Does Annapurna Farm face imminent destruction?

The why of the decision

The reason for the Board’s decision could be found in an article in the newspaper The Hindu of 25 July titled “Auroville and IIT-M working to fast-track sustainability campus project”. It stated that in its 69th meeting, the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation had approved a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a partnership between the Auroville Foundation and IIT. [The minutes of this meeting have not been published on the Foundation’s website, and neither has the content of the MoU been shared, eds.] The partnership is said to entail a 33-year lease of Annapurna land; IIT will build its fourth campus here, focussed on setting up a world class zero-emission test track for electric trucks.

“While this is in alignment with the broader national policy of guiding the logistics sector (where freight vehicles account for about 45% of transport emission) in transitioning to Zero Emission Technologies, the mandate of the sustainability campus is also to work on projects focused on achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The IIT-M has found a convergence of these missions with Auroville’s ideals” said the article.It added- that “The sustainability campus will provide a significant boost to emerging startups from Auroville, Puducherry, and the broader bio-region,” and that “the collaboration represents a significant step toward integrating sustainable technology education with community development in the Auroville region” as the proposed campus “is designed to serve as a hub for research and development in sustainable technologies while providing educational pathways for local students and supporting the growth of eco-friendly startups in the region.” The partnership is also expected to create new opportunities for innovation in sustainability and green technology. The Ministry of Education, Auroville’s nodal ministry, is said to have approved the MoU.

What’s in it for Auroville?

However, it is unclear how exactly Auroville will benefit from this partnership which justifies the loss of Auroville’s largest and best developed farm. In taking this decision, the Board has not consulted the two other authorities of the Auroville Foundation, the International Advisory Council and the Residents’ Assembly. It has also not sought the advice of Auroville’s own environmental and alternative energy experts; neither has it ordered a study to be done on the environmental impact of a test track for electric trucks.

In this issue of Auroville Today, we present the responses of Tomas, who has been running the farm since 1986; of three members of the Auroville International Advisory Council; and of Auroville resident Manoj Pavithran.

AVToday: Tomas, what was the impact on you of the email you received from the Governing Board appointed Auroville Town Development Council (ATDC) and the subsequent discussion you had with them?

Tomas: It hit us like a big shock, even though for the last year we had a foreboding that the Governing Board might be planning to sell or exchange Annapurna since they had announced that all outlying Auroville lands were going to be used to consolidate the city. In the last month, we had seen unknown people coming into Annapurna, measuring it, all without a previous appointment. We were not even talked to. Neither had anybody from the Auroville Foundation office asked us any questions. This decision was made without any discussion with us or prior intimation, as if it was a small matter.

Were there any other indicators of this decision?

Yes, there were. A few weeks ago we saw a newspaper article that claimed that a 106 acre Auroville owned plot was going to be used for IIT. At the same time we heard that they were also still looking at Aurobrindavan as a possible location.

The Board decided in its 57th Meeting held on 2 November 2021, to “enhance Auroville food production to meet the needs of Auroville”. How does the decision to relocate Annapurna Farm impact this ideal?

I do not think that the Board is serious about enhancing Auroville’s food production. Quite recently the Office of the Secretary, Auroville Foundation allowed the ruin of AuroOrchard Farm by exchanging a major part; the Board has agreed to demolish Buddha Garden and part of Siddhartha Farm for a VIP access road into Auroville; and now it wants to give 100 acres (out of 135) of Auroville’s only certified organic farm to IIT Madras for a ‘Sustainability Campus’. These actions belie the intention to increase Auroville’s food production. This is highly questionable as the Board aims at speedily increasing Auroville’s population, which needs to be fed. The other farms of Auroville are far too small and do not have any ability to meet such future demands. At present, Annapurna Farm produces 30% of the total food supply generated by Auroville’s farms, it functions as the community’s central granary and processes over 90% of grains from Auroville’s farms.

It has been said that the idea is to move all Auroville farms into the Master Plan area, with the justification that that would be consistent with the Mother’s original intentions.

This is false. The first lands for Annapurna Farm were purchased in the Mother’s lifetime, in 1967. It was her plan for these lands to be used for farming for Auroville. At that time nobody could imagine agriculture on the dry land plateau. From the beginning it was understood that it would be better to set up a farm where the soil would be suitable for irrigated crop cultivation. The Mother had similarly created farms in Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu to meet the needs of the inmates of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.

It is claimed that only 35 acres of Annapurna Farm are farmed, which might explain the initial decision of the Board to only lease 100 acres.

The land used for growing food or intensive fodder cultivation is about 35 acres. But to grow food on 35 acres one needs a support system around it to do that (ie storerooms, drying areas, animal sheds, processing facilities, ecological infrastructure like trees and hedges, roads, rainwater harvesting ponds, etc.) Initially, when we heard that land in Sedarapet was being considered, we wondered if allocation of the road side land (about 25 acres) could meet the needs of IIT. That would leave the main part intact, which has the productive farm land, the storage rooms, the cowsheds, the duck shelter, the workshops, the sustainable water management systems and the residences, for Annapurna’s use. The front part, which borders the road, has woodlands.

