Rejuvenating the farms

"We are six, all are in our early thirties. In 2020, after witnessing the endless ego clashes in the Farm Group, we felt that enough is enough and came forward with the proposal that, henceforth, we would coordinate the farms. 'We' is Suhasini (Herbert's daughter); Guru (Iyenar's son), Prakash (Ponnusamy's son), Sathyavan (Murthy's son); Manickandan; and myself. All of us have plenty of farming experience, either as the son or daughter of an Auroville farmer, or because of farm studies.

We made a presentation: the coordination team would be advised by senior farmers and all proposals would be decided by majority vote in meetings of all farmers. We also proposed to divide the roles and responsibilities into four areas: (1) internal communication and coordination; (2) external representation and communication; (3) finance; and (4) production and research. And we would employ an accountant and a secretary. The majority of the 22 farm managers, though not overtly enthusiastic, welcomed the initiative and gave us the green light to go ahead for a six-month period.

It was an interesting time. We started with a lot of enthusiasm and came up with written proposals for all four areas. But unfortunately, the farmers who have a track record of making it difficult for the Farm Group to come to an agreement gave us a lot of opposition. For them, we were just young kids who knew nothing and they blocked us from working on important areas. We coped with the situation till the trial period was over. But even though the majority of the farmers supported us to continue for another six months, we decided to quit as we felt that we were continuously being undermined by this small but rather vocal minority. We wrote a voluminous report, detailing what we had worked on and what needed to be looked at, sent copies to all farmers and the major working groups, and then resigned.

Yet, that wasn't the end of the matter. Our resignation led to some deep thinking. The majority of the farmers felt good about the coordination idea, but questioned the composition of the coordination team as all the members were from the same age group. The solution we found together was to create a core-group of representatives of the various subgroups: the grains group, the vegetable group, the diary group and the poultry group. Each would send two representatives, who, together with one supporting member, an accountant and an interim secretary, would function as the core group. We drafted a guideline on the roles and responsibilities of this core group, and this was approved.

The core group now is accepted by almost all farmers. Thomas and Ayarpadi Moorthi represent the grain group; Charlie and Renuka the dairy; Iyyanar and Rajan from Buddha garden the vegetables; and Suhasini and myself the poultry group, with Allan as interim secretary. The agreement is that the core group will address everything and give feedback to the larger group, but that we decide together by majority vote. Only in urgent cases can the core group take decisions by itself.

The work of the core group has become intense. We started meeting once every two weeks, but now need to meet weekly. Many major topics are at on the table: finances, farm land allocation, the proposed new Gratitude farm, the proposed division of farms into three or five-acre plots, and community participation.

Farm finances

Finance is a major issue. Auroville does not provide financial support to the Auroville farms, apart from paying the maintenances of the farmers. Each farm has to manage its own income and expense and all farmers struggle to make ends meet. This has led to a number of problems.

One is the pricing of farm produce, which is fixed by the farmers and not by the clients, e.g. the Aurovilians. As the prices are higher than in Pondicherry, any farm surplus cannot easily be disposed of. Another consequence is that many Aurovilians prefer buying their rice and vegetables in Pondicherry. Lastly, it has resulted in farmers wanting to grow crops that have a high market price. This has led to competition, farm surpluses and tension, and to the fact that crops that have low prices are not grown, or not in sufficient quantity.

Farmers also need loans: long-term infrastructure loans, short-term seed loans, and sometimes emergency loans. We are grateful that an Aurovilian donated about Rs 15 lakhs to the farms, which now serves as our loan fund. All loan requests are first discussed in the subgroup; they pass it on with their recommendation to the core group, which takes the final decision. The maximum loan for infrastructure is Rs 3 lakhs.

To solve these problems I have been proposing that Auroville starts experimenting with the model of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The Ashram farms operate on a budget - this includes their infrastructure needs - and they supply all their produce to the Ashram. The Ashram farmers do not decide on pricing, and therefore are not in competition. This, I believe, is the model which should be followed by Auroville.

Farm land allocation

Farm land allocation is another difficult topic. Today, we need to take decisions on two plots: a 6-acre plot at Rayapudupakkam and a 15 acre plot at Irumbai. Both are lying fallow. The Rayapudupakkam plot is suitable for growing ground nuts, millets and vegetables. The Irumbai plot is ideal for rice cultivation. To start operating both plots, major funds will be required for infrastructure (fencing, roads, farm housing and sheds). Our views are that this money has to come from Auroville. We cannot allocate land to people for the single reason that they have the personal resources to pay for the needed infrastructure. That would not only be unfair to people who do not have such resources, it would also create a wrong sense of entitlement. Auroville will need to invest in its farms if it wants to follow its ideals, such as self-sustainability, to the extent possible in our climate.

