The Auroville farms are stagnating

In late 2021, a four-member study group (Allan, Avinash, Fred and Nidhin) began analyzing Auroville’s food sector. In the process they also looked into the efficiency of the three farm subgroups – the vegetable, dairy and grains subgroups – that had been set up by the farmers [see AVToday # 399 of October 2022, eds.] In April 2022 they presented their initial findings to the Funds and Assets Management Committee of the Residents’ Assembly: the farm sector in Auroville was largely unplanned, seasonal and uncoordinated; apart from providing personal maintenances to the farmers, the community did not support the farms; no funds were made available for necessary infrastructure developments; and there were no formal commitments from the community distribution centres and eateries to utilise Auroville farm products. The team proposed doing a pilot project to demonstrate a planned production and consumption model for vegetables, so as to move away from non-planned and competitive production, starting with a few farm products and involving the Solar Kitchen, and to further survey the farms. The FAMC approved the proposal. The team became a sub-group of the FAMC and started work under the name of Aruvadai (meaning ‘harvest’ in Tamil). Auroville Today asked its three present members, Avinash, Nidhin and Madhuri, about their work and the state of Auroville farms today.

The Solar Kitchen experiment

“Our Solar Kitchen pilot project aimed at harmonising the demand and the supply of vegetables,” says Nidhin. “We invited the farmers to plan and supply the quantities required. We thought we could get the farmers to focus on the core needs of the community, and for the rest let them produce whatever they wanted. But this didn’t work out as hoped. For some weeks the pilot was successful, but only because some farms over-produced, making up for those who under-produced. Quite a few farmers were not able to deliver, and many reasons were given: weather patterns, unavailability of seeds, or wildlife intrusion.

“We observed that most farmers do not collaborate with each other. Many farmers expressed a lot of goodwill and were willing to produce whatever was needed for Auroville, but there were no serious commitments due to the lack of accountability. There was no consideration about what would happen if their produce was insufficient. The farmers were not motivated to jointly plan for the needs of Auroville and to see jointly what can be done if a farm would be unable to meet the expectations. We tried to bring the farms together and do planning and review sessions, but there wasn’t enough interest in working together. Due to the uncertainty caused by the administrative changes and the poor level of commitment from the participating farms, the pilot project was formally discontinued.”

The farm survey

“The survey work has been difficult,” says Avinash. “When we started our farm survey we were met with distrust. We wanted to understand the situation of each farm, study each farmer’s practices and listen to the challenges and the needs. But not all farmers co-operated. Some did willingly, some grudgingly, but some refused.”

The survey intended to assess the farms in a holistic manner – how much land does the farm have and its usage, their vision and practices, number of workers and their working culture what are they producing in what quantities – e.g. grains, vegetables, fruits, eggs, milk and milk products such as cheese, and farm manufactured produce such as jams and butters. On the financial side, there were questions about income and expenditure, debt status, and the question of whether the farm was in positive, break-even, or in minus.

“We also tried to get information that indicates ecological sustainability under multiple variables such as soil fertility – organic and regenerative practices, water management, how dairy/poultry farmers manage their herds/flocks and integrate within the whole ecosystem, but we learnt that we cannot gauge a farm’s sustainability with current levels of data,” says Madhuri. “For example, most farms do not have water meters and have never conducted soil tests to understand how to improve or manage. Another observation made was that green manuring, building biomass for a regenerative system along with producing farmyard manure is relatively easy for large farms, such as Annapurna and AuroOrchard, which can dedicate some of their land for these needs. But if your farm is small, it is difficult to generate biomass as you have to grow a crop in that limited land area.”

Monitoring the farms

“We also monitored the vegetable production in farms,” says Nidhin. “We tracked the farming process from planting to distribution. We then noticed that most farmers are not good at following through on the plan. If you commit to producing a certain quantity at a certain date, you need to plan how many seeds you need to sow at what date to get the required quantity in time. But this did not happen. The vegetable farmers have been struggling with a high rate of crop failure. Most of them plough their land and resort to very basic natural fertilisation methods such as integrating cow manure into soil before planting. But that appears to be not enough. There is a lot of ecological pressure, such as pests and diseases, and if you don't have effective fertilisation and pest-repellent practices, your crops will have a poor yield. Also, wildlife invasion is on the increase, and crops can only be protected if there is proper fencing. Due to the absence of permanent fences, we observed that a few farms are using electric fences the maintenance of which adds to their farming expenses. Then there is the problem that some farms are located in low-lying areas that get periodically water-logged; here a landscape change will be required if they are expected to produce there.”

The subgroups

The team also looked into the functioning of the grains and dairy subgroups. They found that the grains group works well in terms of planning, crop loans, learning and maintaining grain-growing standards. The paddy granary is full, though it could increase and diversify with more storage and milling investments. But there is a substantial crop loss due to wild life invasion. The dairy subgroup also functioned well, even though one of the standards of the group, to provide milk figures for dairy production, was adhered to by only a few dairies.

FoodLink

The team observed that the vegetable and fruit farmers bring all their produce to FoodLink [the central distribution centre for farm products, eds.] in the expectation that FoodLink will deal with it, as they do not have a marketing capacity, unlike the larger farms Annapurna, AuroOrchard and Brihaspathi which maintain contacts not only with FoodLink but also with the community and its eateries.

“The classic problem with bringing all your produce to FoodLink is that FoodLink has a very limited and often clogged market for vegetables and fruits. Due to uncoordinated production, occasionally the same product is delivered by different farms on the same day, and distribution becomes quite challenging, especially without reducing prices,” says Nidhin.

