It also attempts to find out various constraints faced by farmers during the paradigm shift from conventional methods to organic and the results proven that SRI should be considered as a potential cultivation method for all farmer’s groups (Padasekharam).

Keywords: Sarvathobhadram-Organic; Kole wetland; Estuarine mouths; Thanniyam gram panchayat; organic Jyothi rice; Convergence method; Jeevamirtham; Natural methods; System of Rice Intensification