Food self-sufficiency

To: Shri R.N. Ravi, Chairman, Governing Board, Auroville Foundation. Subject: The MoU with IIT Madras & Land Use Concerns Dear Shri R.N. Ravi ji,

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).

“Enhance Auroville food production to meet the needs of Auroville...” – View point of the Governing Board as recorded in the minutes of the 57th meeting.

After interactions with the farmers and directives from the Governing Board, The FO Farm Service and FO FAMC announced they have come up with a work plan for farming and food security in Auroville.

On a recent Thursday morning, there were sharing by a number of Auroville farmers related to new and on-going initiatives on the lands they steward, along with the many immediate challenges they face.

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have brought large scale unemployment, poverty and hunger to the rural villages and urban slums of India.

In the last few months, the world has been turned upside-down. Half the world’s population has been in lockdown, the global economy has collapsed, millions have lost their jobs and thousands have died, all as a result of a new and very infectious corona virus: COVID-19.

We need to recognise that widespread climatic, economic and social disruption due to climate change, global economic instability, etc. cannot be dealt with in isolation.

The future is very unpredictable and will unfold in many unexpected ways and we have to be responsive and alive to that. The weather is becoming more erratic and resources like water and energy will become scarcer and more costly.

Like so many Auroville projects, Annapurna farm started with a simple keet-roofed hut, no money to speak of, not many expectations but with high aspirations.

Bindu, who is working on a movie on the topic, shares her understanding of the importance of millets, internationally, nationally and locally.

Before Auroville was officially founded in 1968 and before the final location of Auroville was decided by the Mother, disparate plots of land had been bought in the surrounding region.

Like the name, India, it was with some surprise that I learnt that the common south Indian fruit, tamarind, has a Persian etymology. The Persians gave the fruit the melodious name of Tamar-i-hind or the “date of India”, which was subsequently Anglicized to tamarind.

The deeper vision behind Food Link, an activity of the Auroville Farm Group is to create community by linking the residents of Auroville to the farmers through educational initiatives.

Now the Town Hall has a circle garden. It was started by Krishna from Solitude Farm around six months ago. “Despite Auroville being home to many inspiring and different experiments, the community still by and large does not realize that the essence of our existence lies in our relation to food,” he says.

The Auroville Urban Farming project was started by Riccardo, a long term volunteer studying Food Security in Auroville, with the aid of Luigi in late 2014.

Food is very much in the news these days. Recently, the Joy of Learning team presented two sessions on farming in Auroville, where the issue of Aurovilians’ food tastes, and how this impacts the farmers by determining what and how much organic food they grow, was an important topic.

The Joy of Learning is an experiment in collective learning which addresses a wide range of themes associated with life in Auroville. It tries to (re)familiarise the residents with important issues in a stimulating and respectful learning environment, and is supported with funding from Stichting de Zaaier.

Climbing the steps to the roof at Maitreye through a maze of white tiles, one would not expect the lush, verdant explosion at the top. On my first visit in December, there was green everywhere: lettuce seedlings bursting from their small containers, melon plants cascading from horizontal pipes, even a small papaya proudly pushing the other plants out of the way.

Have you walked behind the Town Hall lately? You might be surprised by what you see. Nestled in that dense urban area, surrounded on all sides by buildings, you can find young banana plants, bountiful bougainvillea, creepers climbing up the walls of Citadines, a robust vegetable garden, and a drip irrigation system supplying water to young fruit trees.

As part of its efforts to highlight alternative and sustainable solutions for an urban future, Auroville Green Practices has launched the colourful publication My Pumpkin Roof.