The plants they are a changin'...

December 20^th, 2011

Just when I'm getting ready to leave the farm is starting to look a little more familiar to me. Rather than the exotic ginger, turmeric, rice, peanuts, and sesame, the farm has now been flooded with greens, and peas, and garlic, and carrots, and wheat! And while I knew the majority of my time here would be for the rice harvest, it is unbelievably good to know a little bit about the plants here now. It was definitely fun to learn more about the foods I really do enjoy... seeing how they grow, but I really do want to know more about growing these same plants I can grow at home. Of course, though, things are still done differently here. First, to plant many of the Brassicas (cabbages and cauliflower) the fields are completely flooded, and then the little vegetable starts were placed in the field. The peas plants were scattered randomly over a large field, rather than neat rows and given no trellising. They were then only grown for about three weeks, or enough to get a week's worth of picking from them, before they were tilled into the ground. There are also many many radishes.. in fact, more radishes than I care to look at. And not a wonderful variety of radishes, but all appear to be diakon radishes. I have actually grown a genuine dislike of radishes since being here. I am sick of seeing them at every meal and they give me a stomach ache. Since the rice harvest of 560 varieties has completely finished the farm has now taken on the challenge of growing 139 varieties of wheat. I helped to sow these so I am really excited just to see them coming up. In an effort to not do any type of monoculture the farm workers left a few of the plots empty this time for vegetables. We also sowed a couple of the wheat seeds in rows and others we just randomly tilled in with hand tools. Okay, now my words again in pictures:

The humongous radishes!

Green everywhere!

...and planting the wheat!

The cauliflower that took forever to weed... where is the mulch??

Applying compost to the cauliflower.

John's Green Building Course

December 16^th, 2011

Rather than being a place to learn from, Navdanya has recently turned into a place where world travelers meet and teach each other what they know. And while I have learned quite a bit from the farm, I have learned more about subjects I wasn't expecting from my fellow travelers. Besides Chris and Marilyn, another lesson I wanted to mention was a recent presentation on green building from John who is most recently from Bali! His presentation was very inspiring to me and I thought it would be nice to share some of my notes. John gave a great overview on a few different building types: adobe, cob, straw bale, slip straw, and wattle & daub techniques.

The first question when building a house is to determine what you actually need the structure for. Sleeping, kitchen, bathing are all pretty common answers. Climate and especially the angles of sunlight should also come into play. The building techniques above all pertain the the walls of building a structure, but how to keep the walls dry also needs to be planned. As John called it each house needs to have hats and boots. It is especially important to keep the foundation dry with these techniques. A house should also provide shade during the hot months and allow sunlight in during the cold months to reduce the need for heating and cooling. The angle of the sun will determine the angle of the eves needed on the roof of the structure. John provided a few websites to determine the angle of the sun in your location: www.susdesign.com/sunangle, www.kleiwerks.com, and www.emeraldearth.org.

Many of the natural building techniques use straw and earth to build up the walls. To finish off these techniques John suggested using linseed oil, which is water resistant or a lime wash. Lime wash is derived from limestone, which is calcium oxide. The fascinating thing I learned about limestone is that its processing is carbon neutral. This is because when it is mixed with water it creates calcium hydroxide, which is toxic, but then re-extracts the CO2 it created during processing once it is finished. Lime wash is breathable, water-resistant, and when moisture is added to it, it will rebond where there are cracks.

While some knowledge of building is required to begin these projects many community members can join in getting their hands dirty in the mud and clay used in these techniques. John told us that the use of concrete (which is extremely resource intensive and extremely boring) is only second to water in terms of worldwide consumption. It is also important that when planning our structures we only build what is needed. Of course comfort and durability and safety are requirements, but why not have fun with unique structures we can build together? Today, many of our boxes on the hillside are overbuilt to hold only our stuff rather than act as a home where we can share family and community time together. In times of resource depletion it is important to take a step back and realize what we actually need when determining what resources we are going to use up.

