Various projects.

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Digging of the pond, rice cultivation experiment and new biogas tank.

Besides the normal farm operations, we have been engaged with various projects in the past week.

Tarun is busy putting a periphery bund around a piece of forest land Annapurna acquired through a land exchange many years back. The land is a bit over one acre and is located in the very far North corner of the farm. We are digging a small water catchment pilot and with the soil which comes from the hole we are building a bund around the land.
We can do this work because of a generous well-wisher who sees the importance of protecting and greening the land.

Then we stumbled upon an interesting way of rice cultivation on the Internet which is practiced in northern Thailand. Madhuri is doing experiments in pots to test the viability of the system so we have a better idea how to implement it when the paddy season starts. We hope this method will help us make steps forward in using less labor in the paddy cultivation. Labor is by far the primary cost in rice cultivation and prices keep going up fast while labor availability is dwindling.

Another ongoing project which moved forward was the installation of an additional biogas tank. A few months back we got a second-hand biogas digester from Ravena (a greenbelt community in Auroville). Andre and his team have been busy fixing and repainting it. Yesterday we put it in the ground and in the next weeks we hope to get it all fixed and connected to the dairy and fruit processing facility. They’re all small steps but very important and it’s satisfying to see things coming to fruition after often very long preparations.

Starting the blog

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Hi there,

A weekly blog to give you a glimpse of our reality at Annapurna farm.

It will sometimes be a bit more elaborate and philosophical, at times short, practical, and to the point.

Right now we are developing more land for green fodder cultivation for the dairy. Our aim is to slowly reduce the concentrate feed which we purchase and replace it with our own-grown nutritional greens.

Since the plot of 1.25 acre had many roots from the previous tree crop it needed a more powerful tractor to rip plow and open it up. We do not have such heavy tools so we got a contractor to do it.

Next, we will put on farm yard manure (fym) which will be plowed in after the next rain.

After this we will install an irrigation system, fence the land with an electrical fence against deer and pigs,  and prepare for the fodder crops.

At this point in time Annapurna’s dairy has several cows which are retired and two of them, Welli and Malli, are really getting old and can not  keep up with the herd anymore.

These cows were born here and served us their entire lives; we feel it will not be good to sell them to a butcher, which is a common practice.

We have been looking at the different sides of this reality and will continue to do so.

The discussion veers between economic repercussions, emotional attachment, practical reality, animal wellbeing, Indian cultural values and more. It’s not an easy deliberation, and we want to share it with you, in this small note, to give people who do support us in various ways, another understanding of the complexity of farming with our dilemmas, restrictions and possibilities.

In short, if we really want to eat food from happy and sustainable farms, which are managed more humane and are less economical oriented, this will have a serious impact on our lives. Can we, do we want to change our lives for this? What are we willing to do to cultivate such places?

Personally I think, looking at todays reality and taking into consideration public health and the earth’s ecological boundaries,  we actually have no choice.

On the ground we have been busy with the usual grain processing to fulfill the weekly incoming grain orders from Foodlink (Auroville’s farm distribution center) and individual communities, then we are bringing in fym to the rice fields for the new season to come, irrigating fodder and fruit crops, and cleaning up the nursery area for a new Gliricidea nursery and fence plants.