If the people of Vadakkekara panchayat learnt anything from the floods of 2018 and 2019, it is that there is no time like now to do good work.
They have turned adversity into an opportunity in writing a new chapter in green, bring all of the cultivable land in the panchayat under various crops. That Vadakkekara was declared a fallow landless panchayat in early August is just one aspect of the initiatives being taken by Kudumbashree groups, women under the national employment guarantee scheme and the four primary service cooperative banks.
An official of the department of agriculture said that while 110 acres were brought under cultivation after lying fallow for several years, the range of experiments being carried out was a good example.
The crops being tried out in Vadakkekara include corn and ragi; medicinal rice varieties like Njavara and Raktasali as well as sweet tuber crops…