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@runamufarm

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🌳Organic, regenerative farming & food forest
📍Denkanikottai, TN

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Birbs, lately.
Thank you to everyone who helped me ID and confirmed IDs!

1. European bee-eater
2. Tree pipit
3. Common hoopoe
4. Grey bellied cuckoo (female)
5. Black rumped flameback
6. White bellied drongo
7. Yellow throated sparrow (female)
8. Yellow billed babbler
9. Grey wagtail
10. Rufous treepie
11. Oriental honey buzzard
12. Purple sunbird
13. Rosy starling
14. Brahminy starling
15. Rose ringed parakeet and common mynas
16. Black winged kite
17. Warbler (not sure which one)

#birdsofindia #birdsofeasternghats #birdsofkrishnagiri

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Jungle myna murmuration this evening. They just wouldn’t stop! What a spectacle! There are thousands of them roosting in the wild zone behind our house this season.
Earphones recommended to hear the murmuration.

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What I Stand For is What I Stand On.
These words that appear at the end of a Wendell Berry poem gave me everything I needed to summarise the many strands of thoughts swimming through my head regarding land stewardship. It’s also a great starting place for me to flesh out my relationship to the land.

In the months leading up to us buying this particular piece of land, it seemed like Nanda was in some kind of frenzy, spending every weekend coming to the same region with one of two agents we had been introduced to by my uncle. There was much joy and thrill when we found exactly what Nanda wanted. A small piece of land sharing a forest boundary. But very soon, for me, it turned into fears around human-animal conflict; a general feeling of being overwhelmed about how we would manage 6 acres without knowing anyone in the locality; and trepidation around the haste and impatience with which Nanda wanted to begin constructing a house here. In retrospect I’m glad for it.

It turned around pretty quickly for me with more frequent visits and walks around, stopping to notice wild flowers and the insects that lived here. We spent the extremely frosty winter of 2022 here in our shipping container home with a makeshift kitchen which gave us a deeper insight into the shifting of light, the direction of winds, the nocturnal sounds from the forest. The game changer was living here four days of the week once the house was ready and witnessing all the seasons; planting our first fruit trees and flower bushes; watching wild tree species regenerate and much more.

Thanks to greedy house owners who hiked up our rent in Bangalore, we made the decision to fully move here last year much to the apprehension of our families. We have since then developed a meaningful friendship with Thimmaraj, our farm worker, and his family. They look out for us in so many ways and we continue to learn so much about this land, our village and its neighbours, its natural and socio-cultural history from them. This has furthered our rootedness to this place. Truly, a land is nothing without its peoples.

[Contd. in comments]

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Our first harvest of ragi at the farm, 3 generations apart. A primary grain before city life. #organic #ragi

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Live stream
🔊🎧

#asmr #waterislife

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Could not resist. Had to come back here for Crotalaria/rattlepod season!
1. Crotalaria pallida/gijigiji gida
2. Crotalaria paniculata
3. Crotalaria retusa
4. Crotalaria evolvuloides
5 and 6. Crotalaria bifaria

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#coexistence #lifeonthefarm #snakesofindia #indianratsnake

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The Folly of Floriculture.

Having lived in a region known for its large scale cut flower production over the past year and half, here are some of my thoughts, observations and learnings about the industry. Denkanikottai has developed into a major floriculture hub because of its climate and also its proximity to Bangalore (and its international airport). Chrysanthemums, roses, marigolds and more exotic species of gerberas, carnations, orchids and lilies are grown here. The former in open fields and the latter in greenhouses. Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific in a 2020 report found 44 kinds of HHPs (Highly Hazardous Pesticides) used in the production of flowers in India, of which 32 of them have been banned in European and other Asian countries. They include insecticides, miticides and fungicides. These HHPs have been linked to several kinds of cancers, endocrine disruptions and reproductive diseases. Their usage also comes at a huge ecological cost. They persist in the soil and therefore water sources for decades together. Bees and other pollinators face large scale die-offs by feeding on these plants. Another appalling practice is the most unsustainable one - of carrying soil from elsewhere to make beds for flower production. It must also be kept in mind that flower production is a seasonal activity for most small scale farmers peaking during the festival season (July-November). The same land gets used to produce avarekai (hyacinth beans), ragi, beans and tomatoes during other seasons. Not the greenhouses of course 🙄 So one can imagine the pesticide uptake in these other crops as well.
How is this affecting us who are trying to grow our food without any chemical inputs? All these floriculture fields and greenhouses are upstream from us. Soil and water is definitely carrying these harmful substances to us too. So will we ever be able to call ourselves truly ‘organic’?
(Continued in comments - please read the second comment first 🤦🏾‍♀️)
#floriculture #pesticideuseindia #flowers #icanbuymyselfflowers #landusepatternindia #denkanikottai #sustainablefarmingpractices

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9 months to bear fruit

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Barks (the other kind) at Runamu.

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Our welcome party back home today included this beauty! First snake we’ve spotted inside the house.
Common wolf snake. Non venomous.

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And it’s that time of the year again!

#butterflymigration #darkbluetigerbutterfly
#tirumalaseptentrionis #butterfliesofindia #butterfliesoftamilnadu

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