Annapurna Farm
| We have updated the software, but are still working on some issues.
Main issues: low performance, SemanticMediaWiki extension not working. |
Auroville bought Annapurna farm in the 1960's. It is located some 10 km from the Auroville centre, near Vanur.
During the 70's the farm failed to break even and the land was largely abandoned for some years. It was used for experimental tree planting until the mid-eighties. Tomas (present steward) joined Annapurna in 1986, beginning with a small plot of land. Till 1994 he had the help of tree planter Bernard; Andre joined the farm in 1989 and Brooks worked at the place from 1995 until 2005. In 2006, Selvam a young Tamilian grown up in New Creation, started to work at Annapurna.
As of now the farm employs 15-20 farm workers and more casual labourers during the crop season.
Annapurna is the largest Auroville farm, totalling about 135 acres. The farm grows dry land crops such as varagu, rosella, sesame. mustard seeds and barnyard millet and irrigated paddy during the monsoon season. The rest of the land is under firewood crops, forest and fodder. The soil type is heavy black cotton soil.
The farm uses diesel-powered pumps for drawing of water. The stewards have created a series of water catchment ponds, from which they can irrigate more land without tapping into groundwater reserves. Annapurna is the only Auroville farm where field crops can be grown on a large scale. Besides growing food for Auroville, Annapurna is an active research centre for ecological farming, and maintains a collection of non-hybridized local seed stock. They have a dairy of 15-20 animals, and a small poultry. At present, they can provide basic accommodation for three voluntary farm workers.
See also
External links
{{#ask:Tag::Annapurna |format=list |link=all |sort=Yr |order=descending |search label=... further results }}