Staying indoors being a cardinal requirement for beating the novel Coronavirus, home-delivery of goods and services has assumed utmost relevance. With 39-year-old farmer V. Shiva Kumar being able to help residents meet this requirement and at the same time have vegetables stocked in their storage unit, he has found a new crop of customers.
Last Wednesday, loading his truck with sacks of vegetables, Shiva Kumar left his farm at Thirumalpuram, a village on the outskirts of Chennai at 7 a.m; he was heading to Ceebros Greenpark, a 50-flat apartment at LIC Nagar in Velachery to hold a sale of his agricultural produce.
One of the residents J. Mohaneshwari, a kitchen gardening enthusiast, had made arrangements for this sale to happen, so that residents at the gated community would be benefited.
“It must have been in 2005 when I became acutely conscious of the food we consumed and how safe it was for us. And I started to raise a kitchen garden at our house in T. Nagar. With this move, my dependence on local vendors for vegetables and fruits reduced considerably. However, there were many other fruits, vegetables and also grains and pulses for which I had to rely on others. Somewhere along the line, I also felt that it was important to know where the food we consumed was being cultivated. Therefore, gradually, I tried to find farmers who were into organic farming; in this, I received help from like-minded friends. We associated ourselves with various groups that advocated organic farming. We attended workshops and seminars on organic farming and this helped us connect with many farmers,” says Mohaneshwari.
Mohaneshwari and her friends have hand-picked around 30 farmers from various parts of Tamil Nadu, who would home-deliver their produce at one of their houses.
“We buy uzhandu from a farmer at Kotteri in Virudachalam; kavuni arisi from Thiruvannamali; mocha payar and thattan payar from Madurai; and fruits like bananas, pineapple, sappodila, and custard apple from Kolli Malai; honey and cardamom from Gudalur; grapes from Coimbatore; chillies from Kancheepuram and there are a few others on the list. Over the last four years, I would have barely gone to supermarkets,” says Mohaneshwari who also collects heirloon seeds.
Now, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Mohaneshwari’s rapport with farmers has made a huge difference to the neighbours at her complex, as she has got a few farmers to hold a sale on their premises.
One of them is Shiva Kumar. Another farmer Hari came from Sholingur sold mangoes and V. Dharanidharan from Arani brought pulses, grains, groundnuts and cold-pressed oils.