Mangaluru: Curiosity of a girl led her twin brothers in Kadaba taluk to cultivate paddy in a small patch of land in front of their house.
For the past three years, Bhavan and Bhuvan, final year BSc students at St Philomena College, Puttur and residents of Bellandur, Kadaba taluk, have been cultivating paddy in a small field.
“When my sister Shriyajna entered Class 1 three years ago, she asked us — how is rice produced? We had no answer as there were no fields nearby. We tried to answer, but that wasn’t appealing to her. So we decided to demonstrate by starting from scratch,” explained Bhavan.
The twins, guided by their father, built a field on 40 cents land. The duo has been sowing, transplanting, harvesting, threshing and producing rice from the past two years. “We grew paddy in 40 cents land last two years, but this year, it was reduced to six cents. It is because we’re in final year and need to focus more on academics. We will continue to do it in full scale next year ,” he added.
The yield has been good. Bhuvan says they have produced two quintal of paddy. The paddy straw, a residue used as fodder, is enough for a year. “This year, we may get less than 50 kg of rice.”
On explaining why they found it difficult to answer their young sister, who is now a Class 3 student at government primary school in Ammei, they said their family stopped growing paddy and switched to commercial crop — areca nut 20 years ago. “All the paddy fields were converted into areca nut farms. It is the story of everyone living around us. Paddy fields have vanished after farmers found it unviable.”