“Our Seed Our Planet”(OSOP) – An afforestation initiative undertaken by Gubba Cold Storage of Hyderabad, one of the biggest cold storages of India serving the agriculture industry since 35+ years by preserving seeds as its CSR project is committed to work for the expansion of forest green cover by using drones to broadcast seed balls in the deforested areas in the forests of Telangana. The vision of the project is to cause million trees and involve various communities in achieving the same. The idea behind using the technology of drone is to reach high terrain areas where it is humanly not possible to reach physically to do plantation. The seed balls for OSOP are made by local villagers, an induced community project of financial empowerment for locals.

Utmost care has been involved by consulting the Forest department Officials in identifying the RF’s, lats-longs & seed species based on the agronomic conditions of each forest to attain the maximum impact. Mr. Lokesh Jayswal, PCCF, Telangana has been the driving force helping us achieve our aim along with his team. Each District Forest Officer & their subordinates have been there in the support of making the most out of OSOP. Each year, the Forest Department & OSOP team spends 3 months on an average in strategizing the campaign.  Tamarind, Raavi, Juvvi, Marri Bael, bamboo, ficus is some of the common species broadcasted to suit individual forest terrains.  

The seed broadcasting activity OSOP 2022 was supported by leaders IFS, IAS, MLA’s & MP’s across the state (enter the list of VIP’s who attend)

The success of the pilot project with 10,000 seedballs carried out at Amangal forest in 2019 paved way to the higher magnitude with 2 lakh seed balls broadcasting across 18 districts of Telangana like Kamareddy, Medak, Adilabad, Asifabad, Keesara etc in the monsoon of 2021 & 2022.

In 2021, “Our Seed Our Planet” contributed to be a part of the ‘Hara Bahara’ campaign, initiated by our KTR that visions to make India a greener place to live in plant 1 billion Trees through Drones by 2030. 

In 2022, The vision of OSOP was shared with the 21 senior Indian Forest Officers of India in the IFS 2022 training frap @ BVRIT College, Narsapur to expand the impact of OSOP beyond the footprint of Telangana.

In 2022, the below 10 districts were made greener

Syngenta, one of the world’s leading agriculture companies is the CSR partner of this afforestation initiative. Dr.K.C Ravi, the Chief Sustainable officer, Syngenta said that  For fulfilling the dream of flourish biodiversity that Syngenta as an organization has, Our Seed Our Planet has been the best-fitted campaign. We are happy to partner Gubba and the  Telangana State Government Forest Department” on this initiative, Dr Ravi said.

Technical support has been provided by Marut Drones, who have innovated the path-breaking technology of drones to enhance the agriculture.

Directorate General of Civil Aviation & Ministry of Civil Aviation have officially granted permission for the use of drones for OSOP.

The think-tank behind the project Gubba Deepthi, Chief Growth Officer of Gubba Cold Storage,  is committed for OSOP to be a gamechanger in the coming decade.

For more information, get in touch with Gubba at [email protected]