Six years as full-time farmer

As on Dec 2020, I have completed six "glorious" years as a full-time farmer. Of course, completing six years in this itself makes it "glorious", having known quite a few people who had moved to farming, only to get back to corporate life after a few years of struggle.

Before starting this article, let me state this clearly one more time. For me, "organic farming" is an umbrella term for organic/natural/forest/biodynamic/permaculture etc. I consider all of them different ways of organic farming. After all, it is about not using chemicals for farming. I don't believe in being a "militant" in pushing any particular kind of organic farming and being judgmental. Each of them have their own advantages and it should be left to the discretion and convenience of the individual farmer based on several parameters. I follow a mix of all of the above organic farming methods.

When I set off to do organic farming, there were very few inspiring examples to look up to. There were many people who kept on conducting classroom trainings/lectures on organic farming, including those wanted to sell their "organic" products. Unfortunately many of them were not hands-on and they didn't have any successful ventures to show in organic farming. There were other successful farms, which were not open to outsiders. For most of the farmers, seeing is believing, irrespective of any amount of powerpoint slides you show. This is when I decided that we should setup a farm which other farmers can see and emulate. I visited different farms to understand and emulate (if possible) their good practices over the past few year in the quest to adjust our farming practices. Even now I make it a point to regularly visit farms across the state and the country to see their practices and interact with the practitioners. 

What do we have now to show and explain to other farmers based on our experiments and experiences? All there may not be visible throughout the year, but we do have these systems working in the farm.

Transition from chemical farming was the toughest part of the journey. It took us more than four years to complete the transition. We suffered significant losses due to reduced yield in the first three years. But we persisted and able to see the impact now. Classic example is with banana. From average 35kgs bunch (G9 variety) to we went down to 15kgs and now back to 25kgs average, with significant reduction in the input cost.

A full-fledged "Food Forest" spread across two acres, with more than 40 varieties of fruit trees, many of them already fruiting.

Interestingly we are now able to demonstrate the impact of Food Forest on the overall scheme of things. Less pest attack on our commercial crops noticed this year, despite excess and unseasonal rains.

Cow based Natural Farming with Desi cows. Jeevamrutha and vermicompost used extensively.

Multi cropping, Inter cropping, companion planting, agro-forestry

Multi-layer farming (three to six layers)

Mulching - green and dry mulch, resulting in less water requirement and less tilling.

Different types of traps - pheromone, solar and sticky - to control pests naturally.

Rain water harvesting mainly focused on ground water recharging. Ponds and percolation pits. We already saw one borewell becoming functional after being defunct for four years.

Rain-fed field crops. Varieties of crops like ragi, foxtail millet, mustard, sesame, niger seeds, jowar, toordal, green gram/moong dal, black gram/urad dal, alasande/karamani/lobia, avarekai/hyacinth beans, horse gram. This has resulted in less amount of Parthenium weeds.

Bio diversity improving over the years. Now we can see many more birds and many more varieties. Also more butterflies and honeybees and fireflies. And many more insects like ladybugs, spiders, etc and reptiles like lizards and snakes.

Visible improvement in the soil carbon/humus. Confirmed with soil testing. 0.3% in 2016 to 1.2% in 2019.

Very minimal inputs from outside. (Only neem cake is brought from outside). No outside feed for cows too. We grow our own feed - dry grass/hay from ragi and green grass

I know that I am painting a very rosy picture and it doesn't reflect reality. For most of the people, the only indicator of this "rosy picture" is whether we are able to make money. I will write more about that in another post. All I can say now is that it is a very long journey, which you should be able to sustain and pursue with passion and dedication and the efforts will start yielding better result and money in the long run. But the progress we have made confirms that we are in the right direction and situation is improving over the years, both for ourselves and for the surroundings. There are many other non-tangible benefits (like health) and some virtual benefits (like appreciating land price, etc).