A tour of organic rural India

I rose at 4am again this morning (why is 4am such a popular time to have to get up early?) after little sleep as I kept turning over in my mind how stupid I had been to get robbed.

Caught the hotel shuttle to the airport and saw for sure that the Hotel was just a few short blocks from the domestic airport check in. I'd been ripped off badly.

I arrived in plenty of time, expecting several others at the airport. After a short while Anne turned up and we checked in for the flight to Indore which took about an hour. It was just the two of us on this flight apparently.

From the sky Indore looked a sprawling somewhat disorganised town, but it had a pretty little airport. We tried to take pictures, but a policeman told us not to.

As we left the airport MaryAnne and Neils were waiting for us, so that was good to see them again. Also a cab was there with our names. A welcome sight after last nights robbery.

Then a funny thing happened. We were told we were all going in one car, there were already 2 people in there plus the 4 of us and our luggage! We attempted to squeeze in and laughed! Then another cab came along...

The journey through the streets to the hotel was the usual mix of noise, smoke, people, dust and animals, this time joined by camels and donkeys wandering around. When we arrived at the Landmark Hotel I was pleased to see it looked very good. We decided on check in to share rooms to keep our costs down. So I ended up sharing with Neils, a very nice Dutchman.

30 mins or so after checkin our our drivers for the day arrived with a film crew. After a few uneasy moments filming us we soon forget the cameras were there and headed off for the organic farms.

What a fantastic journey it was. Within 10 mins we passed a huge camel train going down the road with nomads riding and walking with it. I couldn't get my camera out quickly enough.

Not much further on we saw literally thousands of goats being driven along the road by nomads. We asked the drivers to stop so we could talk to them. We soon learned that they travel over 1000km over 6 weeks on foot to fine better grazing land for the goats. Amazing. I'd love to do that walk with them and see how they live.
Nomads driving goats

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Before long we reached the first of the organic farms we were to visit. A tiny farm at the side of a busy road. We met the owner of the land and were made a cup of coffee on a small gas stove powered by gas produced from cow dung. This was the first time I had seen this technology used in such a primitive and small scale. The farmer has just 25 cows and this is more than enough to provide enough gas to use for cooking for 2 households. More pictures to follow...

We were served coffee from one of the small shacks. This had been prepared using the cow dung gas and it was good. The farmer and assembled employees explained many of the principles of compost production and natural pesticides to us. Much of this involved mixing cow urine with various other mixes such as some leaves from a particular type of tree, jaggery, and soured butter milk. The recipe for this is in one of the photos below (still to be added).


More pics to come here of farm.

We then travelled on further to another farm which produces fruit and we ate some fresh Guava lightly sprinkled with salt. This was delicious... photos to follow.

Next we headed for a small farming village for a brief meeting with a farmer. This was the main farmer in the area and he had a beautiful yet simple house. We were invited in and sat on a white bed type thing which is a traditional welcome. We were served butter-milk sprinkled with some Garam-Masala to drink. It was slightly strange all of us being in someone else's house and the owner was unable to speak any English. I felt very honoured to be there.

The ladies with us went to speak to the ladies of the house, while the men and locals all stared at each other unable to communicate effectively! The colonel, our guide help translate a few questions and we all smiled at each other. It was a very special moment for us all. (photos below to follow).

The photo below is of the outside of the farmers house. In comparison to the other houses in the village this was a very good house.

I took the following video as we drove through the village on the way out. This shows the range of housing that was there from very simple little shacks to reasonable brick houses.
Organic Cotton Farm Village in India

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Next stop was to head for the farm coordination centre of the project. Here we were greeted with garlands of flowers. All the field workers were there to meet us and we were made to feel very special. A simple lunch was served after a quick question and answer session where we all sat on one side of the room and the staff on the other. While food was readied for us we wandered outside to the training area and I took a bunch of shots of the "organic recipes" for pesticides and composting. (see more pics to come).

The beautifule illustration below shows many of the pests that afflict cotton along with the friendly insects that give benefit to the crops.

After lunch we were taken to the cotton gin. Harvest has just begun so this was very busy. I took the amazing pictures of mountains of cotton there.

The picture below was taken inside the gin facility. Its a very hot and dusty environment which is why everyone is wearing face masks. At this point the my camera batteries ran out which was annoying so I switch to using the poorer quality camera in my mobile phone. Some of the following photos were also taken by Anne Gillespie (thanks Anne).

Here's a fella carrying a huge bunch of cotton on his head.

Once finished at the gin, we moved off towards our final destination for the day. On the way we stopped at a small village to talk to some of the women involved in the villages about their aspirations for the future. Some great photos of the people are shown below. They were so interested in us, I'm not quite sure who was looking at who...



Onward we travelled to our final destination. A superb ancient fort at the side of a river. (more info to come)
Here's some pictures...







What a day! It felt like we'd done a week's worth of stuff in just a few hours. And the day had begun at 4am for me!

On the way back to the centre, I put my hand in my pocket and thought I'd lost my passport. For the next 2 hours I was almost silent with worry. Thankfully on returning to the hotel I discovered that I'd not taken it with me, and had left it safely with all my other travel documents. The relief was huge. So we had a beer or two and off to bed exhausted.