Valluvan Honoured as UN FAO Soil Farmer Hero

Key facts

• Valluvan, a 58-year-old farmer from Pollachi district in Tamil Nadu, has been recognised as a Soil Farmer Hero by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN).
• The farmer transformed his 11-hectare land into a profitable enterprise earning Rs 2.5-3 lakh per acre annually through a multi-crop, multi-tier tree-based agricultural model.
• Valluvan adopted this approach in 2009 following guidance from the Isha Foundation’s Save Soil - Cauvery Calling programme to shift from monoculture to diverse cultivation.
• The farm's soil organic carbon content increased from 0.5 per cent to 1.56 per cent over seven years, while water requirements were reduced to one-tenth of previous levels.
• The Cauvery Calling programme has planted 13.4 crore trees on private farmlands across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka since 2019, targeting a total of 242 crore trees.