Invasion of the Soil Scientists

December 13^th, 2011

While I have been working on farms and with farmers for nearly the past three years, it is here in India that I finally realized what farming is all about. I have realized now more than ever that growing agricultural soils is at least if not more important than growing the food itself. Through all the different compost recipes I have learned at Navdanya and the preparation for the next plot the importance of the soil structure has really been stressed. This idea was confirmed when an awesome couple from the United States came to the farm. Marilyn is a soil scientist and Chris is a first grade teacher (check out their website: www.hummingbirdproject.org!). They came to Navdanya during the recent Gandhi and Globalization course with a mission to set Navdanya up with a proper soil lab.

While setting up the soil lab Marilyn and Chris graciously tested their knowledge of the Soil Foodweb on us. I will be forever grateful for what I learned in those two days. The pretty basic science behind the fact that the soil is full of micro-organisms had pretty much left my mind since the last time I had a biology course. The knowledge they shared really made me realize how important building healthy soil is to the health of our food and plants. The top 8” of soil contain “The Big 6” micro-organisms → Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoa, Nematodes, Arthropods, and Earthworms. More or less, these micro-organisms all exist in the top 8” of healthy top soil and are continuously moving.

Another interesting fact is that different plants prefer different micro-organisms. By building healthy compost piles we can then add either fungal or bacterial soil to the plants that need those soils the most. Plants such as kale and broccoli and cabbage prefer bacterial soils where as strawberries and maple trees prefer fungal soils. Corn prefers a 1:1 ratio of bacteria:fungi in the soil. Chris and Marilyn also took the afternoon to teach us all how to make a proper compost pile. We were looking to increase the amount of fungi so we added a lot of brown material such as fallen leaves (carbon). A fun fact about carbon is that only leaves that fall from the tree on their own contain carbon. If leaves are picked and then laid out to dry they will still by nitrogen heavy. This is because while leaves are still green the tree is sending them nitrogen, but once leaves are ready to fall they are sending all the nitrogen back into the roots. Or that's at least how I understood it. And while most of this might be common knowledge for some, I am finding it absolutely fascinating... and want to sign up for a soil sciences class now! For more bacteria we would add green material to our compost pile such as food scraps and grass clippings (nitrogen). Another fun fact is that one shovelful of compost contains more diversity than the Amazon Rainforest.

Finally, Chris and Marilyn took us to the fields of Navdanya to test out the soils that have been grown at Bija Vidyapeeth over the years. We took soil samples from four places in the farm and then took the samples to the microscope they carried with them all the way here to observe the micro-organisms. Our samples included: the turmeric field which is now a big field of mulch; a freshly plowed field; the kitchen garden that is plowed much less than the rest of the farm; and finally the bamboo forest on the edge of the farm that has never been plowed or sown. There were no astonishing findings, but the freshly plowed field contained a few bad guy fungi (there is a difference, but we didn't get that in depth), the kitchen garden contained a lot of bacteria, and both the turmeric field and the bamboo forest contained some good fungi. Marilyn explained that tilling the soil can often disrupt the micro-organisms and can break them up causing them to be less prevalent, hence the theories of practicing no-till farming.

Anyways, like I said much of this is somewhat common knowledge but there are some very important practices I think we must remember when trying to grow healthy plants. The practice of building soil is ever-important if we want to grow healthy and sustainable food systems. Inorganic fertilizers are all salt based, and salt kills micro-organisms which just leads to a chain of events needing to continue adding more fertilizer. It is important to remember that good healthy soil can be grown just by combining our food and field waste products, as well. While growing healthy compost might take more time in some cases it is much more worth it in the future. Thanks Chris and Marilyn for the life lesson!

Making our soil sample slides!

The soil is alive! A possible siting of fungi under Chris and Marilyn's microscope.

The group building a fungal heavy compost pit next to the soil lab!

