The Duck Project fundraising campaign

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We have been thinking about ducks in the paddy crop for many years. We kept postponing it since we are already buried under a daily intense workload, and taking up something more is always an extra effort and needs a good reason to do so. There have been studies where they combine ducks (and or fish) with a rice crop in Southeast Asia with success. Ducks take care of the weeds, fertilize the field, and stimulate rice plant growth by moving around the plants throughout the day. They also control pests by eating insects, snails and what not.

Last year was a very difficult paddy year when, because of various reasons, the weeds overgrew the paddy crop and we had to spend an enormous amount of labor (and money) on weeding; we lost entire plots of paddy and on a lot of fields the crop was reduced heavily. It became clear that unless we find a way to control the weeds better the crop will become unviable. This summer we have been initiating a new project to integrate ducks into rice cultivation. We purchased 53 ducks and learned a lot about growing them up and herding them around. After they were grown the Lake Estate farm of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram took them over. Now we got a new flock of 222 young birds, which have been introduced in the paddy fields this season where they control weeds very effectively and plants look healthy where they have been introduced. To take care of 6 acres paddy we would need to bring in 1200 ducks. For this we need to increase infrastructure on the farm substantially. This project has the potential to change the face of the farm; to integrate ducks to increase production and move closer to the ideal of natural integrated and healthy farming on a larger scale.

With the Duck project, we are participating in the
AVI USA Matching Campaign 2023.
When you donate through their site this month,
they will double the donated amount.
Click here and double your impact this December!

(For FS account holders, you can also transfer your donation directly and anytime on account #0465)

Have a look at the budget calculated for the project if you would like to know the details.

Upper pond

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As mentioned before in these blogs, summertime is the best time for the farm to get projects done to expand and improve Annapurna’s capacity.

In the last several weeks we have picked up the unfinished work of a project which was started in 2018 when we got liberal funding to expand our rainwater harvest capacity. In that year we doubled the water capacity of the irrigation ponds to approximately 50,000m3 and with this we could expand the rice growing area to around 20 acres and started to grow bananas on a more serious scale. We also could start to grow more fodder for the dairy. All this while tapping very little into the groundwater.

Digging such a big hole gave us a lot of soil to dispose of. We realized that the soil was a wonderful material to build a hill which could contain an elevated pond. What we did not realize was that this was not just a little extra work but quite a big job to get done. It also needed a serious budget to be able to do all this work but again there was a donor who wanted to help manifest this project and we are very thankful for this.

First, it needed lots of work to prepare the site, then find a reliable pond-liner dealer, purchase and install the material and finally protect the pond from the wildlife which will be attracted to the water body. About protection, you see the material will get punctured by the sharp hooves of deer and pigs, and the animals will probably drown since the wet liner is very slippery and animals might not be able to scale the sloping sides and come out of the basin.

Since it took us several years after creating the hill and getting to the job of lining the elevated pond, the site had become a virtual jungle. It was a lot of work to clear all the vegetation by hand since it was not possible to get a JCB into the area. The sides were too steep to work and the machine would disturb the soil too much.

The good thing was that having gone through several monsoons, the hill soil had stabilized well and we had solid ground to work on. After clearing the site of the vegetation and removing all sharp objects like small limestone nuggets, roots/thorns and what not, we called in the company who had supplied the liner material. Two days before they came, we had a nice rain, but which gave us some extra work because the sides of the pond had been damaged.

I Pictures: Left – digging a trench around the pond. Right – after rain, the sides eroded again.

Then when they did come on a Saturday morning (from Bangalore) both the technician and helper had probably visited neighboring Sedarapet, which is part of Pondicherry, where the laws for alcohol use are more liberal. The helper could hardly stand on his legs and the technician was in a very apathetic mood.

We still managed to put down the geo textile to protect the liner material but when the real work started it did just didn’t feel right and we stopped the work for the moment. We were happy when the company was very responsive and apologized profusely and sent us another technician on the following Monday. The work to put down the liner was very challenging; the material is very heavy, and it was very hot down in the pond with temperatures between 45-50 degrees and the material itself too hot to touch with bare hands. It was a full day work with around 15 people holding and stretching the material.

Right now we are doing the finishing work of tucking the sides of the liner into the trench which was dug around the pond. We could only do this after filling the pond with water (approx. 1200m3) to let the liner settle according to the pond shape. Then we must finish the electric fence to protect it from wild animals, but also for people who might slip in and not easily get out of the water.

In the season to come we have to see how make best use of this elevated water body. It will surely be very helpful to create a buffer stock of water during the rice growing season because 3-phase electricity is very erratic and comes often outside working hours. We have to see how much pressure we get at the outlet which is quite far out in the fields. Depending on that we can use it in different ways on different crops.

