A Long Summer, 2023

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Ducks at Annapurna
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 will be introduced in the paddy fields in the coming season and we hope they will help reduce the labor of paddy weeding and increase rice yields.

Fence Pilot 3
After having done a small concept pilot (1) we worked with a contractor to put down around 120m fence (pilot 2) We have arrived at the third pilot where we mechanized most of the lifting of pillars and cuddapah slabs and hired in a few more people to build the next 80m or so last month.
We are looking at the results and will continue with this project after the monsoon in January. We think the last trial will be best for us with less labor cost and better quality of fence.

Irrigated area extension and installation solar pump
We are in the process of extending our irrigated area with two more acres. This area will be mainly used for animal fodder. We are aiming to bring back the grain feed for the dairy herd and increase green fodder. This project was made possible by a donation through Waterlink.
Then we installed a solar pump on one of our rainwater catchment areas and so we pump rainwater into the fields with solar power. Another step towards a more sustainable way of farming. The pump was donated by a well wisher.

Annapurna Farm “Summer” Cheese
We had a usual drop in demand of produce/products in Auroville during summer. Our cows do not agree with this human behavior and keep producing milk like usual. This summer Massimo from M&M Cheese offered to trial some semi-hard cheeses to help us manage the milk flow in these low demand months. We are happy with the taste and texture of this new cheese: Annapurna Farm ‘summer’ cheese. It’s a mild cheese, semi-seasoned 60+ days; and have been exclusively available on the our CSA basket list and M&M Cheese Shop at Kuilapalayam.

And Paddy begins at Annapurna,Season 2023-24

Alley Cropping System | Gliricidia plot:392BB [Jun – Oct 22]

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The natural diet of bovines largely comprises wild grass, tree leaves and weeds. Increased domestication, however, has motivated farmers to rely on grain-based diets, as it makes it easier to maintain large herds of cattle and harvest higher yields of produce, be it meat or milk. Grains, in comparison to grass, are easy to store, to purchase in bulk, as well as to produce. Second-grade-broken grains are often easily available (read: cheaper) for dairy.

Annapurna dairy currently relies on grains, i.e. millet-based concentrate as well as home-grown fodder and paddy straw. While fodder (greens) is much more nutritional and natural to cattle, the quantity needed for consumption is relatively higher. To grow such quantities, one would require advanced pastoral management (optimum grazing), water, land, as well as protection of the land from other wild vegetarians.

The often asked question to us is how one farm off 135 acres, the answer is to make a system that serves the need of sustaining an organic farm.

A closer look at gliricidia 323BB will help to understand this better as it aims to sustain the rotational fodder for the dairy along with irrigated food crops, such as green gram, late sesame and corn.

For years, Annapurna has been cultivating the most outlying pieces (15-20 acres) of the land under dryland gliricidia plantations to produce fodder and biomass. These gliricidia were originally planted as a dryland crop to biomass for composting-mulching, and nitrogen-fixing to the soil, create organic fodder for the dairy along with far-off land protection and erosion. Food crops used to be grown between the lines of gliricidia as well.

In the month of June 2022, with the help of increased rain harvesting capacity over the years, we prepared alleys (spacing) between gliricidia to cultivate fodder under irrigated conditions. This plot was prepared by shredding down gliricidia alleys to provide the biomass for the first rotation with fodder crop 一 Phaseolus Tribola and perennial fodder Sorghum.

This system was visualized by Tomas years ago as a mean to reduce yearly compost input (creating biomass | organic matter). In the coming season, we intend to observe if the plot will be able to sustain itself with the biomass created from the gliricidia and legume crop rotation. This plot will further rotate into food crops and eventually into a fruit plantations; banana.

The aim is to slowly move towards minimizing the reliance on millet grains to having the herd predominantly fodder (grass)-fed while extending the land under long-term cultivation. As of today we harvested about a ton of leguminous fodder – Phaseolus Tribola and test cut of the perennial fodder sorghum from 392bb.

Alley Cropping System*

Hedgerow intercropping, also referred to as Alley cropping system is a type of strip cropping or agroforestry practice, in which fast growing trees and shrubs are established on the arable lands and annual food or forage crops cultivated in the “alleys” between the hedgerows. The shrubs or trees are usually planted in rows of 2.0 m to 6.0 m apart, with crops cultivated between rows. The trees or shrubs managed as hedges are pruned periodically during cropping phases to prevent shading of companion crop and the pruning applied to the soil as green manure and / or mulch. This improves the organic matter status of the soil besides proving nutrients, especially nitrogen. This system also creates a more favorable microclimate for crops by shielding them from drying winds. Trees or shrubs and crops components are managed to be complimentary rather than competitive.

Salad Bar and Green Manure for the paddy season 2022-23

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Irrigated salad bars/green manure are relatively easy depending on the monsoon each year. At Annapurna, we receive an ample monsoon (summer and winter) and sometimes, even a cyclone at times. As a result, rain water harvest ponds have more  capacity to sustain the rice, orchards, and fodder, because of which we sow early harvested paddy fields to raise an irrigated salad bar. Green manures such as Phaslous Tribola and Sesbania Speciosa, (dryland specials) establish robust overgrowing of the weeds under irrigated conditions. 

The CO43 paddy harvested early in January and the Annapurna paddy fields stretching up to 7.7 of the total 20 acres, raised with early green manure and irrigated since the good monsoon last season, serve as a grazing ground for the dairy during the dry season. Cows spend an hour grazing in a  rice plot and get daily rotated into another field. The idea is to irrigate the fields enough to establish the crop, graze the cattle swiftly, and allow green manure to bounce back up with the irregular summer showers to plow it back in for paddy preparation. The remaining paddy fields are grown and managed as the dryland salad bar for the dairy and green manure for the paddy. Productivity of these plots varies from year to year depending very much on the summer monsoon rains.

In an exact opposite scenario, we rely on the summer rain to germinate the green manure. In such instances,  we look at rain predictions and then sow the green manure. Some years it rains several centimeters high, which can replicate the same result as when we rely on the irrigated system. This year, however, the rains were short and scattered. 

This brings us the first heavy flush of weeds, predominantly the Trianthema decandra L, which is locally known as spinach and is edible for cattle in regulated quantities. Under the lush short canopies of this weed, we have our green manures germinated. It remains dormant without ample sun and moisture and waits for the weeds to wither out after its 45-day life cycle. This grown sea of this dominant weed also falls prey to caterpillars (moth species unidentified) and gets eaten away making way for the sunlight to reach the ground and the dormant green manure finally synthesizes back to life.

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.

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.