The new food regime: “Bring your own tiffin! Sanitize your hands! Wear your mask!”

In ‘normal’ times, Aurovilians have a great deal of choice when it comes to dining in cafes and restaurants, or buying groceries to cook at home. But what happens to this system under lockdown? How are Aurovilians currently feeding themselves when they cannot dine out or move around freely to obtain food? What adaptations have Auroville’s food units and services had to make? And what are the long-term implications and learnings for Auroville’s food security? Are people becoming more conscious of sustainable food choices?

Tiffin wallahs

“Please bring your own tiffin! No cash! Sanitize your hands at the entrance! Maintain a social distance of two metres while waiting! Wear your mask!” So read the signs currently posted at Auroville’s restaurants and cafes, reflecting the shift from ‘dine-in’ to take-away systems that adhere to new hygiene and social distancing regulations. A “no mask, no tiffin "policy has been implemented at some eateries for people queueing to collect their meals. The early lockdown days were the hardest, unit managers say, due to the initial uncertainty around what regulations the Indian government would impose. Once the lockdown restrictions were clarified, Auroville’s eateries could move ahead with the challenging task of reconfiguring their operations.

When the Solar Kitchen closed its dining hall to its regular 600 daily diners in mid-March, it continued to shoulder the load of feeding many of the community’s hungry mouths under lockdown, dispensing 280 tiffins per day. Other cafes – Neem Tree Café, Aurelec, Visitors Centre Cafeteria – offer pre-ordered tiffin food, and cafes such as Dreamer’s or Garden Café offer take-way food from an à la carte menu that can be collected or delivered to the home. Indeed, when Aurovilians can dial up home delivery of croissants, quiches and coffee from Dreamers’ Café, life doesn’t seem so hard under lockdown, for some at least.

For the workers behind the scenes, the reconfiguration of their operations has involved substantial work. For example, the Solar Kitchen’s revised system is much more time-consuming than previously, because of new hygiene measures and the increase in tiffins from 200 to 280 per day. The Solar Kitchen’s Angelika explains that each of the 280 empty tiffins must first be washed in hot soapy water for 30 seconds, followed by two more hot water rinses. Given that each tiffin comprises six sections, this means that about 2000 pieces need to be washed before being reassembled. Only when this process is finished by late morning can the tiffins be filled. “Day by day, everyone gets more used to the upgraded hygiene requirements,” says Angelika.

Supply of produce

To meet the needs of those community members who prefer to buy produce and cook at home under lockdown, Auroville’s food outlets have made significant changes. Because of state government orders, grocery outlets (PTPS, PTDC, HERS) have reduced their opening hours. Auroville Bakery’s shop closed while it continued providing its fresh bread at the community’s grocery outlets, but it has recently reopened for takeaway.

Foodlink – the unit that receives and distributes produce from Auroville’s farms – experienced a five-fold increase in customers at its small outlet in the Solar Kitchen complex. The sudden influx of 150-180 customers per day created long queues in their small space, and raised challenges for staff. “People initially wanted to store as much organic food as possible in their fridge, because they did not know what would happen,” explains Vivek from Foodlink, about how the lack of clarity in the early days of lockdown sparked a surge in buying. “The big increase in footfall was difficult for us. Our storage space is limited. We only had one spot to do the weighing and billing, so people had to wait a long time. We had five times the usual amount of work. We had to clean surfaces constantly. Another challenge was to make people aware that they couldn’t just do what they were used to doing before, like going to the fridge, taking items with their hands, and not using a hand sanitiser.”

Sumathi, Vivek’s colleague, describes the first month of lockdown as being the “most challenging” of her 22 years at Foodlink/Farm Group. “It’s been more work and responsibility than before. There’s more tension and it takes longer to finish the work. There are lots of new volunteers, so I have to explain a lot. But I enjoy doing this job.”

In the early lockdown days, Foodlink also noticed there were often 80 or 90 people in the Solar Kitchen complex at one time, obtaining groceries from Foodlink or PTDC, or collecting tiffins at the kitchen. “Basically they were all doing the same thing – getting supplies for themselves,” says Vivek. “We noticed that some people came regularly for very small purchases, such as half a kilo of rice. They told us, ‘This is the only time I can leave the house!’ This individualist approach to getting supplies didn’t make sense. We had to adapt.”

So Foodlink closed its market and initiated a new supply system that aimed to “meet Auroville’s needs in an overarching way, not an individualist manner.” The new system also aimed to reduce the amount of people congregating at the Solar Kitchen complex, and to avoid having two produce outlets open so close to each other (Foodlink, PTDC). So Foodlink firstly made available fresh produce through the community’s grocery outlets. This required a new level of hygiene practices. “Before lockdown, we used to clean the baskets, but now we have to clean them with disinfectant. All over the world, people are starting to do things they weren’t trained for, the job of a health professional. We saw that volunteers came with good will and skills, and were willing to develop themselves to do something they’d never done.”

