Progress slow but moving!

Over the last few days, I've been trying to find more library books for the project. I made contact with Navdanya in Delhi. They sent a list of their publications, and once they clarify some questions, I'll be sending an order in to them. That will really give the library a kick start!

I've also been trying to contact Chetana Vikas to find out their training dates for the next 6 months. Things can work slowly here, which makes forward planning a bit tricky, but I aim to get some dates, at least from my side, ready in the next week or so. I'm going to deliver the following elements of their training myself:

• Introductory Ecology
• Introduction to Permaculture Design
• Introduction to Natural Farming (Fukuoka's method)

I hope that we'll learn the following at Chetana Vikas' farm:

• Self-reliant (sufficient) farming
• Kitchen gardening
• Irrigation
• Fruit tree grafting
• Nurseries and tree plantations
• Creating water bunds

When I visited the farmers in September, we talked a lot about the need for ensuring basic food is provided for before considering cash crops. When going on a tour of some farms, we crossed through the village and found evidence of 'kitchen gardening', or Zone 1 gardening in permaculture terms, around a few of the dwellings (I'll add photos later - they're on my husband's laptop at the moment!). Later that day, another farmer told me that he was inspired to try this out himself after last year's workshop (before I headed to the UK to have Leela, my little girl) and it's working really well. This idea is really starting to appeal to the farmers who can see a direct benefit to them that won't cost much and will be easy to set up and manage. I think it's a bit harder for them to believe in larger scale methods, such as no-dig cotton farming, so this is a good place to start.

In fact, last night I had an idea. There is an area of land just outside my brother-in-law's house in the village, that at the moment is not being used for anything. I might put it to the farmers that we work together on a training event to create a community food garden in this spot, that my brother's family can use and will give ideas for the others to re-create around their own homes. For this, I'll try to bring in the ladies of the village as it's likely that tending of such gardens would be something they would do.... more thought needed, but a big possibility.

So... we're moving slowly now. The mountain is still large on the horizon, but we're into the foothills!

What is the CNVF?

Last year, when I first moved to live in India from the UK, I was so shocked to find out that hundreds of thousands of farmers have committed suicide here over the last 10 years or so. Even today, we see reports of suicides in the local press. In fact, we're in a bit of a crisis zone, in the so-called 'suicide belt' in Yavatmal District, Maharashtra. Here, as in the rest of India, farmers have been getting into crippling debts, caused by trying to convert from traditional farming methods to more 'hi-tech', western approaches, started during India's Green Revolution. These days, farmers are bombarded with advertising that tells them all their problems will be solved if they simply grow the newest cash crops, such as BT Cotton, a genetically modified (GM) species.

BT Cotton Flower (SamB)

However, these crops are very expensive to grow - the seeds are expensive, the plants do not set seed so more has to be bought each year, the chemicals needed to grow them successfully are expensive - and to top it all, the price of these cash crop products is falling on the world market. Advertised as being 'pest resistant', the cash crops tend to be very badly hit by no end of pests, which leads to new plant varieties entering the market, more cash being demanded for seeds and chemicals... the cycle continues and continues, until the farmer, who already has very little, is so steeped in debt that he feels he has no other option but to end his life... and during this time, it's highly likely that he has caused extensive damage to his land too through the extensive use of dangerous and highly toxic pesticides. All in all, it's a very Violent farming revolution... violent for the farming community as people, and violent to the environment as soil impoverishment and 'death' often results.

I started the Centre for Non-Violent Farming along with my husband and a group of farmers within a village called Mohadi. This is where my husband grew up and where our family has farm land. Nearly every family in the village are farming families. It's their sole income in most cases. We wanted to help them out of their difficulties, as farming here is not easy.

The Centre's aims are as follows:

• Allow farmers to help themselves create a sustainable future for their families through farming in a non-violent manner.

• Facilitate networking of farmers with resources that will allow them to become informed and self-sufficient.

• Help farmers become more self-reliant and less dependent on external inputs for their farming.

• Restore and protect the natural environment surrounding farms to allow regeneration of ecosystem health and stability.

