Volunteer with us

🌱 Volunteer at Our Food Forest & Regenerative Farm – Papanasam, Tirunelveli

We are a couple building a 🌳 food forest and 🌾 regenerative farm near Papanasam, at the foothills of the Western Ghats. Our days are guided by nature, our work is hands-on, and our lifestyle is simple, healthy, and low-impact.

We’d love to host young, energetic people curious about why and how we live this way—those who are ready to get involved, learn by doing, and immerse themselves in farm life.

Before you write to us, please 📖 read our blog to understand our approach and see if this experience matches what you’re seeking.

🌿 What You’ll Do & Learn

Your days here will include, but will not be limited to:
🌾 Harvesting, irrigating, compost making
🪴 Preparing raised beds, sowing vegetables, planting trees
🌱 Propagating green manure, weeding, mulching
🐓 Caring for our animals
🔥 Biochar production, mushroom cultivation & setting up a new quarter-acre vegetable plot (focus for 2025)

🏗️ Sustainable construction

If you have prior experience, we’d love to collaborate on designing food forests, orchards, guilds, circles, and windbreaks. Most learning is practical—through experience, observation, and participation.

📅 Volunteering Season

🗓 March to October only
We cannot host volunteers from November to February as both farm stay rooms are expected to be booked during the monsoon/winter season. Noushadya and I will have our hands full.

🗓 A Typical Day

8:30–9:00 am 🍵 Breakfast
9:00–11:00 am 🌿 Work
11:00–11:30 am ☕ Tea break
11:30 am–1:00 pm 🌱 Work
1:00–2:00 pm 🥗 Lunch
2:00–5:00 pm 🌳 Work
Evenings: cooking 🍳, reading 📚, music 🎶, stargazing ✨, nature walks 🚶‍♂️, or local excursions 🏞

We work 6 days a week. Sundays are off.

🏡 Accommodation & Facilities

Accommodation is free for volunteers.

If there are no guests at the farm stay or only one of the two rooms is booked → the other room will be allotted to volunteers.
If both rooms are booked → you will be provided with a mattress. and a mosquito net.
- You can pitch your tent or set up the mosquito net in the fields. Please be mindful of guest comfort.
- We have detailed out our toilet arrangement in this blog. For practical reasons, we use the squat-style Indian-commode compost toilet to the fullest. The compost toilet is a short walk from the farm stay.
- There is a bathroom adjoining the compost toilet, where you can take bath and wash clothes.
- We have a washing machine in Bhoomi. We request a contribution of Rs. 100 per load.

🍲 Food Arrangements

We eat communally.
You will have to cook / prepare / source your own meals.
Fresh produce from the farm (vegetables, fruits, greens) will be shared whenever there’s excess 🌽🥬🍌.
You can buy staples like rice, pulses, edible oil from our 🛒 farm shop or from shops in Vikramasingapuram. You can buy milk, curd, eggs, mushrooms from us.
Cooking facilities provided:
🔥 Gas stove + cylinder
🔥 TLUD stove + firewood stove (please store firewood in advance during rainy days) We request you to use firewood stove / TLUD stove as much as possible to reduce LPG consumption. We have excess firewood available at the farm.
Noushadya and I are parents to a 4 year old daughter. We have our hands full with homeschooling her and preparing food according to our needs & schedule.

🌦 Seasons & What to Bring

Mar–May (Summer) 🌞

Dry, thorny ground cover, hot sun
Bring: cap/scarf 🧢, light cotton clothes

Jun–Oct (South-West Monsoon) 🌦

Light drizzles, mixed temperatures

Please bring:
🛏 bedsheet, blanket, towel
🔦 personal torch (mobile torch not enough)
🌿 biodegradable toiletries
💊 any personal medicines

♻ Waste & Energy

Please bring only biodegradable cleaning & personal care products
Take back all non-compostable waste with you 🚯
Solar electricity & hot water (limited capacity—please be mindful)
Cooking mostly on firewood or with efficient stoves

There is very little trash that we generate that we need to take out of the farm. We have no one to collect trash obviously either. So, we discourage sanitary napkins, disposable diapers, packaged food. Please investigate menstrual cups, cloth pads, cloth nappies.

We understand that it is not be possible to avoid some of these things even with the best of intentions. If that is the case, please bring a bin-liner with you. Be prepared to take your non-compostable waste with you back to the town/city and dispose it there appropriately.