A highlight of the Truth About Trade and Technology (TATT) Global Farmer Roundtable last week was the presentation of the first Kleckner Trade and Technology Advancement Award Fellow to V. Ravichandran, better known to friends as Ravi. He is pictured here with TATT CEO Mary Boote and chairman Bill Horan.
Ravi grows rice, sugarcane, cotton and pulses on about 60 acres near the southern tip of India in the village of Poongalum which is in the state of Tamil. We would consider him a small scale farmer by American standards, but in India, Ravi is considered a larger-scale producer. He first attended the roundtable in 2010 and he really enjoys the opportunity to learn from farmers in other countries.
“I’m able to interact with farmers from developed nations like the U.S., Canada and Australia. Their way of farming is really amazing,” he said. “I’m very interested in adopting new technology – that keeps me going.”
Ravi is very active in social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and has about 1100 followers. “Most of my followers are from the European Union, they’re all farmers,” he said, noting that he hears from them about their desire to use biotech crops. You can follow Ravi on Twitter @FarmerRaviVKV.
Ravi talks about that and more in this interview. [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/world-food/wfp-13-tatt-ravi.mp3″ text=”Interview with Indian farmer V. Ravichandran”]