Land Regeneration - Newsletter - Lands for Auroville Unified

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Land Regeneration and Farming

Buddha Garden is a ten acre farm in Auroville that was set up in 2000. We grow mainly vegetables and fruit which is an intensive process and until recently most of our energy went on doing that. But there was a part of Buddha Garden which over the years we tried, and failed, to use productively. This article is about how we found a way of integrating this land into our food growing activities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Land Regeneration and Farming

1. THE “END LAND”

The land in question was right at the end of the Buddha Garden and the main problem with it was that it flooded very badly in the monsoon. When I say ‘flood’ I mean it was completely covered in water whenever there was heavy rain. Depending on the extent of the monsoon rain this flooding could last for some time. Long enough to kill anything that was growing there apart from the scrubby grass that seems to survive anything.

At first we thought this would be an ideal place to grow rice – until we actually tried to grow some. We found that the work necessary to do this was considerable and that it was impossible for our mainly volunteer labour force to do it. Once the rice starts to grow, at a certain point it has to be weeded. We found that it took 15 women three weeks full time work (eight hours a day) to do this on a plot that isn’t much more than an acre and half in size. It was work that clearly couldn’t be done by volunteers who didn’t know the difference between a rice plant and a weed. Who would have found it very difficult indeed to work under the sun for eight hours each day. Later the rice had to be cut and this again had to be done by hand and is a skilled job.

When we looked at the few sacks of rice that we were able to grow we decided that this wasn’t a good idea for us. At the same time the Farm Group were in the process of focusing rice growing on a few specialist farms that would have the necessary mechanical infrastructure to do it efficiently. So once again we had what felt like a very bleak looking piece of land on which we felt we should grow something. We tried to address the flooding problem by creating a water catchment pond in the forest area. Although it helped it was insufficient to stop the flooding completely.

We tried growing things like casuarina and amla trees that could tolerate a certain amount of flooding. But every time the monsoon defeated us as the above picture shows. Either the field flooded too much or there was something like a cyclone that the very small trees couldn’t survive. The final straw came in the very destructive cyclone at the end of 2012. This annihilated the remaining amla trees that had managed to make it through the previous monsoon.

We decided that we needed to look at other ways of using the land. Since water seemed to be a feature of the land, we decided to create some water catchment ponds. This would keep the water on the land and help the water to percolate through to the underground aquifer. We could plant trees around the land which would grow some fruit but would mainly be forest trees to improve the percolation and help regenerate what was a very eroded piece of land.

2. THE END LAND BECOMES ‘JALA BHOOMI’ OR ‘LAND OF WATER’

Three years ago we asked Kireet (a Dutch national with an interest in water conservation) to come and help us. One problem in doing this work is that it costs quite a lot of money. It is possible to recoup some of this by growing trees for wood and other forest products, but the money for this comes a long time afterwards. We were able to raise about half the money for the first pond and Kireet was able to find extra funds for us.

Once the first pond was dug and filled with water from the first rains it was beautiful to see how the water became a magnet for birds and other wild life. Especially during the hot season. A few months later money was raised for a second pond which together with extra work on the original pond meant that it could hold more water.

Just as well we did. Last monsoon was the second largest in 100 years. But even although there was some flooding along the edges, the banks to the ponds held fast and a lot of water was kept on the land.
Once the ponds were created we spent a lot of time planting trees.

As the trees grow and the wildlife increases the area becomes more and more beautiful. It feels like life is returning to this area.
This land connects with the forest that we have planted around the vegetable gardens as a buffer between them and the outside. There are many paths just beyond the fence where people walk up and down with their cows and goats. Every year we try to plant at least 100 trees, many of which we grow in our own tree nursery.

Slowly the land is starting to regenerate as the trees hold more water and better soil builds up. At the same time we are able to harvest more leaves from this area which are very necessary for making compost for vegetable gardens and fruit trees.

3. ALL THE LAND IS NECESSARY

These areas of Buddha Garden where we collect water and plant trees are integral to our central work of growing food the community of Auroville. These activities help to regenerate the land around our vegetable gardens and orchards. They also provide forest products, like wood to sell which helps our financial sustainability. Increasingly we use the leaves produced to turn into compost which increases our environmental sustainability. The more we can obtain from the ten acres of Buddha Garden to grow food and the less we have to bring in from the outside the more sustainable we will be.