The Permaculture Way of Life
good afternoon
namaskar i have to admit i’ve had a
doomsday view of the world
for as long as i can remember i believe
the primary challenges of the future
are going to be the lack of clean
drinking water
nutritious food and clean air
ever since i became a mother i was keen
to save a piece of nature
for my children and my family i used to
tell my husband let’s find a way
to grow our own food and harvest our own
water
but living in mumbai with busy corporate
lives and no background in farming
it sounded like a crazy idea to pursue
it was in 2010 that a friend of us told
us about permaculture
she said permaculture or permanent
agriculture
was a way of farming in which you create
an ecosystem with plants animals
birds and insects and they come together
to create a highly productive food
forest
it was a system of design that works
with nature instead of against it
mimicking its patterns and using its
forces to do most of the work this idea
captured our imagination
and we decided this was something we
wanted to do
within a few weeks my husband left for
chandigarh which is our hometown
in search of agricultural land after
nearly being conned by a bunch of
property dealers
he zeroed in on a six-acre piece of land
on the foot of morney hills the land had
gentle slopes
and a village pond but no vegetation
apart from
half a dozen scraggy date pumps
the soil was yellow dry and compacted
it had no organic life it was simply
dirt
in fact our six-year-old said mama you
said we were buying a farm
and this looks like a desert
when we started designing the farm we
roped in a bunch of villagers
from the nearby village led by a
supervisor fondly known as pandaji
was a farmer at heart but to supplement
his a meager agricultural income
he had done various odd jobs like being
a contractor
managed a poultry farm and even run a
street side hubba
when i shared our plans of growing food
organically on this land
pandaji said madame
he acknowledged that chemical farming
had made farmers dependent
on synthetic fertilizers but maintained
that without them it was impossible to
grow anything
not just fertilizer he told us that
farmers were
buying seeds weedy sides and pesticides
year on year
and this was drowning them in debt
is there any other way to farm he asked
me
well i told him my research said there
was
but decades of ravaging our earth will
take some time to build back
systematic destruction of our soils will
need some investment
to make them fertile again we had been
taking from our planet
for so long we would have to give back
just a little in the monsoon of 2011
when we arrived at the farm to start
work we were in for a shock
our farm was completely flooded with a
rainwater deluge from the nearby mooney
hills
water flowed down the slopes with such
severe intensity
it took with it precious top soil and
destroyed several structures on the way
what was even more shocking was that the
next day
the sun was out and there wasn’t a drop
of water on the land
it had all run off within 24 hours
our permaculture books told us that we
had to manage this water
we had to slow it down soak it in
and store it so we started by building
swales
swales are trenches that you build
around contour lines
and these act as speed breakers for when
water flows down the hill
we then built a channel which would give
a defined path to the water as it flowed
through the land
and found its way to the ponds we lined
these channels with bamboos
date palms grasses which would slow down
the water and clean it
and finally we dug two large ponds and
four shallow pools
to collect and store this water
within a few years our water management
was completely in place
and today water flows through our land
like a song
whenever it rains not a drop leaves our
property
and on good days of rainfall we collect
up to 5 million liters of water
i have to admit one of my favorite sites
in the world
is to watch water flow through our farm
the first step in giving back to the
planet is planting trees
we decided to plant a thousand trees to
start with
pandiji was appalled at this plant he
said
madanji no farmer plants trees on their
land
because you cannot grow crops in the
shade of the trees
he also warned us that if you plant
trees on your land
the value of your property will drop
dramatically because no buyer wants to
buy land
with trees on it we explained to pandaji
that in permaculture trees are at the
heart of the design
they give permanence to the farm they
help build an ecosystem
they hold the soil in place they build
groundwater and build the fertility of
the soil
they also provide useful biomass which
helps to fertilize the topsoil
so it was important for us to plant
these trees
eventually a reluctant pandiji helped us
plant over 5000 trees
over the years ranging from fruits to
flowering to avenue medicinal
and native trees and this is what makes
up our food forest today
when i say trees i have to tell you
these were tiny saplings
some of which were not even a foot tall
and my husband was convinced that they
would never grow up to be full-fledged
trees and that we were just wasting our
time and money
but watching these trees grow year on
year has been one of the most rewarding
experiences
of our life today these trees provide a
microclimate
on our farm and are home to many species
of birds
at the heart of growing anything and
food
is the quality of soil to improve the
quality of soil we started adding cow
manure
so we would add cow manure and find some
temporary improvement in fertility
but then things would very quickly
return back to their original lifeless
state
what we didn’t know back then was that
soil is a living organism
comprising of billions of bacteria fungi
worms
and creepy crawlies of all sorts for
this life to sustain it needs organic
matter
and moisture and by the mistake we were
making
was that we were keeping our soils
uncovered and dry
which was killing the life within
tilling is the process of turning the
soil over
either by hand or with a tractor when
you turn the soil over
you expose it to the sun thereby drying
it out
and killing the life within a related
problem is that of weeds
because whenever you leave the soil
uncovered weeds will
grow very quickly just like
skin will always cover a wound on your
body
weeds will always cover exposed soil
and what we were doing by repeated
tilling was equivalent to
scraping off the scab on our wound
thereby never allowing the wound
to heal itself the act
of keeping your soils covered is called
mulching
when you mulch your soils weeds do not
grow
and when weeds do not grow you do not
need to till
so what we learned was that we had to do
three things we had to add the cow
