Grass root innovations in Agriculture

From Anil Gupta’s Book ‘Grass roots innovation: Minds on the margin are not marginal mins’.

Lengthening the maturity period of Tomatoes:

This is a very simple process where farmers can hang the uprooted tomato plants upside down, with unripe tomatoes, on a rope in a dark place. Anyone can do an experiment and see how by putting tomatoes upside down, one can slow down their maturity. The mechanism is that ethylene, which induces maturity and brings redness in the skin of tomatoes, is slowed when they are hung upside down. This is a very low cost, frugal, scientific method developed to lengthen the maturity period of tomatoes and thus give the farmers the advantage of higher prices during off season.

Example of water retention in the soil for dry season

In the Rangpur area of north Bangladesh, it was observed that in several homesteads, farmers planted one banana plant after every four areca palms. While Bangladesh receives a lot of rainfall during its monsoons, there is hardly any rain during the winter season. The banana plant, after absorbing a lot of moisture during the monsoon, releases it for the roots of the palms in the winter. This is one of the examples that we can adopted our agriculture practices.