Foodlink’s second major initiative was the implementation of an online-ordering and home-delivery service for grains and dairy products at a very early stage of lockdown, which had the desired effect of reducing the numbers of people coming to its market. The delivery has been taken up by seven volunteers and Foodlink staff, who deliver orders with two-wheelers, some of which were provided by Auroville electric mobility unit e-Kinisi.Vivek and his colleague Sumathi emphasise the number of people who volunteered to help unconditionally. “They’re there every day at 8.30 am on the dot, taking care of online orders for delivery,” describes Vivek.”That human element was surprising – people going beyond looking for their own supplies, but looking to supply others. In a time of crisis, they came to extend their help.”

So far, the supply of produce from Auroville’s farms has not been affected under lockdown, according to Vivek and Sumathi, as the current yield is from crops that were planted in January or February before lockdown began. While there may be a change in supply from Auroville’s farms in future months, they suggest that the main problem will be the size of the population in Auroville this summer. “Usually in summer, the population of Auroville shrinks by one third,” says Sumathi. “This summer, our population is almost 100 percent as residents are not able to leave Auroville for cooler climates. There will be much more demand than any other year that I remember in the last 15 to 20 years. We will see.”

Apps for home delivery

A positive outcome of the lockdown has been the development of an app for PTDC members to order delivery of fresh produce and grains online – a “first” app of its kind in Auroville. The app has been created by the Talam team in CSR, Auroville, which creates tech platforms that support community life and progress towards the dream. Talam had already created the Consciously dashboard for PTDC, which details consumption patterns of members with the aim of encouraging them to shift them to more conscious food choices. While the Talam team already had the idea to create a purchasing app for PTDC, the lockdown accelerated the process. “We felt we had to do it now, so it happened fast,” says Shankardevy. “We liaised a lot, to understand customers’ needs. It was a collaborative effort.” Shankardevy’s colleague Divish points out that the team needed to “act much faster” than Auroville’s usual “slow” pace.

“I called Min at 4 pm and said I can give you a demo in two days, and at 9 pm, there were seven people on a conference call, planning,” he says.”I don’t see this sense of urgency usually. Everyone took ownership of their own task. Within a week of our first conversation, we were ready with the first prototype. Everyone understood the need and rose to the occasion.”

Talam did a small pilot with 15 co-op members over two days, and then made some adjustments to the app before making it available to the wider community. PTDC staff have also provided feedback on the vendor-side of the app, so the technology could be streamlined to reduce the amount of time staff spend in managing the order. The app currently receives about 18 orders per day, of about 20 items per person. When items are not available, the customer receives an automated message that informs them, saving time again for PTDC staff. Auroville transport unit ITS has provided electric vehicles for deliveries, which volunteers drive to do the home drops.

“Feedback has been really great,” says Divish about the app. “We got a lot of messages of gratitude for starting this quickly, and members gave good feedback about what to change. It didn’t feel transactional at all – everyone was really involved in it. Somehow, the whole community came together this time.”

Shifting attitudes to food in the long-term

So, given all this rapid adaptation under strange times, what have been the learnings so far about our produce and food security? Will the experience transform the way in which Auroville approaches food consumption and supply in the future?

Foodlink’s Vivek asserts that food will become a major ongoing issue after lockdown, because the economy will have changed and there will be “huge inflation” on food coming from outside. “Outside farmers are hurting a lot right now, and they’ll have to cover their costs,” he says. In contrast, Auroville’s farm produce operates on a unique system that does not depend on the market prices, which means it can absorb some inflation and its prices remain fixed for one year, even if their costs increase.

The other shift that Vivek predicts is a greater appreciation for Auroville’s organic food, and an increased acceptance of the concept of food baskets, where consumers do not choose the contents but instead receive what is seasonal from the farms. Vivek points out that over the years and with increased choice of goods in Auroville, residents’ shopping practices have been increasingly shaped by individual preferences: “choosing bigger eggs, the vegetables with brighter leaves... shopping in the same manner as they would do outside the community.” But this approach does not sufficiently support what can be grown locally. For example, bananas and papayas are easily grown in Auroville, but grapes are not possible due to the climatic zone, soil quality, and need for a cool or moderate climate. And because some Aurovilians like grapes, they will buy them from outside providers who have shipped the grapes from distant places – inadvertently supporting food with high ‘food miles’.

Going local

Following Foodlink’s creation of an online list of Auroville farm produce and dry goods, an outcome of lockdown is that many residents have become aware of the great variety of produce that Auroville grows, and will now buy local – that is, food with more sustainable ‘low food miles’. “They didn’t know of some of the minor grains and millets, or that they can make bread out of it,” says Vivek.”Now they’re requesting it because they’re aware of it.”

