CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation has tied up with start-ups on urban organic farming at the districts to promote large-scale organic farming outside Chennai. The civic body, which has now been selling manure only within city limits, will now sell it to Farmer Producer Organisations and Farmer Producer Companies in Tiruvallur district too.
This is done with the aim to encourage the use of organic manure in as much as 30,000 acres of farmlands in the district, said Corporation commissioner G Prakash. He said that private companies were also welcome to utilise their rich compost. Currently, the civic body has been making manure in its micro composting yards out of biowaste collected from the 15 zones.
Residents of these zones can either avail the compost from their respected zones or at markets.
An official with the Tiruvottiyur Zone of Chennai Corporation said that the civic body there has been conducting a door-to-door campaign on terrace gardening too.
“If we just sell manure, not all people will know how to put them to good use. So we decided to send our staff members to houses and encourage residents to set up terrace gardens,’’ said an official.
The civic body currently sells 150 kg of manure in the city and this is part of the zero-waste initiative, which is to reduce the amount of garbage going to landfills.