Sowing the right seeds!

Nowadays, most of the schools, teach children more about technology, some even AI, some teach foreign languages, some lay emphasis on sports. But what would you say about a school which teaches children how to farm?

Yes, there is a school on the borders of Kerala and Karnataka in the Mangaluru taluk - Sharada Vidyanikethana Public School. This school follows the CBSE curriculum and has introduced agricultural science as a compulsory subject for 5th to 10th standard students in the current academic year.

Students were asked to cultivate vegetables on 3.5 acres on the campus. They were asked to cultivate amaranthus and tomatoes. The plants came under fungal attack and the students actually had a hands-on experience of trying to understand why it happened and how to deal with it. No synthetic fertilizers are being used and the school is making the best use of organic wastes for preparing compost and vermi-compost for use as manure. 

Students are being taught seed conservation to crop cultivation and protection, to marketing. Right now marketing is now such a big isuse as the 100 families of staff, living within the residential campus buy the farm produce.

The response to this class has been very good and next year, the school plans to begin planting vegetables and fruits in all earnest.

Wish our schools in the cities too could teach us some bit of agriculture – you teach a child to plant and nurture farms/trees, you will never need to teach them about environment and conservation of forests.