Krishna from Solitude Farm has also noticed community members’ increased appreciation of local foods under lockdown, demonstrated by the leap in orders for the farm’s fresh produce baskets, from 21 baskets per week before lockdown, to 51 baskets in recent weeks. While some of the vegetables might be new to residents – such as sundakkai (often referred to as turkey berry or wild eggplant), green papaya, banana stem and chicken spinach – they’re being embraced with enthusiasm. “People getting the baskets are saying, ‘Wow, I love the sundakkai!,” says Krishna.” Because of this openness and willingness, and this sense of urgency, people are willing to explore. We have a WhatsApp group for recipes.”

Krishna points out that the industrialisation of food that’s taken place globally over the last few decades has also affected what’s usually on people’s plates in Auroville. “We’re often eating whole grain organic pasta from Milan and luxurious olive oil from Italy, and the popcorn we buy in the bazaar in Pondy is from Argentina, and the black gram urad dal in the dosa we eat comes from Bangladesh. Our potatoes come from Ooty, and our wheat comes from Punjab. We’re so profoundly disconnected from nature, we don’t even know where our food is coming from. In America, they calculate the average plate of food has about 1500 food miles. That’s ridiculous! We’re constantly hurting the earth through our ignorance.

“Masanobu Fukuoka, who is the inspiration for all my work, has a famous phrase: ‘The society that does not know where its food comes from, is a society without culture. That society will perish.’ That’s exactly where we are. Exactly. Everything is crumbling. Auroville has no income to pay the schools, to subsidise the Solar Kitchen. So people are realising now that we’ve got all our eggs in one basket – an economy based on tourism. It’s become focused on very ephemeral values, with monetary gain as the prime focus. People are starting to say: ‘What’s going to happen because there’s no money?’ So they realise the first thing we have to start valuing is food. Now, even if everything goes back to normal, people have woken up.”

In contrast to foods with ‘high food miles’, the fruit and vegetables in the Solitude Farm baskets are all local, which means they have specific characteristics, says Krishna. “They grow easily, they use less water to grow, they have a very high nutritional and medicinal value, they’re seasonal and, most importantly, they have no carbon footprint – that is, no ecological cost to the planet, because they’re local, and you don’t need a lorry to bring them to your plate.”

Circle gardens

15 communities in Auroville have also been creating circle gardens under Krishna’s guidance during lockdown; transcending community differences to dig and plant each day. “Those efforts are extremely humble, yet they will make a big change. They connect people to the divinity of the soil.” While Krishna initiated circle gardens in Auroville some years back, they didn’t take off to the extent he’d hoped at that time, because people were too busy. “But now, everyone has time,” he laughs. "They don’t have other things to do under lockdown. There is no money to make! So they’re back to the basics. That’s the blessing of the moment.”

Krishna emphasises how individual people’s ignorance of local foods contributes to climate change, which is “one manifestation of the problem. The virus is another manifestation.” He stresses that when the movement of people and goods slows down to become more like the essence of nature, these problems disappear.

“I can’t see how things can go back to normal. I think there will be much bigger challenges ahead of us. If our society is not going to be based on money, what is it based on? We have to work that out. The Auroville pioneers all lived on millets when there wasn’t anything much. So there is that consciousness in our experience in Auroville. When people honour local food, that is profoundly spiritual. They are honouring Mother Nature, and it’s not separate from Mother. We can align ourselves more deeply with the devotional aspect of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga by eating local food.”

Serenity is one community that has recently initiated a circle garden under Krishna’s guidance, with Rekha, Marion and Stefano and other community members growing summer-friendly produce inside a natural fence that keeps cows out. “I strongly feel that we should be ‘fooding’ Auroville right now,” says community member Marion, “in the same way that we have already done the greening of Auroville.”

Auroville farms

Vivek from Foodlink hopes that this recent increased appreciation for local food will lead to more recognition for Auroville’s farms, and for Foodlink’s unique role as a farmers’ cooperative that charges farmers’ prices and doesn’t add overheads. “Before the lockdown, Auroville had overall gone in the direction of most cities, and people have forgotten about the work of farmers,” says Vivek.”This pandemic will enhance their understanding. Someone asked me if they have to wash veggies from Pondy in disinfectant, because people have touched it twenty times. We didn’t get these questions before. Auroville food products come straight from the farm to here, and so it’s only changed hands three times, but food from Pondy has changed hands hundreds of times, with many people involved, which is more of a problem for infection.”