The water body up there gives a wonderful feel and we are quite excited to explore the various possibilities, especially after such a long process.

In the bigger picture this storage basin makes the farm function more efficiently, and we are more resilient and less vulnerable to the erratic power supply of the grid. Having this upper pond, we can start dreaming of filling it using solar pumps. This will make the whole water scenario of Annapurna Farm very sustainable and independent of the grid.

Treo Zor

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At last we got it going.

Our blue and white Treo Zor electric three-wheeler is zipping around Auroville doing daily deliveries of dairy products, grains and bananas.

And it feels soo good. After years of struggling with old mopeds which we often overloaded to be able to get everything delivered in time, this is really wonderful!

All this because of a generous donor who was happy to support the farm in its endeavor to improve and increase Annapurna’s capacity.

To be an effective and productive farm there have to be many things into place, one thing not functioning well in the process chain can cripple the rest of the process very much. This was slowly happening with our mode of transport. Since we started to grow bananas the daily fresh deliveries became suddenly much more bulky and this needed a change. The little 3-wheeler is just doing that.

Like usual this was not as easy done as one would want it to be. There were complications like unreliable dealers, extended delivery times, registration hiccups and what not. We are still fighting with one dealer to get some advances returned,  but hope to get that solved as well.

I Pictures: Loading the three wheeler for delivery. On the way to Foodlink.

But then after persevering and the vehicle is delivering the goodies our satisfaction and gratitude is more profound and the farm seems suddenly to function more smoothly. Part of this feeling comes because of the noiseless moving of the EV; it all feels more magic..

Balaji, our delivery man, who has been struggling with the old mopeds on the road is a happy man as well 😊

Short updates where we are right now at the farm

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I Pictures: straw bales being made – straw bales in the rain.

We are in the process of harvesting the 20 acres of paddy and hope to finish in a few weeks. The paddy was planted with intervals and so the harvest is also happening in steps. In this way we can better manage the work. Most of the crop we harvest with a combine harvester, which saves a lot of labor. In the process we do lose some grain because machines are not as sensitive as ladies with their sickles. Still, economically we come out better and more importantly we can move much faster. This is essential to be able to bring in a green manure crop (leguminous rich plants), after the harvest, on part of the area so the cattle have some good fodder in the summer.

I Video: combine harvesting with music.
I Video: next step, baling the paddy straw.

Things are all connected and time is very essential because organic farming goes very much with seasonality. Moving fast is also important because we see that weather seems more erratic; and we get those bits of rain in these months, which is wonderful to give a little refreshing feel, but are quite a nuisance when you are in the middle of a paddy harvest. We try to go with the flow ..

Our new pup Enya got Parvo virus and we had to go for intensive treatment for a week or so, but with the help of Dr. Thiruselvam she got through the ordeal and the puppy is slowly recovering.

I Pictures: Enya puppy – Serena, Asta & Enya – Pongal ride – Madhuri checking the paddy harvest results.

We had our yearly Pongal celebration with a puja in January, shared a meal all together and of course there was the cart ride which brings joy ..

Madhuri, our usually-Mumbai-based volunteer, stayed with us for a few weeks to help analyze our paddy results; she is developing herself into a rice cultivation expert!

We will share more about this years paddy crop soon.

We are also busy with our infrastructure improvement projects.

I Pictures: Fence pillar mould development: Andre – Fence pillar mould development: Kanduvel & Sudha – Upper pond preparation for liner.

The pilot boundary fence is going on. We got a lorry load of cuddapah stones (a rough black lime stone) and Andre prepared a few sets of pillar molds. We will start producing the pillars with a small mason team this week. We aim to put up another 100 m in this next phase.

A few days back there came a technician from a company from Coimbatore to look at the upper pond (a relatively small pond embedded in the hill of soil which was created when digging the big pond a few years back). He explained what still needs to be prepared before the liner can be put in place. This week he will send us their quotation for the material and we will start to work on this as soon we are freed from the harvest work.

Then at last we are on the point of getting a small three wheeler electric vehicle (Ev) for transport of our products. With the bulky bananas, which will become more and more part of the daily deliveries, our old mopeds cannot handle it anymore. Our jeep which is over 20 years old will soon not be able to be used anymore because new laws are going to be implemented to ban old vehicles from the road.