• Show farmers and villagers the benefits of caring for their environment and farming in a non-violent way.

• Spread what we have learnt to other villages so that they can also use these methods.

We hope to meet these aims by doing the following:

• Create a library of resources relating to sustainable, non-violent farming and land management methods, including organic methods, permaculture design and natural farming (Masanobu Fukuoka’s method).

• Translate and publish key texts in local languages, namely Marathi for the Mohadi farmers.

• Train farmers in research and observation skills.

• Provide workshops for farmers on non-violent farming methodologies.

• Facilitate travel to, and attendance of, workshops and training led by other sustainable farming organisations.

• Arrange visits to other projects and farms using non-violent farming methods.

• Convert 15 acres of agricultural land near to Yavatmal to a ‘non-violent farm’, which will act as a training resource for farmers, as well as a research centre for the CNVF.

• Provide opportunities for international exchange of knowledge and ideas through conferences and travel to other countries, including bringing farmers using non-violent farming methods to visit and work in Mohadi and other villages.

• Through publicity and articles, raise awareness, locally, nationally and internationally, of the Indian farming situation and the solutions non-violent farming can offer.

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to the blog of the Centre for Non-Violent Farming, or CNVF as you may see it mentioned on this page. On this blog, I'll be posting news about our activities, as well as regular updates on what we're working on and towards.

So... a good place to start would be to tell you where we've been, where we are right now and where we'd like to be heading.

A few weeks ago, we visited a farm called Chetana Vikas, near a town called Wardha (famous, amongst other things, as somewhere Gandhi set up an ashram). My husband, daughter and I met a group of 10 farmers from Mohadi at Chetana Vikas. This was to be their first direct experience of being on an established organic farm. Of course, I've been singing resplendant praises of these methods, but until now the farmers had wanted proof that these marvellous stories could be true... and lo and behold! Here it was... (photos to follow!). It was great to see them relaxing as the possibilities were laid out before their eyes and gave them something tangible to work with. Here were a group of local farmers who hadn't used chemicals for many years, barely even ploughed their land, used no GM varieties and instead used local ones grown from seed they had collected... and their farm was absolutely flourishing. A group of us will be returning in due course for Chetana Vikas's training programme, as it will give us an insight into how we could do things in Mohadi. We'll keep you posted.

These last few days, I've been trying to get moving on buying in some books for the Centre's sustainable farming library, as the last time I visited the village it was highlighted as a priority. Today, I called Other India Press in Goa, to see if they print any organic farming books in Hindi or Marathi, and unfortunately they don't, so the search will continue... I'll be getting hold of someone at Navdanya, tomorrow hopefully, to see about ordering from their catalogue. If you haven't seen it, take a look here: http://www.navdanya.org/publications. Pretty good! Let's hope they accept foreign credit cards... If anyone knows of other publishers in India who might have organic farming publications, especially ones that have been translated into Hindi or Marathi, please do let me know! We're also happy to order in from over-seas if the publications are really good. Recommendations would be welcomed. We're especially seeking books about organic farming, permaculture, arid land farming (including soil management, water harvesting...) and tropical forestry relating to the Indian climate.

My other major responsibility is to find funding for the Centre. So far we've raised over £450 (including Gift Aid) through our Just Giving page: http://www.justgiving.com/cnvf/. A friend also told me the other day that she has also raised another £100 for us, which was a really nice surprise. My next task will be to find other funding bodies who may fund social projects in India. As we're not technically an NGO, it may be tricky, but I'll think of something...

Soon I'm hoping to get a newsletter up and running, so let me know if you would like to subscribe to that. It will be in electronic format, so can be emailed to you.

We're also trying to find out about a dam that may go ahead in the area near to Mohadi, which will dramatically alter the village's landscape and farming. More news when it comes...

And finally, we're hoping to get some teachers and volunteers out here soon to help deliver workshops, meet the farmers and help on the farms. We're hoping to run some permaculture training in the new year and may even have some teachers coming along, which would be fantastic. If there's anyone out there who's interested in getting involved, please get in touch.