A passionate farmer of permaculture

Darshana Mazumdar as told to Jamuna Rangachari

As a child I had the blessing of spending several of my teenage years on a farm where my father had planted many varieties of fruits, flowers and decorative plants. Somewhere in my heart the memories of his love of nature kept me looking for peace in the land all my growing years.

Finally, around 2022, I started looking for gardening on YouTube and some videos of permaculture popped up. At the same time, someone in a WhatsApp group shared a message about a terrace gardening program. I ended up enrolling and learnt about ‘zero budget natural farming’ or ZBNF (later called Natural Farming and now called Subhash Palekar Krushi or SPK).

At around the same time I was in touch with a gaushala and was working closely with them. They had land that they hadn’t used for many years and when I brought up the topic, offered me a 15,000 square foot plot to set up a permaculture kind of model. Since I had no prior experience of agriculture, I didn’t know where to start and looked for guidance from the SPK team as well as some permaculture experts. Somehow, neither were able to guide me practically. I joined a few online farmer groups where I learnt about the challenges they were facing. I finally started by setting up raised beds and a rain-pipe system.

Very soon I realised my first attempt was all wrong and I decided to level the ground and do green manuring instead I planted ‘dhaincha’ or the legume Sesbania bispinosa, bajri or pearl millet and chavli/lobia or black-eyed peas on the entire plot in mid-August last year after removing the rain-pipe system. My first attempt was a failure and then a farmer there helped me do it the right way. It grew beautifully in the late monsoon, but I soon realised that if I mulched it in the soil while it was still green, it would only release greenhouse gasses and not really improve soil quality. So, I let it complete its lifecycle and then used it as mulch later.

By now I had also understood in what direction the rain-pipes needed to be set and got that done. I finally got raised beds set up in the right direction through both manual labour as well as a hired tractor in February. All these were learning curves for me. The next challenge I faced was watering them in preparation for planting. Even though there was enough water in the bore well, the electricity got cut very often and since there were two other farmers using the same well and who had already planted crops, I couldn’t get water at all. There was no option but to wait till the rains started which fortunately did early this year.

To my delight, in July the plot became green with tall grass as well as with ‘dhaincha’ from seeds that had fallen in the field last year. Finally in August, I got the grass cut and used it as mulch on the beds. In the meantime, I had also visited a few farmers who were doing natural farming and got a better insight into it. I had tried to implement the use of jeevamrut and other principles of ZBNF but faced several challenges and thought to myself that farming shouldn’t be so difficult.

I also learnt a lot more about permaculture during this waiting period. Ultimately, my search led me to the use of Kalki, which is a bio culture of beneficial funguses that fixes most problems created on farms by purifying the air, soil, water and plants themselves. I attended a session about Kalki nearby organised by a farmer who has been using it for over three years. He later helped me get fruit tree saplings and guided me on how to plant them.

With the knowledge I already had and the support, I finally planted around 25 fruit trees of 5 varieties in August. It was successful and I didn’t really need to water them because of the good amount of rain and all the mulching I had done around the base of the trees. I planted a few more trees this month (November) to replace the ones that didn’t survive and have implemented the banana circle principle of permaculture modified to suit the raised beds I had planted them on.

I also experimented in growing coriander and fenugreek, and I learnt more about their needs of sunlight and water. It’s such a pleasure to see the trees sprout new leaves and thrive. And the joy in getting confidence through this success cannot be expressed in words. I have been clearing the boundary of the plot of the lantana bushes, which is going to take some time as there is no chance of a tractor entering the plot now. I plan to plant a lot of other fruit trees in their place so that this invasive species doesn’t grow back. I have also made a lot of saplings from seed and am learning to help them survive and grow well. The best part is that farmers in the village now see how the trees have survived without needing much care or watering and are also learning about Kalki.

I also visit the local school where I share bits of information and am planning on doing a small project with them so they can learn the benefits of mulching.

Children are very receptive and I’m sure the experiment will encourage their parents to learn more about how to grow crops without the use of chemicals or the other inputs they are used to. The aim is to help them learn a new and ahimsak form of living away from animal exploitation and I foresee this happening in the near future.