We had ordered an Ev from a company in Chennai who after many months of false promises did not deliver; we had to switch to a more reliable company. We are still fighting with the company in Chennai to return the payment we made to them. It’s a difficult thing to deal with and feels not so nice. Even things which look simple on the face of it are often quite challenging to get executed…it’s our collective karma probably.. because I see a lot of people around us here struggling in similar ways and maybe we need to see the process as the thing to focus on and leave the rest to the big picture …😉

Kumquat harvest

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This morning we had our first kumquat harvest. The harvest is small; around 5.5 kg. Still, I am very excited about it. We have sown the seeds about 4 years back and ever since then we have been nurturing the 6 trees very carefully.

Kumquat fruits
Kumquat harvest
Passion fruit flower

Annapurna’s heavy clay is not very suitable for citrus. We elevated the trees somewhat by planting them in some old tractor tires and concrete rings so they are not in the waterlogged clay too much. We mixed in some red soil in the plant holes when we planted the saplings. They did pretty good.

And of course this will never be a big crop, but they are still important to us.

When Annapurna embarked on increasing banana plantations, aiming to reduce the banana purchase from the open market in PTDC (Auroville’s community distribution center), we envisioned that we would need a way to use all unsuitable fruit, and gluts as well, to make the crop economically viable.

Banana kumquat compote is a wonderful product. We are sure people will enjoy it a lot and it helps the farm to increase its banana production. Like this we are looking around all the time for delicious combinations for our banana-based compotes. Most of the compotes are sugar free because of the sweetness of the karparavalli banana.

Next in line will be the passion fruit (my favorite) which we have sown 1.5 years back and has started to produce flowers. The combination of the sweet banana and the sour passion fruit is really incredibly good!!

For people who do not know kumquat fruit:

it looks like a mini orange but has a more intense fruity sour taste and very thin skin. Looking on the internet one finds mostly the oval small variety. Ours is round and is the size of a small lime fruit.

New Fence

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The world has changed a lot since we began farming here in the mid nineteen-eighties. Land prices have increased manifold. Indian population has grown by more than 70% and industrial development is growing very fast in our area. Educational institutions and big hospitals are springing up everywhere.

All this is happening at the cost of agriculture. Lands are being bought up by the big industry or real estate developers and the pressure on the remaining farms is getting more intense by the day.

When we started Annapurna farm we made a bund around the land and planted a live fence of thorny bushes which would sort of protect the fields. Borders were not really a big issue and land disputes with neighbours were generally solved amicably since there was not too much at stake. The only hassle we had were with stray cows and goats which would wander into crops regularly;  that would raise the tempers because the animals were the bank where local people had put their savings into, while we had put all our energy into the crops.

Today there are less cows and goats in our area because people have actual bank accounts with savings and family gold as investments. There is also less need for firewood collecting because LPG cooking gas cylinders are now commonly used. All these developments have led to the proliferation of wild life (mainly pigs and deer) which are much more difficult to control than domesticated animals. Since the land is very valuable, local land owners tend to push boundaries whenever we turn our heads; they do not respect our green fences. This happens very fast with powerful backhoe tractors (JCB) and chain saws which are now part of the daily landscape in this part of the country. Once a fence is moved it is a whole, long, complicated story to get it back on the proper place. Emotions can run very high!

All this is surely good for our personal yoga but we also feel it is important to put something more effective in place in order to protect the farm; the future will surely not get better in this respect.

Right now we cannot use extensive areas of the farm effectively because of the wild pigs and deer which destroy almost any crop.

Annapurna has a long boundary of approximately 7 km; so you can see, that is a very big job.

As mentioned in a previous newsletter (July 2021) we have received some funds to start a pilot to build a test fence to assess the material to be used, cost involved and practicalities how to get the work done.

Pictures: Old fence with broken pillar, existing life fence, the new fence concept

This summer we have started to build a very short section to get a feel of the concept we have in mind. The 5m fence which we put up feels good, solid and up to the task for what we need. It is basically a grid of slotted concrete pillars with kadappa  slabs which are put 45 cm into the ground and about 1m is above ground level. Over that we put barbed wire for 90-100cm. Some years back the Land Board of Auroville had put up a fence on a few sensitive parts of the farm, but this fence is not very effective and is easily vandalized, so we felt we really need something more solid, reliable and long standing.

The next step is going to be a pilot of 100m fence. In the process we hope to find a suitable contractor and to make a proper cost calculation of what this kind of fence will cost. Besides setting up the new fence we will have to clear the boundary and prepare the land for all this work.

Once the picture is clear we will have to find funds to do this work; this will give Annapurna farm a more secure future in the middle of this very dynamic and challenging environment.

Paddy season is on again.

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Rice cultivation and dairy work are the two most intensive activities at Annapurna Farm.

