I remember learning about top soil erosion during the environmental studies in class 5 in school. But, beyond that i don’t remember having any discussion about soil health or top soil loss in any other forum during classroom education. This is unfortunate, given that our existence is still dependent on us consuming food and not…
Tag: Natural Farming
நாட்டுமாடு / देसी गाय and Farm update – April 2022
The month of April saw a lot of evening showers making the summer tolerable for the cows, humans and other animals. Even in the scorching heat, there is still greenery around for the cows to graze. We replanted ginger and turmeric in our existing zero till raised beds and also in the new beds that…
Homesteading update : Composting our own shit
We started construction of compost toilet in May 2019 and completed in August, the same year. The compost toilet foundation and the chamber walls, the chamber ceiling were constructed with stones, hollow bricks, cement, sand and concrete. The walls were built with self-manufactured sun-dried adobe bricks made with farm sub-soil. The roof was a madras…
Palmyra Sprouts Flour : A rare and unique Karpagatharu offering
Palmyra Sprouts Flour / பனங்கிழங்கு மாவு / ஒடியல் மாவு is a forgotten produce native to Tamil Nadu. It is grown from the seeds of the fruits of the magnificent Palmyra trees / பனை மரம். Palmyra trees are referred to as Karpagatharu (கற்பகதரு) in Sangam literature for the tremendous number of useful products the tree has…
COP26: Are India’s commitments enough?
The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26, was the 26th annual conference, held in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021. Around 197 countries attended. The representatives were either the country’s leaders or delegates. Here is a summary of what India what has agreed to in COP26. There are only 7…
Up in the hills, In a forest clearing: Prayogshala
While searching for farm land, we had explored several parts of Tamil Nadu. Kodaikanal was one of them. It got dropped off the list because of difficulty of access and doubt of my family’s tolerance to colder climate for prolonged periods of time. But, no other place in Tamil Nadu came close to the beauty…
Palm Jaggery – King of Sweeteners
In the first 17 years of my life in Bombay, I used to wait for Taadgola every summer. I vividly remember the vendors who used to sell Taadgola in the corner of the road 100 metres from our house in the suburbs. I used to coax my mother to buy some whenever we used to…
Why organic food is costlier?
It seems counter-intuitive but the current sense of the word ‘Culture’ seems to have been derived from the word ‘Agriculture’ and not the other way around. And it is ironic that there is almost no culture left in mainstream agriculture anymore. What we are now seeing is not synthesis, which is what agriculture needs, but…
A snapshot of happenings at our farm
We are building a food forest and kitchen garden for ourselves at Papanasam, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India since July 2018. We have been focusing on adding a lot of carbon / organic material to the soil. That’s why you will see photos covered with neem, mexican sunflower and glyricidia. We have let the old neem…
SPNF (ZBNF) ‘s critique
5 minute read Subhash Palekar has claimed in TOI’s editorial page a few months back that ‘Organic farming is worse than an atom bomb‘. This blog comes a little too late. But this was on my mind and in the drafts of my blog posts in the WordPress app. I just got around to complete…
Vivasayee's Life 
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