KOCHI: Here’s their way of doing a different service to the nation. A team of ex-servicemen are popularising the bamboo in an organic, non-toxic way. At the stall set up at the Bamboo fest in Marine Drive, the members of the ex-servicemen’s cooperative colony have introduced food items made of bamboo seeds and shoot including pickles, snacks and payasam.
The bamboo is grown on their own land, said Sasi Kumar, supervisor, ex-servicemen’s co-operative colony, who is also the son of Govintha Kurup, a former soldier.
The history of the co-operative colony goes back into the early 1950’s when the Travancore king provided land near Athirapilly waterfalls to the landless servicemen and their families as a commemoration of their great deed to the country.
“There was no pension scheme at that time. This land was given to us by the king as a sort of rehabilitation,” says one of the Cooperative colony’s managing directors. 200 landless families were selected from Ernakulam and Thrissur district. At present there are 185 families living in this area.
The society’s agricultural activities extend to the cultivation of plantation crops such as rubber, jack-fruit, mango and cashew. “Initially we cleared off the forest in order to prevent wild animals from straying into human settlements.”
“Then we planted mangoes and cashew saplings,” says Salim Thomas, a member of the society. The society members are gearing up to popularise the jackfruit. There are separate processing units at Thumburmuzhi for jack-fruits where the members make ice-cream, juice, squash, pickles, jam, mixture, snacks.
This 12-member team comprise of elected members and are dependents of soliders. The Society is headed by the Thrissur District Collector.
According to the members, their products are sold at various fests. The land that they have cultivated is considered as an eco-friendly zone and have been declared plastic-free.