Is it lack of funds which prevented Annapurna also developing these areas?

Yes, it is partly that, but it is also the lack of Aurovilians who want to get involved in farming (right now we are farming with only three Aurovilians). In December last year I estimated that it would require an investment of between 5-10 crores to make the farm fully productive.

This could then feed a very large section of the 50,000 people who are supposed to populate Auroville in the future. But the Office of the Secretary, Auroville Foundation / Governing Board never really seems to have considered that option and never funded any of the existing farms. [Instead they provided the capital to begin a small demo farm near Certitude, which failed to produce the estimated output. This project has since been discontinued, eds.] We have relied on donations, many from well-wishers and supporters living abroad, to slowly develop the farm and its infrastructure and so to be able to provide organic produce to the Aurovilians. But equally important is the way we set up this farm. This farm is probably the most ecologically resilient and best equipped farm in Auroville.

For example, in response to our five-year plan to develop Annapurna, last year we received a foreign donation that helped us to fence an important part of the farm to prevent wildlife from foraging on the crops. This year we received a donation to purchase a paddy transplanter, a machine that mechanises the planting of rice seedlings. So far, this has been done manually by local women, but it is a back-breaking, labour-intensive, time-consuming and costly process – and farm labour is increasingly more expensive and difficult to hire. Mechanisation is an absolute must, but for that to work, you need a minimum acreage of crops. We bought the machine as it will be of great use to Annapurna and allow us to extend our rice fields. The intention is that this will be a shared asset for other farmers to use as and when needed. We have the infrastructure to maintain it so we’ll keep it at Annapurna.

Relocating a 135-acre farm is not easy...

Far from it, and my first response was that these people have no idea what they are talking about. First of all, to where can Annapurna be relocated? All other Auroville farms are relatively very small. Can the acreage of any of them be extended to become as large as Annapurna? Or can Auroville purchase a consolidated area of more than 100 acres in the Greenbelt to start a comparable large farm? The answer to both questions is ‘no’. Moreover, the simplistic idea of relocation ignores the fact that the soil in most of the Greenbelt will need huge investments to become of sufficient quality, that those lands do not have the IMO Control (IMO IN) organic certification which Annapurna has had since 2005, and that a new farm infrastructure needs to be built from scratch, ie store rooms, grain drying areas, mechanical workshop, residences, water harvesting, irrigation systems, roads, fencing. A recent example is Kamadhenu Farm opposite the Irumbai temple. The land was bought a few years before the present Board took office (October 2021), but until today the farm’s infrastructure has not been developed and the farmer is experiencing huge problems in making the soil fertile.

Then there is the question of cost. We have been told that funds for relocation will be made available, and we have been asked to prepare an estimate. Apparently, the working group members are thinking in terms of relocating sheds, workshops and other buildings. They may be under-estimating how much that is going to cost – it will need many crores at least – and how much money in addition will be required to build up a farm of comparable size and soil quality in the Auroville Greenbelt. Actually, the word “relocating” does not describe the situation; one needs to dismantle Annapurna farm and build a new farm (we can use some of the materials depending on the new location). An organic farm is built around the natural environment (soil type, land slopes, plot size, water situation, labour availability, etc.)

One of Annapurna’s storerooms has 60 tons of food grains, another has 10 tons of animal feed. That’s huge! Our machine workshop has three tractors, a grain processing machine, a paddy transplanting machine and many other tools and machines. The cowshed houses 30 animals. The duck shed has a thousand ducks during the season, which are only useful in a rice growing farm. There is a processing room and cold room which produces fruit compotes, jams, marmalades and all kinds of milk products, such as a variety of cheeses and yoghurts. There are hundreds of kilograms of cheese and compotes stored there.

Last but certainly not least, they have not considered the huge investments that have been made in Annapurna’s infrastructure over the years, with funds that have so generously been provided by Indian and foreign donors, over 139 lakhs since 2014. This decision is a slap in their faces.

Would you and André, your co-manager, be willing to start another farm as envisaged by the working groups?

We are trying to wrap our minds around this, because as of now it looks like a mission impossible. We are worried about the fate of our animals which cannot just be transferred to an empty land plot; our workers (around 20) who have been with us, many for decades, and are trained in various tasks will not be able to come to Auroville since they are from the local villages around Annapurna; they would need to be laid off properly because they are the ones who actually produced the food we have brought into the community. We also feel a responsibility towards all those donors who have helped to build this farm.

In short, all this still feels very unreal and we are grappling to see how best to deal with it.

But I am also concerned about the wider impact. In my honest opinion, by losing Annapurna Auroville loses a major farm asset and the possibility to supply organically grown food to the community. The question of how to feed Auroville’s growing population in future needs to be addressed. If this decision is not reversed, future inhabitants may wonder why the present Auroville administration did not care about healthy, safe and sustainable food for the city of the future.