Pongal, Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture

During the auspicious Pongal (Tamil Harvest Festival) I want to present this article for farmers.

As an environmental scientist and information technologist I could share
my useful knowledge and experience for the benefit of the natural farming community.

Farmers practicing natural methods have questions about plant diseases, weeds and pests (how to control them in a natural way).

Natural methods are there for sure to control diseases, weed and pests:

Neem, Cow manure, butter milk, garlic, turmeric, chilies, physical fly catchers, diatomaceous earth, row covers, crop rotation and integrated pest control can be used. You can google about each topic (along with natural pest control) and read more, understand and practice. One thing to note is our agricultural forefathers have been using these methods successfully. I have heard that the amount of yield was so high that they had to use elephants for removing husk from rice instead of bulls. They had mastered the natural farming techniques at very high level. Water management - I was surprised to know that drip irrigation was mastered by placing an earthen pot with water near the tree, ploughing techniques using bulls (for Nitrogen Fixation) and crop rotation. Then came chemical take over. We converted our lands into sterile lands rather than fertile and lively lands.

Read about natural methods from -

Tamilnadu Agricultural University

Here I want to mention that there are no concise definition of Organic Farming. Some say that Organic farming is more dangerous than chemical farming. It is how one defines what is Organic Farming and how one practices organic farming.

In my definition and what we practice in our farm - Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture (SONA):

- SUSTAINABLE - Food production along with objectives to protect the environment, eco-justice. human health and communities.


- ORGANIC - We use farmyard manure (derived from living organisms such as cows, wastes from produce grown at EA FARMS and without the use of artificial chemicals).

- NATURAL - Every input into the farm is from natural materials produced in the farm (also following Nature and Eco-justice) in proper limited amount (not excess amounts).

At EA FARMS Agriculture - we understand that - "when the limit exceeds even Ambrosia (Amurtham) is poisonous" as our traditional old saying.

Some suggests that weeds are there for a reason.That is also true. That takes me into two directions -

1) Natural farming:
          experience by the great Japanese natural farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka. Again you can google about him, read and acquire his natural farm methodologies.

2) Spiritual farming:
            Never go for single type of crop, always have different types of trees, plants, crops (different layers). Diversification is the key word. You need to have COWS for farming. We consider cattle as main part of our agriculture and they provide milk, fertilizer and help in ploughing and transportation. We heart fully thank them during Pongal.

Kankrej Cow @ EA Farms

Even chickens will help in reducing the pests. There are agricultural universities and best researchers in the them. Discuss with them understand your soil and ask them for natural methods.

Creating seedballs (earth balls) consisting of variety of seeds

In spiritual farming,  I think the first step is to love your farm (each part of your farm - what I mean is soil, plants, animal and people involved in it). If you do that in your farm, your trees, plants, crops, animals and farm will flourish. Even Scientifically, Scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, long back have found that plants can feel pain, understand affection etc.,

Just by touching and interacting with plants, you see them flourish 

Which we have experienced personally. You might have also experienced that. Finally you work with your farm naturally and spiritually to make it a wonderland.

Great to have several guides (Subash Palekar Ji, Nammalavar, Pasumai Vikatan)  for practicing natural farming.

We will and are following these steps at EA Farms -  and share our knowledge to everyone.

We should be thankful for all these and follow Natural Farming.

Good Luck to farmers all over the world.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from EnviroApps

It is that time of the year when everyone should enjoy peace,  festivities and happiness. Year end holidays bring lots of positiveness. It is end of the year, let us put all the things behind and look for a bright future.

From our group we wish - Happy Holidays and Happy New Year:

EnviroApps - Environment & Information Technology

Environment - EA FARMS - Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture - EA Farms Facebook

                        Farm Startup - Steps for people to start a farm

Information Technology - EAPHARMICS - electronic stability testing and analysis software for pharmaceutical companies

                                          EA DATA DEN - Database and IT Training

Environment & Information Technology - ZoomVin - creating environmental areas and presenting it digitally to create environmental awareness.

                                          Birds | Butterflies | Flowers | Nature

I stress to share your positive knowledge to others and guide them to better life.

I pray for peace and prosperity all over the World.

Once again Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Makesh Karuppiah, PhD
Environmental Scientist and Information Technologist.

Global Warming, Climate Changes, Urban Flooding

As leaders were talking about Climate (Paris), Heavy rain took it's toll in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.Chennai - a wonderful lively coastal capital city of Tamil Nadu. Storms plundered and city streets have turned into dangerous rivers , city was cut off and become an island. Waters are taking so long to recede from the city. It has become a dangerous area for humans. It is also heavily populated. Day to day life have been severely affected by the climate. Just google Chennai rains you could see the devastation. We used to go to Chennai for watching cricket matches played by India and other visiting International teams at Chepauk Stadium. During such visit in 1983 December for India vs West Indies, the first day of play was abandoned due to heavy rainfall.

