PCCF kicks off 2022 planting season through a workshop with forest officers and Cauvery Calling Mara Mitras
3 min read
Bengaluru: With the 2022 planting season in Karnataka just about to begin, the forest department of Karnataka and Isha’s Cauvery Calling team are gearing up for it enthusiastically with a workshop on the basics of Sapling Planting Techniques and Species Selection.
The workshop which saw participation from 110 Karnataka Forest Department officials, 89 Isha volunteers and Mara Mitras (local village youth supporting farmers through the Cauvery Calling movement) was kicked off by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) – Development, Karnataka, Rajiv Ranjan at Aranya Bhavan in Bengaluru.
In the process of helping farmers adopt these best practices, Mara Mitras who are Cauvery Calling’s local village youth will engage with farmers in their own regions and neighboring Gram Panchayats to facilitate uptake of approx 1.5 crore saplings produced by forest department, horticulture department and sericulture department and handhold the farmers in post planting care.
“It is important that we facilitate the schemes to the small and marginal farmers. And ensure that they get the benefits. Not just in the Cauvery basin districts but also in the entire state.” said the PCCF-Dev., Sri Rajiv Ranjan while addressing all the officers and Mara Mitras at the workshop.
Some Mara Mitras will be stationed at the government nurseries within their taluks to assist farmers. They will also collect demand from farmers for saplings they wish to plant in 2023 under the above mentioned government schemes. The species being promoted to these farmers are economically lucrative and ecologically beneficial species.
The Mara Mitras will be facilitating above activities with the help of the Cauvery Koogu Mobile Application launched in 2021. This App smoothens the process of data gathering, analysis, validation, registration and farmer education. The state-of-the-art app has several dynamic features including geo-tagging of trees, training modules, farmer enrolment process, state government schemes and several other relevant information.
“You can consider the Cauvery Calling Mara Mitras as your Vanara sena. We are here to multiply what you do and to bring a certain focus and alignment in these works”, said Sri Ambrish Kumar IAS, Project Director, Isha Outreach.
About Cauvery Calling
Cauvery Calling is an initiative of Isha Outreach founded by Sadhguru aims to revitalize the river Cauvery. It promotes tree-based agriculture in the Cauvery river basin spanning Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It aims to put one-third of the river basin under tree cover by facilitating the plantation of 242 crore trees by farmers on their private farmlands in the river basin. The model which has been proven on ground by Isha for nearly two decades, has shown to increase farmer income between 3 and 8 times besides promoting a host of ecological benefits such as soil rejuvenation, replenishment of groundwater table and reviving biodiversity.
For more information, please call : 99005 09142
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