Story Behind Avanni
(Success story of Mr. K. Vijaya Kumar garu, the Man of Millets and Founder VRDS)
It was in Kachiguda railway station when I was in return journey to my native place Kadapa from C.E.C office. The discussion of one among the two students who were adjacent to me was told to bring millets to his home stated by his mother. The other student when asked by his fellow student what, if he was told the same by his mother? He then replied saying he could make use of the internet and Google to deduce the information on the where-a-bouts of millets. An old man who was close to three of us joined the discussion elucidated about the significance of “Millets” which means:
Foxtail Millet (Korralu), Finger Millet (ragulu), Little Millets (Sama, Samalu), Pearl Millets (sajjalu) , Kodo Millet(Artikelu ,Arika) , Barnyard Millet(Udalu, Kodisama) and Sorghum (Jonnalu).
In addition, he also said that his crop production of millets vanished in the year 1985 and happened to be the same in the entire district because of controversies that prevailed at all the district levels and then the old man moved on.
In the year 2007, Kavula Saraswathi in the month of June has come up with 1 Kg of Foxtail Millet (Korralu) seeds and gave it to me and advised me to implant them in the fields for the cultivation of Millets, initially, i was against to it. Immediately the yesterday discussion at Kachiguda railway station regarding the Millets these small grains (Siruthaniyam) instigated my mind, then that 1 Kg of Foxtail millets (Korralu) seeds from Saraswathi lead to 4 Quintals of Millets (Korralu) cultivation by my efforts. Which I later I have distributed to the people who were close to me who do the cultivation, but none of them capitalized it except Ramchandra who gained yield in his two acres of land which is of 1500 Kg he then said do distribute this to whom so ever I am interested with.
Later, in the year 2018 of 2nd January, i took an initiation by publishing in Saakshi paper that the seeds of Millets will be provided free for 1 acre of land for cultivation and I ended up in six thousand Kg (6000 Kg) as part of this process which was a memorable incident of my life though I was in financial crisis. Samatha Ravi a colleague of us from VRDS organization played a prominent role in elevating my financial situation.
In Anantapur, the millets production units were owned and dominated by people who were wealthy and farmers wherein a situation not able to accommodate the millet seeds for their yields and were anticipating for an affordable price because the prices were high enough in their jurisdiction.
Usually, on the requirement basis for millets, we used to approach the millet production unit owners they always end up in responding that the millets will be arranged today, tomorrow, now & then and was unreliable which breached our commitments. The millet owners even added going forward there will be no more demand for millets in the market after a year thereby discouraging us if we have intentions to establish new millet production unit/groundnut oil unit by diverting our attention and advised us to focus on our VRDS society work.
On the other hand, we worked with farmers very closely by providing them all the varieties of Millet seeds and natural pulses for farming in their own lands which also strengthen the relationship between us and them to gain mutual benefits. Considering the present and future trends, we used to encourage farmers to adopt organic manure practices to get rid of chemical-based fertilizers and other pesticides for the welfare of the people who consume millets.
In most of the areas of Rayalaseema, we have organized millets awareness programs from VRDS organization to spread the significance and the benefits of millets to human life. By this source of natural farming, millets are originated organically which in turn benefits farmers and the future of the society who consume these millets.