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Heartfulness supports Telangana mission to rebuild vegetable economy
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Thursday, 10 September, 2026, 12 : 00 PM [IST]
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Our Bureau, Bengaluru
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In one of the largest farmer-welfare gestures at this year’s Ranga Reddy Kisan Mela, the Heartfulness Institute, in coordination with the Ranga Reddy District Horticulture & Sericulture Department, distributed 80,000 free hand-grafted tomato seedlings to farmers at the Kisan Mela from its Kanha Shanti Vanam campus, the organisation’s World Headquarters near Hyderabad.
The gesture will impact thousands of farming families and help strengthen soil health, boost climate resilience, and improve rural incomes across the district. The gesture will impact thousands of farming families and help strengthen soil health, boost climate resilience, and improve rural incomes across the district.
The initiative comes at a time when Telangana has witnessed a significant decline in vegetable cultivation. The area under vegetable cultivation is estimated to have fallen from around 5.5 lakh acres to nearly one lakh acres over the past decade, with the state continuing to depend significantly on neighbouring states for its vegetable requirements. Against this backdrop, the initiative brings science-led horticultural practices and improved planting technologies closer to farmers.
Sivasaravanan Arumugam, HOD, Heartfulness Grafting Research and Skill Development Center, said, “Our endeavour at Heartfulness is to take agricultural innovation beyond the laboratory and nursery and place it directly in the hands of farmers. The distribution of 80,000 grafted tomato seedlings supports farming families with planting material that can potentially improve crop resilience and productivity. We are grateful to the Ranga Reddy District Horticulture & Sericulture Department for partnering with us in taking this initiative to the farming community. We hope these seedlings contribute to healthier crops, more resilient farms and better livelihood opportunities for farmers.”
Grafted seedlings combine a disease-resistant rootstock with a high-yielding tomato variety, helping improve crop resilience and productivity. At Kanha Shanti Vanam, the seedlings are raised by hand in a climate-controlled nursery, with each plant taking nearly two months to develop, compared with around 20 days for a conventional seedling.
The technology can offer farmers several potential advantages, including greater resistance to soil-borne diseases such as wilt and nematodes, a longer productive cycle and the potential to support off-season cultivation. Depending on variety and farming conditions, grafted tomato plants can potentially deliver 15 per cent to 40 per cent higher yields per acre, although actual outcomes vary based on local conditions and farm management.
The initiative is part of Heartfulness’ broader engagement with agriculture and environmental sustainability at Kanha Shanti Vanam, including natural farming, soil enrichment, hydroponics, biochar, plant tissue culture and nursery development. The campus has also conducted training programmes for agriculture officers in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Telangana, and previously distributed grafted mango and guava seedlings to farming communities around Kanha.
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