Traditional rice varieties.

The Irumbai plot has raised another question: what we are going to do with all that rice? Auroville has three major rice producers: Annapurna farm, managed by Tomas; Siddharta farm, run by Herbert; and Ayarpadi farm, managed by Moorthi.

We discussed how the Irumbai farm would fit in. The answer is diversification, going back to the roots of paddy growing in India. Before the Green Revolution, which introduced high-yield rice varieties, India boasted of hundreds of traditional rice varieties, each with their own specific quality, such as for lactating mothers, for its fragrance, or its specific taste. And that's where Auroville has to go to. We know that in our climatic and soil conditions many rice varieties are easily cultivable without risk. Herbert is now even successfully growing Basmati rice. And those traditional varieties, grown in certified organic conditions, can be sold in Pondicherry without any problem, for here is a big market.

We do have problems, though. The yield of traditional organically grown paddy will be a bit less than normal paddy and the process of converting it into rice is a bit different. Auroville does not have its own rice mill, but with the addition of Irumbai Farm, I think we are getting to a sufficient volume to justify having one. The option of going to an external paddy processor, a commercial rice mill, is not ideal: there will always be adulteration with normal rice as we would be supplying a limited quality only.

Gratitude Farm

Recently the Secretary proposed to develop a new farm, called 'Gratitude farm'. The core of the proposal is that from an existing 4-acres demonstration farm near Certitude, now managed by Kumar, which started in 2018-2019, half an acre will be set apart and be developed by a few non-Aurovilians with a subsidy from the Auroville Foundation of 4.75 lakhs. The non-Aurovilians would supply the manure and fertilizer required. They also propose that half of its produce would be supplied to Auroville, the other half would be sold by these non-Aurovilians in their organic stores outside Auroville.

The Farm Group was not been consulted on this proposal and neither was it invited to evaluate it. We learned that the Foundation Office had invited a few farmers - mainly those who do not agree with the work of the Farm Group - who were given a presentation. We heard they were impressed. But when we looked at the proposal - to the extent it was shared with us - we concluded that there was nothing new, and that, in fact, we could do much better with that 4.75 lakhs than what was proposed. We would prefer it if the subsidy be used to help develop existing Auroville farms. And if those non-Aurovilians need organic produce, some of the Auroville farms have been certified as organic producers and can sell it to them. We have many questions, but we have not been given any answers.

Three or five-acre plots?

The Farm Group has also discussed another proposal from the Auroville Foundation office, to split Auroville farms into plots of three or five acres each. This too needs to be evaluated. In our experience, if you set up a new farm from scratch, a three or five acre farm makes sense. But if you divide well developed farms into five-acre plots, then you will face many challenges: you'll need to share resources such as water and electricity; you'll have extra infrastructure costs; and the community will need to pay more maintenances. We concluded that this would lead to large additional expenses, interpersonal problems, and essentially would not benefit the community.

We discussed this idea in the context of the Rayapudupakkam and the Irumbai plots. While it is clear to us that Rayapudupakkam should be managed by one person only, there are ideas that the Irumabai plot could be managed by 3 farmers, each holding 5 acres, with a commitment to share resources. We are still discussing the pros and cons of this idea - my personal preference would be that one farmer takes responsibility. Another idea is that the plot is put under the management of the Farm Group to ensure that it remains dedicated to farming and will not be diverted to guesthouses or other money-making activities.

What it boils down to is that we need people who are willing to do farming, not just 'managing' but being active in the field themselves. We need people to work, not people sitting behind a computer. Auroville farming requires the involvement of much manual labour. For we still lack the finances to buy machinery such as for planting, weeding, sowing and harvesting. There was a proposal a long time back that we would jointly purchase such machinery, that one person would be the overall caretaker and visit the farms whenever needed. That idea did not materialize, but I think we should give it another try.

Farm festivals

Community support for the farms leaves much to be desired. We have put out calls in the News and Notes and on the Auronet, asking people to come and help, but with little success. Quite a few people, including Newcomers, have given it a try, but few remained as only those who have a strong connection to farming will connect. We are now thinking of organizing a few large farm festivals, inviting the entire community to come and help rice planting or harvesting or whatever, with a potluck and bonfire in the evening. This may bolster community interest.