Deer in the rice fields of Annapurna.Like so many Auroville projects,
Annapurna farm started with a simple keet-roofed hut, no money to speak of, not
many expectations but with high aspirations. That was at the end of 1980s.
Annapurna was to become Auroville’s largest food producing farm. With its 135
acres and heavy clayey soil, cultivating field crops such as rice, millets and
pulses was the option of choice as these were not being produced by any other
Auroville farm.The farm set up a windmill, a biogas unit, and
used animal traction and solar energy. But over the years, Annapurna’s managers
realised that rigidly adhering to these environmentally-friendly values would
mean that the farm would produce very little food and Auroville would have to
buy more conventionally grown rice, millets and dairy products from the open
market. A shift of focus became necessary, and in the late 1990s Annapurna went
‘less green’ to become more productive. “Our products were not as
environmentall...
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