Back To Roots
[Music]
to live with different identities
is fun from ex-isro scientist
to innovative urban farmer to kurewali
madam
i have been living with diverse
identities
since past few years kudewali madam
being the funniest one
that used to be the salutation that i
received from domestic helps and
community guards
when i visited them either to teach
waste management
or to collect some organic waste from
them
of course a modern looking urban woman
is not commonly seen picking up dry
leaves from the roadside
or collecting used cardboards and news
papers
from households or the juice waste from
the juice vendors
this is the story of my journey back to
roots
i took this journey into higher gears in
2012
when i noticed wastage of natural
resources
in urban horticulture in the residential
society that i was living in
i was living in one of the most urban
cities of my country
my residential society was blessed with
a beautiful
landscape of native trees wide variety
of plants
and lush green lawns the society
housekeeping maintained this landscape
neat and clean by sweeping off every
fallen leaf
cut branch and clipped grass
i started noticing that a huge amount of
horticulture waste
left my society every day
i learned that this horticulture waste
was being
dumped in landfills or was being burned
i also noticed that chemical inputs
were bought from the market to fulfill
the nutrient needs of the landscape the
manures were bought
the chemical inputs made plants and soil
more
thirsty in summer so we bought more
water
perturbed over this complete imbalance
of
ecology and economy i decided
to do something for this landscape
and to restore the balance i first
started working
towards educating the horticulture team
to put back dry leaves under the trees
i knew that this mulch would not
only save on water the nutrient
requirements
and the manure requirements of the
landscape but it also would save a lot
of money
spent on fuel main hour
and buying chemical inputs
taking an opportunity of a community
gathering on the independence day
celebration
in 2012 i kick-started
a campaign on awareness of waste
management
at source few school going children came
forward
and demonstrated the easy ways of home
composting kitchen waste
i with the support of estate management
and few like-minded residents
kick-started a pilot project of treating
horticulture
waste at source within my community
this needed a bare hundred square feet
of community land
and rupees 1600 as investment to cordon
of this land peace
the estate management happily gave me a
suitable piece of land
and i put those 1600 rupees from my own
we practiced a regimented discipline for
three
months and soon a part of horticulture
waste was converted into 700 kilograms
of compost
which i call black gold within those
three months
many households in the community had
learned to segregate
waste and also had composted their own
kitchen waste
to result into this black gold
this mere sight of black gold started a
chain of positive reactions in my
community
the estate management realized the easy
management ways of waste at home
the estate management soon realized
the skewed economics of disposing of the
horticulture waste and
buying manures for the landscape
society started discussing over getting
some good composting solutions to manage
1200 households based
and the horticulture waste from 300
acres of land
my trees and landscape started getting
the compost
back to their roots actually where it
belonged
still not satisfied over the speed of
this development
vis-a-vis the volume of horticulture
ways that still
left my society every day i decided
to do something on my individual level
and lead by example
i soon gathered 900 cubic feet of
horticulture waste
some waste from the cane juice vendors
and my own kitchen waste
i carried this entire vase to my rooftop
of my own home which is only 600 square
feet to do
justice to this small area i treated
this volume of
waste into three different batches
i treated this entire waste over 450
days
150 days each batch
by the end of 150 days i had got
a beautiful organically rich growing
soil
a soil called amrit methi
the soil technique that i had learnt
from my teacher
late shri deepak such day
the amrit mitti soon covered every
square inch of my garden
area around my home on four different
levels
and i soon started growing my own
vegetables
and fruits on my rooftop in my balcony
and around
the small patch of land that was
available around my home
this is how the amrita mitti looks like
and i’m talking to you from the rooftop
of second floor of my home
and what you see behind me is a custard
apple tree
the flat beans wine and the turmeric
plants
this is my rooftop yielding food for my
family
organically grown grown nutritious
food into the soil converted
from kitchen waste and horticulture
waste of my society
i soon started enjoying all the benefits
of this sustainability cycle
the cycle from kitchen to roof and roof
to kitchen
grey water recycling biodiversity that
otherwise
was getting extinct and distant from the
urban
areas less energy required to cool my
home
i was proud of my journey i started
sharing my experiences
widely with my community fellow members
and also through social media platforms
i my this journey as garbage to greens
later my this venture was extensively
covered
by the national television network of my
country
i started getting many phone calls
phone calls of appreciation few people
wanted to know waste segregation
few people wanted to know how to compost
kitchen waste at home
few people wanted to grow their own food
few people wanted me to provide them
the ready amritimity inspired by the
inquiries
and understanding the urban constitution
constraint of space and time
to treat a voluminous waste at source
i took this chance to conduct
an extensive research and development
to create organically resource
to be able to provide to urban gardeners
across the country
again with guidance from my teacher late
shri deepak sujdeji
and with his hand holding i started
researching
with the stubble waste soon
i converted stubble waste of heat wheat
rice and bajra into organically rich
soil that was the eureka moment of my
life
riding over this momentum of this moment
i soon established my own company
enriched soil and soul private limited
this company started processing
agriculture waste horticulture
waste and stubble waste from the farmers
and converting it into organic soils
a huge volume of such waste was getting
converted
inspired by late shri dr dabhar kharji’s
principle of neighborhood resources
i established a processing unit of my
company
into a small village of farmers
which had all the required inputs within
two kilometer
kilometers of the periphery
i trained and employed two farmer
families
from the same village to work in my
processing unit
i was happy and satisfied
soon i started supplying
these soils through e-commerce platforms
and the soil started reaching to urban
areas of almost every state of my
country
with more and more demands from the
urban gardeners
seven types of organic soils had taken
birth in my processing unit
i quote madhuru sultan puri jee’s
magari
i realized every word of the shade into
my this journey
i was happy through the social media
we had created a big family
a global family of people who do not
send their waste to landfills
who treat their own kitchen waste at
source
who grow their own food we hand hold
each other and we share our experiences
widely
to be able to manage our own waste at
source
soon i started noticing other organic
matter waste around me
while traveling to my processing unit i
noticed fallen trees
and i started creating garden
accessories from the fallen trees
i started noticing industrial waste wood
and i started creating lightweight
planters
suitable for rooftop farming in urban
areas
my this global family includes people
from all walks of life
and crosses all the boundaries
soon people from colder countries
started calling me
to understand how to convert kitchen
waste into compost in colder
temperatures
and people also started calling to
understand
how to grow food in the small urban
spaces
in desert like conditions the family is
ever growing
the family includes from students to
vice chancellors to doctors to engineers
to mali’s to chefs
to homemakers
and we hand hold each other beautifully
my society today treats
waste from 1200 households
and horticulture waste from 300 acres of
land
now my society’s landscape uses recycled
water
uses dry leaves as mulch and
we have reduced a lot of money
to buy chemical inputs
this is the story
and the campaign that i started from
garbage
to greens and eat what you grow
and grow what you eat i believe
that waste and resource are two
different
ways of looking at the same thing
so do not waste your waste
if you cannot avoid generating waste
then learn to manage it at source
if you feel that to consume food is your
right
then to grow in however small volumes
should be your responsibility
green foodscapes over the rooftops
and no landfills should be the signature
of our education
let us all give back
to the roots thank you