Araku's pioneer

A tribal farmer in Andhra Pradesh got the best of both worlds when he combined natural farming with his wisdom from shifting cultivation

- ISHAN KUKRETI

WHEN PANGI Gopi’s wife, Pangi Parvati, was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, his first reaction was to blame himself for leaving the traditional shifting cultivation, podu, and taking up intensive settled agriculture.“Podu involves a lot of hard work, and one cannot always use all the forestland cleared. Since the tribal welfare department was providing fertilisers, I decided to settle down,” says Gopi, a resident of Malivalasa village in the Araku valley of Visakhapatnam. He belongs to Parengi Porja community, classified as a particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) in Andhra Pradesh.

“There could be many reasons for Parvati to get cancer, but in my heart I know it was the fertilisers. She used to accompany me to the fields and help in spraying the chemicals,” he says. Since then, Gopi has taken the organic route, but with a difference. Not just