Dear Friends
We can make agriculture work for nutrition if we allow the practice of ecological agriculture to continue because of the bonus of uncultivated food we get from these farms will definitely answer some of the worst nutritional deficiency disorders.
Dry land Millet farmers’ treasured their knowledge about their resources, about their ecological agriculture, about their well being, about their living interface with nature and passed on to generation to generation.
If we closely understand we find that a very important component of millet cultivation is it’s embedded biodiversity. On their lands one cold see that s and millets stand next to pulses and pulses stand next to oilseeds and oilseeds stand next to vegetable. As a combination, millets, pulses, oilseeds and vegetables made a perfect combination of completely nutritious meal possible in the lives of the dry land people without having to spend a single paisa on outside food purchases.
Astonishingly within this gamete of ecological agriculture there is the issue of uncultivated foods which are also called as wild greens by people and designated as weeds by scientists.
It is a kind of ecological agriculture pattern that sustains uncultivated foods. Certain crops in certain seasons in certain agriculture fashion allow lot of greens to come up on their lands without consciously cultivating them.
Addition of farmyard manure enhances the growth of these multipurpose greens on their lands. Light wooden ploughing will allow the delicate seed to be preserved and germinated easily where as hard tractor ploughing may destroy them.
Same way application of chemical fertilizers hardness the soil and germination of these delicious delicate seeds may not happen easily and application of pesticides completely makes them non edible as the pesticide directly falls and settles on these greens.
To enjoy the greens as food, fodder and medicine the dry land Millet farmers always kept themselves away from these chemicals. The embedded uncultivated foods are always handy to women on their every visit to farm.
Thank you
Sra. Salomeyesudas Buduru