Ayurveda

December 9^th, 2011

During the recent Gandhi and Globalization course at Navdanya we were fortunate to get a little insight on Ayurveda. Ayurveda is a term that I have heard loosely used in the United States and heavily advertised here in India, but I honestly had no idea what the term meant. My first guess is that it had something to do with natural cures, but who knows what “Natural” means anymore? And before I sound like a bigger hippie than most of you already think I am, let me just disclaim that I think Ayurveda is an interesting way to look at re-examining our lifestyles and not something I am ready to take on full force.

What caught my attention during the Ayurveda lecture is the actual definition of Ayurvedic practices. Ayurveda is a recognized health practice in India, but has not been adopted by much of the West because Ayurvedic medicines take time rather than the quick fix pills we are used to. Instead of using pills and chemicals to get rid of a disease, Ayurveda looks at the cause and how the human body can fight off illness with its own strengths. For example, if you have a headache, rather than taking an aspirin, Ayurvedic practices try to determine the cause of the headache. That may mean working less, getting more sleep, or stop staring at a computer screen. Ayurvedic practices change habits or use medicines that help the body fight illness.

That being said, Ayurvedic practices see that the modern human beings have lost the sense of how to live. If you imagine wild animals they are never overweight, underweight, or walking around with Kleenexes stuffed up their sleeves... they know how to live. Animals have a sense of connection with the sun cycles and when to eat and when to sleep. Ayurvedic practices say that human beings have the same schedule, but modern lifestyles have caused us to move far away from this schedule leading to many of the illness and diseases we see in the Western world today.

The following is the natural cycle human beings should be on according to Ayurvedic practices. Unfortunately, I can never see myself actually adhering to this schedule unless I am left alone on a desert island for the rest of my life:

6am-10am (time to eat a light breakfast and be active (mentally and/or physically))

10am-2pm (time to eat main meal)

2pm-6pm (continue with activity)

6pm-10pm (time to wind down and eat a light meal)

10pm-2am (rest)

2am-6am (The air is charged with vital energy during the union of day and night and this is the easiest time to get up. This is the time for meditation and yoga)

And of course we get more than four hours of sleep, these are just the time spans these activities are suggested. Sorry I didn't take better notes. I also won't get into the Constitution types and doshas because I am still trying to understand them myself. But, if you happen to be interested, I definitely suggest picking up a book on Ayurveda and figuring out your Constitution type, which will then have more specific recommendations as to what your body and mind need. I just picked up an Ayurvedic Cookbook if anyone is interested in plundering through it with me when I return. And on the topic of food, the lecturer recommended the three meals rather than a bunch of small meals throughout the day because everytime we eat our digestive system has to start working. With three meals throughout the day our digestive systems get a chance to rest and rejuvenate for the next tasty morsel!

This is far too much for an Ayurvedic meal, but doesn't it look tasty?!  It sure was; coked for us by a Tibetan Culinary School in Dehradun during the Gandhi and Globalization course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standing on my Soapbox

December 9th, 2011

Over the past week I completed a course titled “Gandhi and Globalization” at the Navdanya campus. This course brought people from Australia, Japan, California, Sweden, France, and India.. and Montana :) to discuss how Gandhi's teachings can be applied to the uncontrolled growth of globalization. The panels I attended included teachings from Satish Kumar (founder of Schumacher College in the UK), Madhu Suri Prakash (PhD in Philosophy of Education, Penn State), Samdong Rinponcheji (former Prime Minister of Tibet), and Dr. Vandana Shiva. Reflecting on their philosophies is not easy for me as life at Navdanya is somewhat idealist. And while it is easy to follow these ideas in this small, like-minded community, I am torn by the reality of what is actually at home. In short, we discussed that globalization is based on the fact that we are greedy individuals. Gandhi's teachings of Swaraj is realizing the potential of ourselves. By depending on globalized trade, we, as human beings have lost the potential to depend on ourselves and our communities for our necessities. As a result large corporations are ruling the trade market and all of our basic human necessities have been polluted → our air, our water, and our food.

