Farmers First Foundation

March 18, 2009: It was a proud day at Farmers First Foundation (www.farmersfirstfoundation.org), a non-profit dedicated to sustainable agriculture. More than fifty farmers from all over India gathered at the Foundation's first Model Farm at Village Pathredi in Haryana, 65 km from Delhi for the Foundation's first training and demonstration camp. They listened to a presentation on sustainable, integrated agriculture from the Foundation's Chairman, Rajbir Singh. They discussed their problems, found solutions and encouragement from the Foundation's experts and from each other. And they welcomed a visitor from Stanford, Peter Frykman, who demonstrated his low cost Drip Irrigation technology (www.driptechnologies.com). A journalist from a North Indian newspaper the Tribune covered the event.

Farmers First Foundation aims at demonstrating the viability of sustainable agricultural activity by setting up Model Farms integrating 5-7 bioresource activities such as dairy-feed-fodder, compost-making and waste management, vegetable and fruit cultivation, honey bee keeping, mushroom cultivation, medicinal and aromatic plant cultivation, nursery and gradation as well as agro-practices for managing a transition to organic agriculture such as preparation of biopesticides and biofertilizers. A pyramidal approach is taken with Model Farms ranging in size from 4-6 acres to 100 acres. The farms are funded by 'donesters' or corporate partners. Land, as at Village Pathredi is often 'lent' by abstenee landlords or practicing farmers. No potential partner is shunned - government, corporates dependent on bioresources, urban dwellers interested in agriculture; the belief is that agriculture is a public good that should concern everyone. The belief also is that agriculture is sustainable no matter what the scale provided you return the ownership of agripreneurship, technology and protection of the environment to the rightful owner - the farmer. And provided you shatter the mass of negative beliefs nurtured by decades of one-size-fits-none solutions.

What's next at Farmers First Foundation? Children from Mirambika, a free progress school set up on the Yoga principles of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother next to IIT Delhi, would be visiting the farm on March 29. They will see with their own eyes how interconnected we are, how life and death dance together on the compost heap, and what links cow poop to pizza! More on that later.

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Why sustainable and what is sustainable

Human civilization began when the hunter-gatherer turned to farming. Today agriculture is again the key to the survival of human civilization. In sustainable agriculture lie the seeds of solutions to our problems of food, material and energy security, health, environment, climate change and untrammeled urbanization. This is not merely an issue of high politics, this is also a moral and practical necessity as billions still struggle to live a decent life by working the land.

Consider this. We spend more on pills and powders than on wholesome food. While garbage piles up in cities, which devour more and more farm produce, villages lack biomass for manure and turn per force to chemical fertilizers. While millions in cities across the world yearn a return to a natural, wholesome state closer to mother earth, millions leave the villages for cities in search of a better life. For them the dream of an idyllic life in the country is a cruel joke as they look around and see schools without teachers, taps without water and bulbs without electricity. Skills are abundant and often underutilized in the cities; villages lack critical expertise. Time is at a premium in cities with lives lived at a frenetic pace; farmers' lives often lack rewarding activity. Industrial agriculture assumes that the farmer is not supposed to innovate or think about markets, technology or the environment.

This blog will be a platform to stimulate discussion and action on sustainable agriculture. Sustainable not only in the narrow sense of environmentally sustainable. Sustainable in the sense of geographical spaces; agriculture that connects urban and rural spaces. Sustainable in the sense of time; agriculture that connects generations, a farmer's son proudly picking up where his father left. Sustainable in the sense of human dignity, connecting farmers' work to their aspirations. If sustainable agriculture does all the rest - protect and nurture the environment, bridge the urban and rural spaces, produce all that our economies need but still does not give the farmer enough returns to afford a decent house, school for his children, all that 'we' aspire to in the cities, we would still not have succeeded in making agriculture sustainable.

With this as the starting point, we will share insights and experiences from around the world. We will talk about growing food, raising animals, composting and turning our balconies and backyards into experimental work stations. We will rededicate ourselves to Gandhiji's dream of reviving village life and bringing a smile to the faces of the forgotten.

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