Hi, People who don't know me, or reading this blog, its in continuation of my first year blog.
Here's the link for the first year blog:
https://meneelima.blogspot.com/2022/08/experiences-on-my-farm-journey.html
Our Five-layer Model progress:
Lemon was not at all growing in our farm may be because of
water logging. It had very poor growth, on the contrary Guava was growing very well.
Banana was struggling initially, but it started picking up.
We have around 10 flowers now,which is a good sign. Two banana pods ripened ,
though they were small the bananas tasted heavenly.
Initially drumstick was struggling quite a bit , but now
many drumstick plants picked up as rains were less this year. Many drumstick
plants gave flowers and the flowers are turning to pods now. We were thinking
to interchange drumstick with agase as agase was also a nitrogen fixer and it
was growing better in our farm. But later looking at the drumstick growth
We bought more chikoo and Guava, as chikoo and Guava were
doing good in our land, We bought from GKVK.
We tasted our banana,guava,drumsticks,sapota and they all
tasted so good.
Malabar teak, Agase, Bamboo, Sugarcane:
Malabar teak near our container grew close to 12 feet
height now.
Agase grew very fast, and gave pods too.
Bamboo was doing well too.
Sugarcane we plucked multiple times and enjoyed sugarcane
juice at least 10 times. We all enjoyed the juice only that we need to keep
requesting the juice fellows to juice our own sugarcane even though we pay a
little money. The below picture is my in-laws with fat (~6inch dia) naturally grown red sugar cane at my container-home.
Sweet Potato:
Sweet Potato, kept growing well and was occupying land very
fast. It was a good live mulch to put and then we can put multiple cuttings by
just cutting and replanting it . We took few cuttings from home and just
multiplying from that we were able to get around 50kg of Sweet potato for the
whole year.
Story of Pulses and Toor Dal:
Instead of leaving land empty and we thought to make it
fertile, by growing dicots. Dicots help in nitrogen fixing in the land.
We put Toor dal in 2.5 acres and in remaining 2 acres we
put green moong, urad, alasandhe and avrekai, Avrekai got lot of pests compared
to others and I was wondering how many chemicals must have been sprayed by
farmers who were growing it chemically. I had a descent alasandhe, green moong
and urad dal crop. But since we put seeds using tractor so much density was not
possible, we thought of using a seed wheel next time. Green moong, urad,
avrekai, alasandhe are smaller plants so higher density can be used.
Toor dal we had a reasonable produce of 190 kg on the
overall, for a first time this was not so bad.
There was a machine which separated the Toor from the
leaves, just in an hours’ time. We mixed red soil in that Toor and then dried
them to preserve for longer times. We then gave them to the mill to split and
produce Toor Dal with skin. Two ladies came to split the skin and then bang,
the Toor dal is ready.
Saving Seeds:
We also saved our own seeds(a little bit of toor dal and
avrekai) for the next year of one variety. I also sent 6 people seeds from my
own saving for free including the courier charges were born by me. It surely
gave me a sense of satisfaction.
APMIP:
AP government had a policy that gave some subsidy on pipes.
Subsidy was 70% if land on our name was bigger than 5 acres. This subsidy was
available once in 7 years. We deposited our 30% amount first and after two
months we got our pipes. This is the first time ever we got something from the
government.
Foes turn Friends:
In our first year the
farmer opposite to us challenged us openly that grow for 10 years
organically/naturally I will see. Surprisingly he asked 50 kg Toor dal for
their family consumption. This is surely a triumph for us 😊 that
he came around to encourage us. Though we didn’t sell to him , my toor dal got
sold among friends itself.
My husband tries to give lift to as many people near the
village roads as buses are very less. He gets blessings and made few friends
along knowing our natural produce nearby people started to offer help and
slowly, they started giving ideas to make things a little better at our farm.
We got help from an organic coordinator also nearby who
consistently keeps an eye on our farm when we are not around and also helps
with buying seeds.
We got help in sharing few plants, seeds and even for sales
through friends.
Watermelon
Story:
My labourer’s son grew watermelon in his farm. He didn’t
have full money to put this crop. He put them on a leased land and 2-3 people
together invested and grew them. In Bangalore, the price of watermelon was
around 20-25 per kg. Our labourer’s son got 6 rupees per kg, for three months
of his effort and the middlemen who buy from farmers and supply to the market
make money in just one day. Overall, it was a loss for the labourer’s son and
the people who invested together fought how much they should take for their
share. If you can and have access to please buy from a farmer directly. Though
he has to bear the transportation cost, the final price he will get when he
sells to a direct consumer it is better.
