In all my years spent in Mumbai I used to be hugely satisfied buying good-looking vegetables from the local bhaji market. Never wondered where they were coming from, whether they were in season, whether they were indigenous varieties or hybrids.
A few years in Santiniketan changed all that. Since this small town is surrounded by villages and agriculture, a few minutes' drive takes us into farmlands and naturally, we came to know a lot of people who till for a living. On the first few visits, of course, all we noticed was how green the fields were. On subsequent trips we noticed the men with the spraying cans strapped to their backs spraying pesticides on the paddy or vegetable fields. Talking to farmers who we had got to know, we realised that pesticides were now also being sold in sachets, much like shampoo! So every time a farmer was growing a cauliflower or cabbage before the onset of winter, he would encounter pests, which required him to upturn a whole sachet on a single flower!
My partner and I were getting increasingly suspicious of what we were eating. So when a friend casually mentioned that he had about an acre of land for which he had no plans, we asked him whether he would allow us to grow vegetables there. Because the land had not been used for over 20 years and since there were already buildings all around, chances of pesticides leeching from other plots were unlikely. He readily agreed, on the condition of sharing costs and produce.
We found a traditional farmer who agreed to work on the plot. His enthusiasm waned when he learnt that he would not be allowed to use any fertiliser. We had told him that in order to prepare the soil he could layer the ground with straw and then all the leaves that fell from the few trees that surrounded the plot would decompose and provide enough manure. Anyway, he started planting and we went almost every day to see the growing saplings as evidence of his labour. He soon asked what pesticide he could use and wasn't happy when he was given a large drum where he was told to make spraying substance by letting neem leaves rot in water.
He tried to tell us that he would not be able to guarantee any production and was even more surprised when we said that was fine. Despite his misgivings, however, we got a fantastic crop of radish, aubergine, spinach, tomato, carrot and beetroot. The only thing that let us down was potato. Although the plants looked healthy right till the end they yielded little when it was time to dig them out.
So, through this winter most meals were made entirely from our produce. But we had the maximum fun trying to sell to our friends every time we harvested. After putting aside what we would consume we sent out SMSes to let them know what was on offer and they got taken in instantly. A friend, back from his software years in the US, who now grows everything himself, even commented on how we were becoming like traditional farmers selling more than we were consuming.
But when recounting our experience to a friend visiting from Kolkata we were a trifle stumped by his question. On learning that we were selling too, he wanted to know what our business model was. Recollecting our days in Mumbai we thought how in some cases a corporate experience could be debilitating. Because Excel sheets don't teach you that to sell vegetables grown on an acre does not require working out any business models.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