This is where I run into difficulties myself, though, because I am not completely oblivious to some of the good corporations have brought to the world – depending on how you look at it. I can't just go ahead and say all corporations are bad because some of the infrastructure that exists from corporations I, and everyone I know takes advantage of. I guess I just wish that I had a choice as to what is in my drinking water, not to purchase plastics, and how the energy I use is sourced. The only way to do this is to make sure I know my products and to speak up when I don't agree with something. Transparency is honesty and the only way we can control corporate greed and destruction is to demand the transparency we all deserve! I think that questioning our methods of globalization is an important way to not just give into the society that has been created for us.

According to Frances Moore Lappe, we are currently growing enough food to feed the world. However, over one billion people are still going hungry each day and nearly half of these people are farmers. This tells us that the Earth can in fact sustain every living creature, however, the Earth cannot sustain greed. This means that if we are taking more than our fair share, we are stealing from others. This greed leads to anger, corruption, and ultimately competition. Globalization has made people compare themselves to others rather than focusing on what they themselves are capable of. We used to define ourselves by our communities and we each had a role in an interdependent system. However, globalization has changed us to define ourselves by who we used to be (our ancestors) rather than who we are now. We now define ourselves by what we own and who advertising and corporations tell us we should be.

Recently after this discussion we saw the film “The Economics of Happiness” where the effects of globalization are demonstrated. The virtually untouched community of Ladakh in extreme northern India is happy in the fact that they share within their community. Unfortunately, many young people are persuaded to move to urban areas to cash in on these advertisements. How can we warn the children of indigenous cultures that the urban world in fact has nothing to offer them and that we in fact are looking for their knowledge? Also in the film they were showing the affect GM crops had on these indigenous cultures. These corporations make these cultures think they are poor because they could have higher yields with GM seeds and pesticides, versus the practices they have been following for thousands of years. In the end, this technology ends up taking over their lives and they go through a heavy amount of suffering to get out of debt. This begs the question, What does it actually mean to be poor? Has it turned into a choice between community or stuff? To Samdong Rinponcheji there is no “Third World” and “First World” he says, “The world is one, this is a classification of economy and greed”. Of course one person cannot produce everything, though so it is true that trade and waivers must be done. The Samdong Rinponcheji also stated that in ancient times at most a 10% profit was made by trade. Why is it that today we think we need more than this?

From 1999-2002 the Coca-Cola company set up shop in the state of Kerala in southern India. During this period they pumped 2 million liters of water through a reverse osmosis system. This not only left many wells dry but also left behind loads of heavy metals for the local community. This is a sad example of how modern globalization of resources is in the market and not in the community – which in turn leaves people hungry. In the meantime, we are creating a food system in the West that Vandana Shiva describes as, “a food system that wants constipated human beings”. New homes are even being designed without kitchens in response to limited space and our fast food culture – this isn't food!

In the end, one way to become more self-reliant is to look more within the capabilities of the local community. By realizing what you and your community are capable of is a true democratic society. For how can we actually be free if the basic necessities of our lives are out of our hands? Do we have to actually buy seeds to grow food? Seeds have been saved for centuries allowing farmers to spend less on inputs and develop varieties that work specifically in their climates. And do we have to drink water out of plastic bottles? Water, the ultimate basic necessity has always been free but has recently been polluted and stolen by corporations and agricultural chemicals developed for higher yields and higher profits. These are prime examples of how greed is stealing resources that should be available to all. Thank you.

Vandana Shiva and Myself!

Samdong Rinponchej, Vandana Shiva, and Madhu Suri Prakash

99 Pictures of Khangchendzonga

Another highlight of Dan's trip was our hike along the India/Nepal border just outside of Darjeeling. Within sight of Darjeeling is India's tallest mountain, and the third tallest mountain in the world, Khangchendzonga. In the course of three days we hiked 31 miles and gained an elevation of 5,900 feet. The continuous site of deep green valleys, baby goats, and of course the majestic view of Khangchendzonga kept me going as we trudged along up up up then down down then up up up up then down down down down. The definite highlight of the trip was our second night at an elevation of 12,000 feet. From Sandakphu we could clearly see Mount Everest and Mount Lhotse off in the distance. The panoramic view of the snow-capped mountains made us forget (only for a bit) that we were hungry, tired, and freezing. I think I can safely say that Dan and I have never spent our birthdays in a more magical and beautiful place. 

