Auroville Farm Group questions fruit tendering process

In the beginning of May, the Auroville farmers published a report in the community edition of the Auroville News and Notes questioning the results of the imposition of the fruit harvest auction by the Auroville Foundation Office (AVFO). The farmers had been told that they had to agree to their fruit being harvested and sold to outside contractors. Since then, the harvest of the fruit trees of Auro-Orchard were purchased by a consortium from Auroville consisting of the Visitors Centre Cafeteria and the PTDC. The fruits from three other Auroville farms were purchased by outside contractors for a total cost of Rs 28,000.

Recently these contractors started arriving at the farms to assess what is available. Having done this, the contractors are now ready to take cash from the farmers to buy back the contract for a slightly increased cost of Rs 30,000. This could be because it now appears that the harvest won’t be as good as they first thought, so they are likely to lose money. The Farm Group, however, did not feel this option to be correct. “While buying back the lease may be a tempting way to keep the fruit for Auroville consumers, it is also expensive as the fruit is bought twice over. It also shields the AVFO from the consequence of its actions and means that both they and the contractors don’t get to feel the effects of what is a very impractical and immoral way of dealing with Auroville farm assets. Impractical because it is difficult to see how putting the fruit out to tender improves the food security of the community. Immoral because food is not just another asset to be sold to the highest bidder, but a basic need to which everyone should have access, especially when the food is carefully grown to be as healthy as possible, free of pesticides and other poisons and doesn’t deplete our natural resources of soil and water,” wrote the Farm Group. The Farm Group also questioned who will take care of the fruit trees once the contractors have harvested the crop so they can continue producing healthy fruits for Auroville, and who will pay for this.

The Farm Group stated that there are still many other unanswered questions. According to the conditions of the lease contract, the harvested fruit must first be offered to Auroville before being offered to the open market. How will this be done? Many contractors pick the fruit in large amounts and then ripen it artificially, in contrast to Auroville farmers who tend to ripen the fruit on the trees and to pick in smaller quantities according to the needs of the community. Moreover, if the fruit is ripened artificially, how will it be kept separate from other fruit in the usually very large containers which are used for this purpose? There are different methods of artificial ripening and some of the chemicals used can be very poisonous. If this is the way the fruit is going to be ripened, it will completely negate the careful organic way in which the fruit has been grown in Auroville. In the light of these concerns Auroville farmers think that this contracting out of fruit and cashews should not be repeated.

The Farm Group also questioned if it is the purpose of Auroville farms to grow food for the community or to make profits. There is no information what is done with the money collected from the fruit leases. The farmers feel strongly that they should be reimbursed for the work they have put into planting and maintaining the trees and preparing them for harvest. A few months ago all farmers’ maintenances was cut so this loss of harvest income is acutely felt. Requests to the GB constituted Funds and Assets Management Committee (GB-FAMC) for the money from the lease contracts have only been countered by requests from the GB-FAMC to each farm to create a budget, but no indication has been given that even if a budget is created the farm will receive the amount of the budget requested or any money at all. In fact, some farms have been told that in future 40% of any income they make will be taken by the Auroville Foundation Office, although there is no transparency about where the money will go and whether it will be used to support farms in the future.