Dairy is thriving throughout the year with a daily need of attention and work to be done. Paddy cultivation is happening for about 7-8 months per year in the field, and is very intensive with peak labor needs at planting and weeding time.

This starts in August with the first paddy seedbed and a small puja (= ceremony) to invoke the gods for good fortune, field preparation, planting, weeding and finally harvesting. We make about 8-10 seedbeds in a period of 80-100 days to be able to plant 20 acres over a period of 3-4 months. We are trying to speed up this process by organizing the work better and use our resources more efficiently every year.

In fact, preparation for this season’s paddy has started directly after the harvest of the previous rice crop by applying compost and establishing a green manure crop (to enhance soil fertility) on the fields since we had late rains and the rainwater harvesting ponds had lots of water. Then there was the preparation of nursery soil in May/June.

  • Beginning of the rice season Puja
  • Levelling the paddy field
  • Madhuri and Tarun
  • Good green manure this year
  • Paddy seedbed to be transplanted
  • Paddy planting

Every year we do some experiments and tests to learn, improve and keep our minds from getting into a rut. This year we are introducing a few new varieties of rice which our volunteer Madhuri organized for us last season. Then we do a few plots of direct sowing of paddy with a paddy drum seeder which Tarun, another of our volunteers, borrowed from his farmer friends.

Both these volunteers have moved on but were very helpful in the work here and we are still very much connected to support each other where possible.

Incorporating green manure with the cagewheels tractor.
Sowing paddy with the seed drum.

Direct sowing of paddy is not new to us, but the drum seeder is, and we want to see if this method of sowing seeds in rows on the field helps us to cut costs of transplanting which is a major expense in the cultivation. 

We try to find paddy varieties which suit our conditions and can be sown at any time around the monsoon time so we are more flexible when weather is erratic and unpredictable. Most traditional varieties are very time-bound.

Very slowly we are trying to make the paddy cultivation more resilient and economically efficient, it is a wonderful and endless endeavor and totally in line with our work in Auroville.

Life got busy…

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I have not been active on the blog since some weeks.

Life got too busy on and off the farm and the writing needed to take a back seat.

In the last month we worked hard on the main farm road.

Pictures from left to right: material for the road repair – road work in the rain – JCB levelling

As mentioned in the last newsletter in July, we got financial support to give the road a new top layer with more stable material because our heavy clay becomes a real sticky mess in the rainy season.

We wanted to start this project in April but then the Covid situation made it difficult to get trucks of material in. Then when we passed this obstacle we had a hard time to find a contractor who could deliver the right material for a decent rate. Once we got some agreement, then the summer rains became the next hurdle. The rains during this summer have been extremely good; so good that it is hard to get the heavy trucks inside the farm and dump their loads on the right spots.

All this took a lot of energy and required being on site because besides the above, one has to keep a constant eye on the quality of the material which is being brought in; too rocky material or too much clay mixed in the material does not work for the road.

The biggest part of the work is done but since we had some very good rain showers in the last few days the work has stopped …. again. The contractor has already told me that the government permits to drive the trucks on the road has increased recently and the price of the material will go up. So more negotiation will be needed before the work can resume.

One of our 3 dogs died last week which was painful. Heba was a lovely dog and a very strong character and it took me some days to get my mind used to that reality. The world on the farm has changed without her.

Dairy news.

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Left: Farewell Welli – Right: mixing the cow feed

This is in continuation of the blog from June 9 about our deliberations of retired animals.

Welli died a few days ago. She was in her 20th life year. In her last days she could not walk and eat anymore and developed some other complications.

This was the point where we decided to sedate her and let her go. We buried her on the farm.

This week we prepared a new cow feed concentrate mix. Once every 4-6 weeks we prepare a new feed mix consisting mostly of millets and animal grade products of our grain processing. Few products we have to buy on the market in Pondicherry to complete the mix.

The millet (pearl-, foxtail-, finger- and kodo millet) is collectively purchased, mostly through Aurogreen (a farm in Auroville) who buys large amounts in the season at millet harvest time when the grain is cheaper.

This is the only way to be sure that we get the best feed. Millet are cleaned and milled into flour at Annapurna itself so we are sure there is no adulteration and no substitutes and taste makers are added. It is also the only way to put in maximum organic ingredients.

Annapurna farm’s vision is to reduce the concentrate feed and increase fodder for the animals over time. This year we are preparing more infrastructure to be able to irrigate more area; this will enable us to produce more fodder throughout the year. The process to move away from concentrate grain- based feed is very slow and we have to see how far we can push it. The feed has a big influence on the milk yield and the farm needs the milk to be able to break even in the current economical reality.