Riding horse during Heavy Flooding in Chennai - December, 1983

We experienced the street rivers that had formed due to heavy rains. We were afraid of the opened manholes in the streets.  At that time I was doing my under graduate degree. After that life took me in various paths and ended up in United States as an Environmental Scientist and Information Technologist. Now after 31 years, I see more rain havoc than what we experienced in December of 1983. Even after 31 years still we don't have proper storm water management systems, water drainage systems. I also read about leveling water bodies to build buildings at an alarming rate not considering the environmental damage at all. Anyway past is past. When the rain recedes proper planning should start. Googling about the Chennai's storm water drain etc indicated that there were preparations for such storm and water draining, however it was not fully implemented or they were not prepared for such a storm and rain. Proper storm water runoff systems should be maintained in the future to avoid such disasters. Looks like good people were involved in such studies and they need to take a step ahead and build efficient urban storm water systems to tackle the problems. Even World Bank is working with Tamil Nadu for sustainable urban development projects.

Some more research, methods for efficient storm water systems

Rational Methods

US EPA Report

NASA Guidance

Disaster Guides

Tamilnadu engineers, researchers should get the experience from other disaster studies and create a design and make a plan that would be best for the area. There are always people with such experience willing to help.  There may be sustainable ways, simple cost effective ways to handle this -

SUSTAINABLE DRAINAGE SYSTEMS

Along with this, they should

Protect wetlands and aquatic ecosystems:

Wetlands act like sponges to absorb water during runoff directly into water bodies and slow down flooding. Over the years real estate greed has taken over and environment had been abused. Mangrove forest also have been depleted at alarming rate.

Wonderful Mangroves on both sides near Coot Bay

Thousands of acres such natural environment has been destroyed for building buildings. It is time to stop that. Stop the greed. Restore the wetlands. Restore the mangrove forests. Leave alone ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, river beds and any water body. They are there for a reason. Let us not become the reason for disaster during the storm. Build inland and not in Agricultural Land. Save the remaining forest.

Conserve Maintain, and improve quality of receiving water bodies:

Plant water absorbing layers of fauna in the banks of the water bodies. There are wetland plants native to the place. Get involved with environmental scientists in the local universities and plant as much as wetland plants and create the coastal management.

Improve flood control systems:

Always water bodies needs neighboring fill up ponds. Proper planning is needed to construct such ponds. Build them and don't destroy them. Our ancestors have managed water at the best and in between greed has taken over and destroyed the ancestry  mastery. For the benefit our own brethren and future generation, for God Sake leave out greed and do all the necessary things to save the environment.

Simple things such as stopping the people who throw garbage in ditches and dispose them properly, This small action can help during disasters such as this.

Doing that will help people and storm water management be efficient for the future. Coastal areas are always facing such threats in the future.

See the webpage about CLIMATE from NASA.

Read that opportunistic people are price gouging (jacking up) necessary products such as milk and drinking water. Please don't do that. However,

Many people have come together and helped each other. That's good and promising. Social media such as facebook, whatsap have became a handy tool. Help by doing whatever you can.

Also diseases prevail after floods, create awareness and stop it.
Prevention is better than cure both for the environment and health.

Praying for Chennai and helping them also.

Thanksgiving, Sharing Environment, Information Technology Steps

Happy Thanksgiving.

Be thankful for all the positives you have.

Wonderful Quote from
Mr. W._Clement_Stone :
"If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share. "

I follow that and am really thankful that I am an Environmental Scientist and an Information Technologist.

Things I want to share:

ENVIRONMENT:

For the start up farmers who want to follow Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture as we follow at EA Farms, I created a small but efficient step to follow:

SMALL BUT EFFICIENT STEPS FOR STARTUP FARMERS

(For SUSTAINABLE ORGANIC NATURAL AGRICULTURE)

TECHNOLOGY:

Created a guide how to become a database expert from novice. These steps are simple, easy but efficient. Those who followed these steps ( put sincere effort and hard work) have become success stories. So if you are a recent graduate or anyone who want to take a career path in information technology field can start in databases and follow this:

SMALL BUT EFFICIENT STEPS FOR YOUNG INFORMATION TECHNOLOGISTS

(DATABASE AND PROGRAMMING PATHS)

I hope start up farmers and start up information technologists use these sites and become successful.

Once you learn these, Sky is your limit.

Once again Happy Thanksgiving from:

Prayers, EA Farms, Modern Environmentalism, EA IT Data DEN

Let me start by saying from bottom of my heart

  Les prières sont avec vous, chers frères et sœurs de France

 Praying, Praying, Praying for these type of violent acts not to happen again. As environmentalists we are worried about small creatures including plants and could not comprehend the human deaths that happens due to violence. All we can do is to pray to the almighty, so these does not happen again in the face of Mother EARTH.

 Again we had some hurdles on our projects, but came up with positives with the help of prayers from friends and family. We had good rain in the EA Farms area. So it is positive for us. Swale had increased the ground water plume as we envisioned. Hopefully we will have good results soon. Hard Positive Work pays off, for sure. EA Farms - From barren chemically induced land to Sustainable Organic Natural Agricultural Land. EA Farms Agro forestry area should also benefit from these rains.