Of course I won't post the million pictures I took of the mountains... but here are a few!:

a sample of the up, up, up!

the dominating Khangchendzonga!

our hiking crew: Dan, me, Sahil (our guide), and Christoph (new German friend)

and that is Mt. Everest in the middle hiding behind Mt. Lhotse to the left

 

Making Tea at Makaibari

November 19, 2011

During our visit to Darjeeling, Dan and I decided to pass away a couple of the foggy, rainy days with a home stay near the Makaibari Tea Estate. Located a 40-minute walk downhill (not uphill, we found out the hard way, although it is pretty up there) from Kurseong, the Makaibari Tea Estate Factory overlooks 68 hectares (roughly 170 acres) of tea, tea, and more tea! Makaibari grows three varieties of tea: clonal, hybrid, and assam. All three of these plants produce their world famous green and black teas. Companies such as Starbuck's TAZO tea buy tea from this tea estate. 

There are three seasons in which tea is harvested. The first flush, which produces the best tasting tea is March and April. The second flush, a little lower quality is picked during the Monsoon season, June-August. And the lowest on the scale (although much like wine tasting, neither of us could really pick out that much of a difference) is the tea picked during the Autumn season. The top bright green leaves of the plant are harvested (reminds me of picking basil) by the 750 workers who work on the tea plantation year round. The workers ranging in age from 18-60 are paid a meager 100 rupees a day (around $2) and are required to pick at least 8kg a day. Under 8kg per day and their wages are cut, more than 8kg a day and their wages are raised. 

And although the low labor wages frustrated me a bit, it is indeed a healthy and happy working environment and the tour of the tea factory was fascinating. Inside the Makaibari Tea Factory there are five steps to producing loose leaf green and black teas.

1 – After the tea is picked it is withered overnight in large trays that conduct hot air. The tea leaves are turned every two hours by hand. 

2 – The tea is then placed into a rolling machine for 45 minutes which breaks and opens the cell walls of the tea leaves giving tea its flavor. After the rolling machine the clumps are then broken down by hand.

3 – For black tea, the leaves are then placed on shelves to ferment for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Green tea is not fermented, giving it the difference in flavor.

4 – Both green and black teas are then placed into a Mason dryer at 200°F for 50 minutes leaving only 30% of the moisture left in the leaves.

5 – Finally the dried leaves are passed onto a women-only job, sorting. The sorting is done by hand to remove twigs and other imperfections and then placed into a machine to sort further into quality. The highest quality tea that Makaibari produces is their Silver Tip Green Tea, which was the official tea of the Beijing Olympics. The tips of both black and green teas are the highest quality and best flavor. Leftover dust from production is the lowest quality and what is used in convenient tea bags.

Sweeping up the "dust"

I was most interested in touring Makaibari in the land of tea (Darjeeling) because of its commitment to organic and bio-dynamic practices. Makaibari has been in continuous production since 1859, but only recently started following organic practices in the 1970s when the self-proclaimed Rajah of Darjeeling returned home from London with Steiner's principles fresh in his mind. In order to connect more of the buyers with farmers, something the Western world is eagerly searching for, a group of tea farmers worked together to open their homes for home stays at the Makaibari Tea Estate. Our home stay included a lovely pink bedroom, a tour of one of the four areas of the tea estate, a tour of the factory, sampling rice beer, bottomless cups of tea, and home-cooked meals by our factory-worker host's sister-in-law. The experience made for a great opportunity not only to learn about tea, but to give two tourists an opportunity to communicate with honest local folk, which can be a rarity while trying to experience the touristy sights of India.