The dynamics are different for dairy and grain production. With dairy, the primary issue is the stark drop in demand during the summer months when the schools are closed and many Auroville residents are out of station. The former FoodLink team turned excess milk into paneer, cream and curd, but also would ask the dairy farmers to manage their milk on their own during the off-season and during school or public holidays.

The Auroville Foundation intervention

Soon after it took office, the current Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation constituted its own Funds and Assets Management Committee (GB-FAMC) and dismissed the previous one constituted by the Residents’ Assembly. The GB-FAMC in turn started a new Farm Service with four executives, Anshul, Anita, Gino and Jyoti Prasad. This Farm Service then announced that, together with the GB-FAMC, it would restructure FoodLink; and that the Farm Group, a working group created by the farmers, stood dissolved. All farming matters had now to be addressed to the new Farm Service, which also took over the finance and overall operations of the Farm Group, making the subgroups, such as the dairy subgroup, largely irrelevant. The GB-FAMC then fired two FoodLink executives and put in different people. A few months later, the GB-FAMC announced that all farms had to become self-supporting and that all farmers’ maintenances were now cut. Earlier, the Solar Kitchen was instructed to be frugal in its procurement from Auroville farms. And later, it became known that the Secretary had appointed an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to look into all farm matters.

“All these developments, coupled with the ongoing general polarisation in Auroville, have added to the already existing mistrust and lack of cooperation,” says Avinash. “The farmers took the dissolution of the Farm Group and its replacement by the Farm Service rather badly. The cutting of the maintenances has increased their resentment and has led to fears and isolation. Every farm is now on its own and is expected to fully take care of itself. But this is unrealistic. The cutting of the maintenances created a pressure to become financially independent. It might work for large farms but it doesn’t work for small farms. They need support. Growing vegetables is not something you can survive on. Now there is a fear that the Auroville Foundation may decide to close down farms that are low producing or in the red figures, without consideration for the years of hard work of the farmers and the personal savings they’ve put into the farm.”

“Following these changes, a new kind of planning was undertaken by the vegetables subgroup but it didn’t translate into a meaningful increase in production,” says Nidhin. “The Farm Service wanted to improve the total production of each farm and find ways to deal with the excess produce. They had been looking at the prices in the Pondicherry market, but concluded that the Auroville prices were too high especially when it had to be distributed through intermediaries who add their own margins. It also proved to be impossible to market all Auroville produce as organic, as Auroville has only ten certified organic farms. Hence, Auroville vegetables are not competitive.

“Also the re-organisation of FoodLink has not been successful. Only the executives were changed; however no real support was given to them to handle supply surpluses and no coherent distribution policy was developed. The new FoodLink team started with a policy of no-returns and wanted to create more distribution channels. During the first couple of months they took all the milk from the dairies regardless of low demand and looked into reaching out to cheese making units within Auroville. The new FoodLink team is making efforts to diversify its milk processing and cater to a wider customer base.”

The resentment has increased the lack of cooperation. The Farm Service does the financial administration of all the farms but it appears that its current two executives do not interact with the farmers. The Farm Service also doesn’t publish the farms’ financial figures, and has not supplied them to Aruvadai for the survey. “As we did not get the details of this financial year, our data collection is very incomplete; we have no choice but to base ourselves on the financial figures of the last financial year,” says Nidhin.

Thinking of the future

Aruvadai is still discussing how best to publish the results of its work. “Given the complexity of the issue and the uniqueness of each farm, we are hesitant to enter into judgments or rate the farms,” says Avinash. “But we do have some strong observations which we will share.”

One of them is that Auroville needs to develop a wide-ranging and long-term work plan for farming and food security in Auroville. This can only be done in collaboration with all involved: interested farmers, the Farm Service, the OSD, specific clients from the community, our team and perhaps some external experts. This plan should also address issues of farms’ sustainability and developing a good internal distribution system. The participation of farmers is essential, not only those who manage large farms, but also those who run small ones and now struggle to make ends meet.

Another consideration is that the Governing Board should approve a very large budget for long-term infrastructure development, not only for existing farms but also for the new ones, such as Kamadenu farm, a 15 acre farm located opposite the Irumbai temple, and a new 6 acre farm in Rayapudupakkam. This budget should include fencing of farms, landscaping of low-lying farm lands, building of storage facilities and farm produce processing equipment as well as allocating new maintenances for aspiring farmers in Auroville.

“This idea is not new,” says Avinash. “Many years ago, in 2011, a Five Year Sustainable Agriculture Plan was published which stated that sustainable organic agriculture could be massively increased in Auroville, but only if heavy investments in existing and new farms were made – the plan estimated Rs. 10 crores [in today’s values, 21 crore, eds.] over 5-years. [see AVToday September 2011, # 266]. But this was never done and to this day the demand for a large capital influx in farm infrastructure has remained unanswered. We recommend that the Foundation provides capital support based on specific needs and contingent on meeting criteria like participation in planning, transparency, accountability and periodic review of production targets by the farms concerned. This could be facilitated through training programmes for farms such as budget preparation, accounts management, best cultivation practices and ‘know how's’ of farming.

“Lastly, the Governing Board must realize that exchanging productive and established farmland for city lands, as was recently done by cutting off a large part of AuroOrchard and of Buddha Garden and Siddhartha farm for a VIP road bypassing Edayanachavady, directly affects Auroville's agricultural sustainability and is contrary to the Board’s views that Auroville needs to enhance its food production.”

Aruvadai’s report is expected by the end of March 2024.