Vivek argues that Auroville’s farms should be seen “as an engine for the growth of the whole city.” While the community’s 378 acres of farms currently provide about 18-20% of Auroville’s food supply, Vivek argues that this percentage is low because a lot of residents want to eat food that cannot be grown in the local soil. “If people are more flexible and start changing their food habits - like they’ve done recently - so that their food choices are in line with what we grow, they can have more from Auroville farms and can use that better. Auroville farms do grow a lot of veg and fruits, and also supply dry goods and dairy products. If the community consumes more of these, Auroville farmers can increase the percentage of food produced in Auroville.”

He points out that labourers’ wages will increase after the lockdown, as many workers will not want to work on farms, because the wages elsewhere may be more lucrative. “So, it’s inevitable that there is going to be an impact on the whole food system.” As the lockdown has highlighted the need for Auroville to supply more of its own produce and not rely on outside provisions, Vivek argues for the need for Auroville to invest more in the community’s farms. “In 2010, we made a five year plan for Auroville farms, but it never kicked off. Everyone thought, ‘We can survive somehow’. With the pandemic, what’s churning more in people’s minds is how to have more supply in Auroville. The farms produce a good amount, but can expand their capacity if the community gives extra support and uses the food we can grow. We have to invest in irrigation, open pond systems and water conservation. Foodlink needs extra storage capacity, for example, large cool rooms to conserve the vegetables and fruits. I think the one-year plan we will make now will have a big impact on the next 5-10 years.”

Talam also hopes that the app created for the lockdown will have an enduring effect. The feedback has been positive, and Auroville’s COVID Task Force and others have expressed interest in Talam setting up more apps. The Talam team believes there’s now more impetus for them to further develop their Consciously platform, which enables PTDC members to see the impact of their personal consumption, for example, the percentage of organic foods, the percentage of Auroville/non-Auroville products, and the amount of plastic packets consumed. “People were shocked to see they used 100 or 200 plastic bags in a month,” says Divish. “Everyone underestimated their plastic consumption by a huge margin.”

Just before the lockdown hit, the Talam team was planning to expand the Consciously platform so that Aurovilians and guests can easily connect to sustainable Auroville products and their units. As the increased consumption of Auroville products in recent weeks has shown, “there is an increasing interest and need for connecting Aurovilians to food producers within Auroville,” says Shankardevy. He explains that Foodlink does not store the entirety of Auroville’s farm produce, and farmers would like a way to connect with customers about the additional produce that’s available. Talam also wants to make it easy to connect people with different units or organisations in Auroville and the bioregion that are creating conscious products, “to help them build that relationship.” While Talam had previously tried to create this bridge, he believes the time is now ripe for a platform where consumers and farmers can communicate directly, with Foodlink as the intermediary. “A lot of people are asking for it. If we get the same support for it as the recently-introduced app, we can do it. We want to collaborate with other people creating conscious products, and help their work to grow with our support.”

Goodwill

All the food ‘players’ interviewed for this article emphasized the collaborative spirit and goodwill and energy contributed by community members and volunteers to help their operations during lockdown. “Usually during a crisis, people show their true face a little more,” says Angelika, whose Solar Kitchen team “managed well” with its usual team and no additional members. “So some Aurovilian team members have grown spontaneously into their new tasks and most of our employees have shown full dedication to continue to work, even with the initial threat of Auroville being the potential hot spot for the virus. We experienced something similar during Cyclone Thane.”

The Talam team described PTDC’s response as being “unimaginably good” at a critical time. “It’s a group of people who are really motivated or committed to change something,” says Divish. “I think involvement and co-creation is really important. A lot of times, people give suggestions that it would be good to build something like that, but they don’t want to put their time into it. Those projects don’t move beyond a certain level. But if a group is really committed to their project and feel technology could play a role in making it better, we’d be happy to engage with them.”

At the Garden Café, staff were given the option to stay at home, but all staff chose to continue working. The café’s production section of Naturellement jams and spreads etc. substantially reduced its output due to difficulties in getting raw materials and the drop in demand, so unit executive Martina decided to offer the products for half-price in Auroville’s outlets “as a gesture of goodwill” and kept staff busy with cleaning duties so that no one would lose their jobs.

For Foodlink, the experience “allowed us to realise that we’re here to develop ourselves as different human beings,” says Vivek. “There were moments we lost our patience because some consumers took supply of certain foods for granted but, overall, the experience allowed us to see what patience people have, as we all dealt with a new system. People joined without hesitation. Volunteers said they were thankful to learn. This is remarkable, in a time of crisis.” Vivek and Sumathi also highlight the goodwill and humility of pioneer Aurovilians, many of whom are now over 70 years old. “They said, ‘Don’t serve me first, put me last on your list. If you don’t have enough of something, give it to others.’ They don’t have a sense of entitlement, and wanted to be the last priority. The way they come across is amazing.”

For more on home farming see the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TlR3Vnod8k\