Tomato Story:
Our farm is in Annamayya district and its around an hour
drive from Madanpalle. Madanpalle is famous for growing tomatoes and probably
is one of the biggest tomato markets in India. So, most of farmers grow
tomatoes nearby and it is heavily monocropped. My neighbour put tomato fully in
1 acre initially. The price was good and he made some money. Later they put
tomato in remaining 4 acres. The price at the time of ripening in Bangalore was
5 rupees per kg in vegetable shop. He made a big loss and they threw away all
the tomatoes.
Wonder why people still depend on a single crop rather than
putting multiple crops. Year after year they continue to loose money. Just 3
months of hard work and effort went waste. If they had at least mixed the
crops, there would have been lesser loss.
Turmeric Story:
Our turmeric produce was very less and not that great.
Turmeric was not so much intercropped and there were too many weeds and there
was not much market in Karnataka for sale. Still whatever produce I got I sold
for a reasonable price. I sold between 380 to 480 depending on weight but when
I asked to sale to a person who supplies to all organic stores, she said
110-125 rupees while they sell at a much higher price (500-800 rupees) to all
the stores. Curcumin percentage testing cost was 1000 and to test chemicals in
that 6000 was the cost coated in Bengaluru. For a small farmer like me who had
very little to sale, I felt these testing costs were too additional, I didn’t
get it tested but sold among my good friends directly.
Overall, as yield was less, Turmeric was a loss for us
overall. There was additional effort to boil the raw turmeric and then dry it
for close to 15 days. But it was good to know all details of testing and how
bad is the open market for farmers. For small farmers pesticide testing cost is
also very high.
What I sold in the last year in small quantity:
Jeevamrutham , Agase flowers &leaves, Mango Ginger
Chilli Sweet , Potato Lemon Grass, Turmeric
AlasandheToor Dal & Toor Dal Pods, Finger Millet
Herbal Bath Powder, Sugar cane, Raw Banana, Flat beans
Corn Flour, Corn Rawa, Avare, Rasam Powder and Drumsticks.
Incoming & Outgoing/Balance Sheet :
Our Expenses:
Fixed Labour Charges: 1,80,000
Transport Expenses: 34,000
Seeds + Seedlings + Fruit Plants: 20,000
Turmeric Seeds + Labour:16,000
Tractor Charges:24000
Jaggery + Horsegram(For Jeevamrutham):20,000
Additional Labour Charges: 10,000
Fencing (One Time):60,500
Feed Cost for Cows:18,000
Toor Dal Separator Cost:2400
Motor Expenses (One Time):6,000
New cement poles for electricity(One Time): 62000
Miscelllaneous:2000
TOTAL: 4,54,900
Removing One Time Expenses Total:3,32,000
Our Income:
Turmeric Sale:9,660
Toor dal & Toor dal based product Sale: 26,000
Mango Ginger Sale:500
Vegetable Sale : 6000
Vegetables & Fruits for Our Consumption at home : 6000
Finger Millet Sale:1000
Avare & Alasandhe:500
Jeevamrutham: 4000
TOTAL: 53660
I could recover around 16% of my cost for the first year
which was not bad since my perennials(fruit trees) haven’t started to yield
yet.
But there is a joy that I am able to eat my own grown food
which is naturally grown and also able to feed naturally grown food to my
friends.
Everyone who bought Herbal bath powder made out of toor
dal,Bavancha,Vetiver,Sugandha Karjooram,turmeric came back and gave very good
feedback for it.
Youtube Videos:
In the last year that passed, from whatever experiences we
got from the farm and what we implemented we made the below videos and uploaded
on my channel.
https://youtu.be/DhBedzPuWtQ : musugu or cap brinjal different stages
https://youtu.be/VJuNQiu4fqU : Jeevamrutham mixing and supplying tank design
https://youtu.be/97BE9cQYKfM : white, red sweet Potato, 6 varieties
https://youtu.be/tSxDbXrz2cg : container home at our aranya farm
https://youtu.be/gfixv03mvrI?si=ZVqsI0XgHMtOtzMa : Red drumstick flower and tree
Gratitude :
Gratitude to Subbayya Garu who keeps an eye on our farm and
also helps in buying all ingredients for Jeevamrutham and seeds sometimes.
Gratitude to all my friends who bought to encourage me,specially Padmaja who coordinated all Hyderabad orders for toor dal and other produce. I was wondering if i would be able to sale without Padmajas help.
Gratitude to universe for all the rains which came in last 2 years and a little rain which came this year (It looks like this year is going to be an year of drought and all our ponds dried up).
Gratitude to Gangulappa and his wife for taking care of our farm and our cows.
Gratitude to Ashok sir for arranging the cement poles at less cost.
Gratitude for all the plants,trees,insects,birds,herbs,flowers which gave a sense and essence to my farm. I love you.
Gratitude to our cow Lakshmi who gave birth to a beautiful male calf , My younger son named it Abhimanyu(A name from his Kannada lesson). Heres Abhimanyu for you.
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