 One negative I see from these rainy days in Tamilnadu, is we are still not ready in Water Management field. We all learn from mistakes, Hopefully we will be ready before the next one.

 Another dream of mine is coming close. In 2011, I wanted to start writing a book on Environmental Topic. I wanted to give my experience and my journey as Environmental Scientist to the World. Finally I have completed it titled - Modern Environmentalism - I have send it to my friend to write foreword. Hopefully it will be available soon as an eBook at enviroapps websites.

Modern Environmentalism - eBook

In this book I have reinstated that we have come to a point that we cannot avoid pollution, however we need to take action to reduce it, counter act by doing positives such as planting trees for the benefit of future generations.

On the Information Technology side, with my experience and our team's experience  in Data, Data Analysis, Databases and other IT areas, we created EA_IT_DATADEN website where one can learn databases and IT topics.

Learn Database - website

Hopefully people interested and want to enter database field will benefit from this website. This learning experience is simple and efficient and we have several success stories.

Praying on Diwali day - Let the light shine on Mother Earth positively and bring peace

Rain at EA Farms, Modern Environmentalism Book, EA IT Data DEN for learning are the positives during this period. Again praying for only positives.

Eradicate Poverty

October is month of Gandhi ji's birthday.
One of his quote - "Poverty is the worst form of violence."
He changed using rich clothes to the one he wore due to seeing the clothes that poor people wore.

An old photo of Dr. Abdul Kalam in Gandhi Jayanthi Celeberation

Also October 17th is the International Poverty Eradication Day.

Rural Poverty Portal

Global Poverty Map using Satellite

Even after all these years, Poverty is still a major problem in the Earth.

What can an individual do -

Give whatever you can to eradicate poverty. If you are educated - you can teach skills to people.

Small deeds can together make it Big.

Wherever you are,if you see a child begging or working (child labor), you should intervene, do the necessary thing to put the child in the School.

It is easier to say than to do. However an effort should be taken.

There are so many programs that are in favor of child upbringing in most parts of the World.

Education is one of main method that will eradicate poverty.

Sustainability is another method of eradicating poverty. If you can create sustainable projects that will benefit poor communities, utilize the human resources and give them back a share of profit - That will be a small step to eradicate poverty.

Environmental awareness and cleanliness along with sustainable agriculture can also be part of eradicating poverty,

If you are successful in any field, you need to think differently and contribute some part of your success towards eradicating poverty.

High earning business people, movie personalities, professional sports people and politicians should mainly contribute towards eradicating poverty.

Every other able person should also contribute to this common goal.

For my part -

I am training people in areas I am educated and trained - Environmental Projects, Information Technology and Databases and get them better jobs.
When they become successful, I have told them to contribute to others.

We have created EA Farms - Sustainable Natural Organic Agriculture Land Development project and helping the underprivileged in that area.

With Farm Workers

Even small things such as this helps - We collect US lucky penny dropped on ground and put it in a jar. Over period of time even it becomes a collection. When I go to India I convert into Indian rupees (1 cent = 60 paise) and give it to an orphanage. That has helped them in getting some daily needed materials. Small deeds can change life of other poor people.

Those who can read this - are fortunate to have a computer or a mobile device, internet and more. However there are other people who could not afford these luxuries and they don't even know how to get their next meal. So please think wisely about what you do especially if you are wasting something. Always keep those type of underprivileged people in mind and constantly think about upbringing them.

Let us have a goal to eradicate poverty and even if you can bring one person out of poverty it will be a great success.

Please take this action:

Global Goals

"We must continue, with still greater speed, to change the lives of our people, especially the poorest of the poor"  -  Nelson Mandela.

On this Gandhi Jayanthi day - praying for peace and non-violence.

Labor Day, Great Successful People Wax Replicas, Quotes

During this labor day weekend had chance to compile this. Recently visited a wax museum and had opportunity to take pictures with Great and Successful people's wax replica. They have worked hard in their life and became successful. It was not easy for them, but they put in hours of hard work of labor to become the person that even people want to take pictures with their wax replica and be proud of it. Also I have compiled their Quotes. It can be followed by everyone and  become better person in life.

Great Leaders:

"Whatever you are, be a good one"

"I have a dream..."

Great Scientists:

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value"

"I have not failed. I have just found 10000 ways that won't work."

Explorer:

 "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind."

However, even after 46 years, there is still no peace for all mankind. Still praying for Peace on Earth, so we can focus on Positives. 

Business and Entertainment People:

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. 

If you can dream it, you can do it"

"Be a yardstick of quality"

"There's a drive in me that won't allow me to do certain things that are easy"

"If you have an opportunity to use your voice you should use it"

"The first step is you have to say that you can"

"I dream for living"

"My job has always been to hold a mirror up to nature"

These Great People/s Quotes are so positive and gives the meaning of successful life. 

Dream, Work hard, Explore, bring Peace and Prosperity to Earth,