Both Noushadya and I get asked this question often. I usually don’t get into personal details. Awareness about anthropogenic climate change, groundwater depletion, improving farmer incomes are the reasons, I usually quote. But these are the answer that most people who are turning back to villages from cities for the purpose of decolonising their lives…
Tag: sustainable agriculture
Ode to 7 years of Vivasayee’s Life at Vaanavil Farm & Food Forest
10th July 2025 I now live in a farmAt the edge of a reserve forestOutside a small villageRight outside a small tier 3 town It has been 7 yearsSince i made the switchFrom the city to the rural itchBecause the urban lifestyle was a bitch I was attracted to the romanceOf being amidst natureI wanted…
Karuppu Kavuni Sakkarai Pongal Recipe
Deepa Reddy of Paticheri fame, a few years back, featured in and shared with us the beautiful short film Thirunel by Bigshortfilms. From that documentary, I gathered that the word Kavuni is adopted from the Burmese word Kao Hynin, which means Sticky Rice. Karuppu, in Tamil, means black. I love how the language of our food…
Karunkuruvai Idiyappam Recipe
In Tirunelveli, we share more than just a border with Kerala — we share a love for breakfast dishes like idiyappam, appam, and puttu. Most restaurants here in Southern Tamil Nadu serve Idiyappam for Dinner only. At Vaanavil Farm Stay, Noushadya has been offering it for both breakfast as well as dinner to our guests….
6X increase in soil organic carbon in 6 years at Vaanavil Farm & Food Forest
It has been 6 years since we started organic farming in our land. We are very happy to announce that we have achieved an average of 5.75X increase in soil organic carbon at Vaanavil Farm & Food Forest, Vikramasingapuram, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu. The results were very encouraging especially because the improvement was seen across…
Why Masala Lab needs to update his understanding of pesticides and organic farming?
Krish Ashok is at it again. He admits that food and agriculture are complex topics; yet he continues to make reels that over-simplify. Krish Ashok’s recently uploaded a video on Instagram reels “Pesticides in spices : Do we need to worry?”. The conclusion he wants hs to draw is that “We don’t”. His understanding of…
What is the big deal about not tilling our soil?
I remember learning about top soil erosion during the environmental studies in class 5 in school. But, beyond that i don’t remember having any discussion about soil health or top soil loss in any other forum during classroom education. This is unfortunate, given that our existence is still dependent on us consuming food and not…
நாட்டுமாடு / देसी गाय and Farm update – April 2022
The month of April saw a lot of evening showers making the summer tolerable for the cows, humans and other animals. Even in the scorching heat, there is still greenery around for the cows to graze. We replanted ginger and turmeric in our existing zero till raised beds and also in the new beds that…
A House made of Earth – Part 3
This is Part 3 of a three part series of our story of the construction of our house using locally available sustainable material and skill. Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2. I am not sharing too many technical details for I am not an expert. Those who are interested in the finer…
A snapshot of happenings at our farm
We are building a food forest and kitchen garden for ourselves at Papanasam, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India since July 2018. We have been focusing on adding a lot of carbon / organic material to the soil. That’s why you will see photos covered with neem, mexican sunflower and glyricidia. We have let the old neem…
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