Unifynd goes to an Organic Farm
Hailing from a family of farmers, but having spent all my life in the concrete jungles of Kuwait and Mumbai, the news of a company offsite to a farm over 300 kilometers away sounded like a chance to get back in touch with my roots.
About a week ago, I found myself traveling with my colleagues to an organic farm called Two Brothers Organic Farms in Bhodani, a village in the Indapur Taluk of Pune. The drive was long and tiring, but the lush green views of Karjat and the flatlands coddled and soothed my mind.
As our car approached the farm, we could hear the sound of dhols and to our surprise found that a band was arranged to welcome us at the farm; a practical joke by the Two Brothers — Satyajit and Ajinkya Hange. As I stepped out of the car, I saw smiling faces all around and received the warmest of welcomes by the brothers and their family. While we waited for the rest of our team to reach, we were offered a choice between chai, coffee or chaas- I picked Chaas! By the time I had downed two glasses and recharged my soul, the rest of the team arrived.
After refreshments and a quick R&R, we went straight to their ‘Wada’ (their ancestral home) to freshen up and start our journey. A ‘Wada’ is a large single level building with rooms arranged around an open courtyard which is at the heart of it. Their Wada is around 100 years old.
Both, Satyajit and Ajinkya, are ex-bankers who quit their corporate jobs to get back to their roots and take up organic farming. Their love for soil and nature is disarming and pulls you into their reality. The change they are trying to create in their community by advocating organic farming, sharing their knowledge and educating farmers about its benefits, is noble, to say the least. With personalities as organic as their produce, the Two Brothers stay true to organic farming.
We began our tour with the milk shed. Here Satyajit and Ajinkya explained how the A2 milk is heated, inoculated to make whole curds and then churned to produce liquid gold — Ghee. The Two Brothers make pure ghee from the A2 milk of the Gir cow. This Ghee melts below the human body temperature at 36 degrees and the human body temp is 36.1 degrees, whereas all other commercial ghee melt at 40 degrees. As per Ayurveda, this kind of ghee is known to cure many chronic diseases, improve immunity & strength, and has no harmful cholesterol.
We went into their Wada to see women working on grinding and packing the product for delivery. It was mesmerizing to watch them work in sync with happy faces and a song on their lips. Singing songs while working is an age-old tradition that has been a part of the farming culture in India.
After this, we visited the cowshed. The brothers today have around 75 indigenous Gir cows. The Gir is a famous milk cattle breed of India from the Gir hills and Kathiawar peninsula of Gujarat. An interesting anecdote about this breed is that they were taken by the Brazilians back home more than a hundred years ago, and today Brazil has around 40 lakh of them. The Brazilians have been cross-breeding them with other breeds with special traits from across the globe. As Satyajit explained these cows produce A2 milk with special properties, one of them being that it can be digested easily by individuals with lactose intolerance. Besides the benefits of their milk, the dung of the Girs is so well processed that it has no foul smell and you can barely see a fly on it. Their cow dung and urine are combined in a slurry tank to make a slush which is sprayed on the farm to enrich the soil.
After our fun meet and greet with the Girs we headed out to see the farms. Satyajit took the lead and explained what practices they use on the farm. First, they use the slush of cow dung & cow urine as fertilizer, which aids the growth of healthy bacteria in the soil. Second, the decaying leaves, bark, or compost from the farm is spread between planted crops to enrich and insulate the soil — this is called Mulching. And third, they intercrop, which is the practice of growing a crop among plants of different kinds. You can see papaya, drumsticks, lemon, pomegranate, and legumes growing in the same field. Satyajit explained that intercropping helps with pest control since pests and insects that feed on specific crops don’t get an entire field to feast on. The planting of different crops of varying heights is strategic and allows birds to perch on tall trees and spot insects sitting on the smaller plants, while the different crops help fix nitrogen in the soil making it fertile. It’s a perfect ecosystem. Another key practice they follow is the planting of border trees around the periphery of the farm. They break the wind and create a micro-ecosystem in the farm which results in the temperature on the farm being lower than its surroundings.
Before heading back to the Wada for lunch we visited their drying shed where we munched on some fresh pomegranates and soaked in the beauty of the farm. As we stepped into the Wada we could smell the scrumptious food being whipped up in the kitchen for us city folk to devour. We sat together on the dining table and waited to be served what I would call one of the best meals of my life. We had bhakris, rotis, dal & bhat, drumsticks curry, aloo sabzi and the yummiest of kheers.
With our bellies full we sat down to talk and reflect on our experience at the farm before we left to head back to our inorganic life (just kidding). We asked Satyajit & Ajinkya what a day on the farm is like for a farmer. Satyajit said that a day on the farm starts before sunrise, followed by a lot of hard work, and ends a little after sunset. The life on the farm is in sync with the animals that live in it. Dinner is served at 8:30 and then lights out!
As we left for Mumbai, I couldn’t stop thinking about the whole experience and the beauty of the simple life. I couldn’t help but envy Satyajit and Ajinkya. I wondered if I could go back to my farming roots and live their life. But I soon realized that I wasn’t cut out for it. ‘City life' it is for me.