manure
we had to start mulching and we had to
stop
tilling in the first summer
after planting our saplings the farm
help was running from pillar to post
trying to keep them hydrated in the 46
degree celsius heat
pandaji called frantically and said
madame
i knew we had to do something and my
internet research told me that we should
be mulching the sapling with some woody
leafy matter the problem was we had none
a chain of phone calls led me to a
nearby wood chip processing unit
and i ordered a truckload we took these
wood chips
and mulched all our thousand saplings
with the wood chips
and this prevented the evaporation
losses dramatically
and brought down our frequency of
watering from twice a day
to twice a week instead with such a
dramatic saving of water
and effort pandiji was impressed
and convinced that mulching was a good
thing to do
but it was still difficult to get him to
stop tilling and it still
is and i don’t blame him because every
time you harvest a crop
and leave the field bare weeds grow very
quickly on it
to prevent that we have to track to the
soil again before we can sow our next
crop
there is only one way to break the cycle
and that is to mulch
our soils extensively but where can a
farmer find such
large quantities of mulch by planting an
ecosystem of trees
which are now 30 to 40 feet in height we
use the branches
and prunings of these trees to make
mulch to
mulch our raised beds and fields
by planting an ecosystem of trees we
have created our own
in-house mulch factory
today our soils are sweet-smelling moist
and filled with life we can dig a pit
anywhere on the farm
and we find a handful of earthworms
pandiji says
the soil reminds him of what he saw as a
child
in the nearby morning hills the bacteria
and the fungus in the soil are
constantly breaking down nutrients
and mining minerals from the stones and
pebbles
think of it as a world wide web under
the ground
where nutrients are flowing from one
part to the other and being made
available to plants
just in time it’s a fascinating world
out there
and it is safe to assume that we know as
little
about the soil beneath our feet as we do
above the stars above our head
by 2013 our farm was beginning to
resemble a permaculture farm
we were now looking forward to a harvest
of fruits vegetables cereals and pulses
we enthusiastically planted saplings in
our raised beds
and sowed seeds in our field but
after a few weeks when we visited the
farm we found that most of our crops
were destroyed by pests
we were really disappointed that after
all our hard work and planning
we had lost crops to pest attack
pandiji had his i told you so moment
because he had constantly warned us
about farming without chemicals
i reached out into my organic farmer
network to find out why this was
happening and what i learned was this
we were not doing a few things which we
should have done
one our plants had low immunity
because of the absence of nutrients in
the soil
this made them very vulnerable to pest
attack two
there were no natural predators like
birds and lizards on the farm
and third we should be intercropping and
companion planting
so that no insect found a never-ending
stretch of food
to feast on as we built this nutrient
cycle
an important role was played by the
animals
on a farm every animal including man
has to earn its keep a farm is nothing
without the diversity of life that
animals birds and bees bring to it and
we feel blessed
that we are able to say share this space
with them
a chemical farm is not an ecosystem
it’s a stretch of lifeless soil in which
food is grown artificially with the help
of chemicals and machines
food is filled with harmful chemicals
which is causing havoc
with our health there have been
instances in the last eight years that
we’ve lost
dogs who simply drank the water from a
neighboring rice field
this is the same food that you and i are
consuming and there’s no surprise that
there’s so much sickness all around us
a permaculture farm in contrast is a
happy place
it’s pure and spiritual here we work
with nature
and nature gives us back by leaps and
bounds
once the flywheel of trees water
management
and soil restoration is set into motion
the productivity of the farm increases
year on year
today we are fully self-sufficient as a
farm we save our own seed
produce our own mulch harvest our own
rainwater and have loads of manure
we grow over a hundred crops ranging
from cereals to pulses to oil seeds
fruits vegetables herbs spices sugarcane
and even cotton pandaji is finally
convinced
that yes it is possible to grow organic
food
without chemicals we went in search of
uncontaminated food and water but we got
so much more on this journey
our children started spending more time
with nature than at malls and
restaurants
i’m proud that they can identify species
of trees
have a lot of compassion for animals and
are conscious of their own carbon
footprint
they have done their fair share in
turning what looked like a desert back
then
into a lush green food forest today
we turned vegetarian when we realized
that the animals we play with
are the animals we eat
we started evaluating industrial
products for their utility instead of
their fashion value
now things no longer seem attractive to
buy
we are slowing down our own consumption
and living more consciously
today we can put a nice meal on the
table that’s almost entirely grown with
us
by us we eat healthy homegrown food
harvest millions of liters of water and
our farm is an oxygen factory
our friends tell us that this is a
luxury but we believe this is a
necessity
for if health is wealth then growing
your own food is the new gold
you may be wondering that why don’t all
farmers
practice permaculture it is because
our farmers are dependent on their next
crop for their livelihood
they do not have the luxury to let go of
a few
cycles and allow the earth to rejuvenate
itself
this permaculture movement has to be led
by people like you
and me us urban folk who have taken so
much from the planet
that today our air is polluted our water
is contaminated
and our food is devoid of any nutrients
it is time for us to give back if not
for the planet then for us ourselves
and for our own survival for if you
don’t have nutrient-filled food to eat
clean air to breathe and fresh water to
drink
what kind of a life are we leading
anyways
so i invite you all to do something as
crazy
as what my family and i have done adopt
a piece of land
in your neighborhood in your school
outside your city
in your village restore it nurture it
and then enjoy the bounty of nature for
your lifetime
remember what steve jobs said those who
are crazy enough to think
that they can change the world are the
ones who do
thank you