organic farming practices

Agriculture in our area is rainfed.
We follow practices like multicropping and crop rotation to preserve soil fertility.
Our farmers prepare organic tonics for the soil like Jeevamrutham, Panchagavya and Amruthpani made from locally available material, including neem, castor, cow urine and dung.
Plants for biomass are grown around the fields and compost pits are used to make fertilizers out of this biomass.
Pests are controlled by using methods like summer ploughing and organic pest repellents like neem.
Mixed cropping helps in reducing pest attacks.
Watershed projects have been initiated to store rain water

Quality is an important consideration at every stage of farming our products.
The farmer sanghas whom we work with make sure that their members do not use any sort of chemicals during any stage of farming. Only organic manures, pest repellants and growth promoters are used in their fields. The volunteers from the Timbaktu Collective assist the farmers and make sure that the farmers find help when they need it and in this way make sure that the produce is completely organic.

Organic soil fertility management methods:
Jeevamritam (an organic culture that helps in improving soil fertility) was extensively prepared and applied to the soil. Jeevamrutham, a microbial preparation enhances the microbial population in the soil. Powder Jeevamrutham is also prepared.
Inputs supply:
To promote Organic Farming and encourage farmers to take it up, some inputs were provided to farmers by sanga. Farmers have contributed 20% amount for the inputs. As part of soil fertility improvement to get the better yield, and overcome the nutrient deficiency Groundnut husk and Neem cake were applied to soil. Arrangements for collection of cow urine was made. Millet seeds are supplied to farmers for encouraging crop diversity.

Cow urine Collection:
Cow urine is the main ingredient in preparing Organic cultures and Pest control solutions. The sangha members have undertaken flooring of the cattle shed with stone slabs. As the cow urine is the important ingredient in organic farming, the farmers organized the cattle urine collection by cattle shed flooring. This arrangement has helped the farmers to make use of animal urine a valuable resource which was lost till now. The farmers who are collecting the animal urine now are sharing it with other farmers and it is now readily available in the villages. Cement tubs and plastic drums are available in the sanghs for making the jeevamritham solutions.

In summer when there is not much farm work the farmers spread sand on top of
these slabs in the cattle shed so that the sand gets soaked in the urine and gets enriched. This
sand is stored in bags and used as urea. So this is called as Rythu Urea (farmer urea).

Organic pest and disease management methods:
• Neem oil that is supplied by the sanghas is sprayed for seed treatment
• Neem seed oil is sprayed for control of pest aphids (Nallageeda) in month of September in Groundnut crop.
• Neem Seed Kernal extract, Cow dung and urine solution, multiple leaf (jilledu, kanuga, neem, vavili, vyari bama etc.,) extract are some of the pest and disease management measures used.
• Numalli – A bug found in the ground nut stacks causes damage to the crop by sucking the oil content of the pods. This bug can be controlled with the spraying of multiple leaf extract
in animal urine.

Biomass development:
Saplings are planted on field bunds for Biomass development. They also give green leaf manure. Millet seeds and Horse gram seed are supplied to farmers for encouraging crop diversity.

Land development:
To stop erosion in the top soil, farmers are informed about the importance of land
development work. Farmers have done bunding work with the support of watershed
programme. Besides all these the team has motivated the farmers to put earthen bunds in their fields wherever necessary to avoid erosion and conserve the fertility. This work is done as a part of Employment Guarantee Scheme, a central govt. scheme started to provide work to the small farmers and agricultural laborers in the lean season.

Timbaktu Organic not only focuses on production but also on storage and marketing of the produce. To make sure that the farmers get a good price for their produce and also to make sure that they do not cheated by middle men the Adisakhti Dharani a storage, processing and a marketing unit was set up. This unit is a jointly supported by Adisakthi Mutually Aided Thrift Co-operative Society and Timbaktu Collective. This unit procures the produce from the organic farmers, stores it organically, process it and then markets it.

Storage & Processing
All produce is kept in chemical free store-rooms.
Organic pest repellents such as neem are use when required.
Other techniques such as sun drying, winnowing, light traps and red soil treatment are also used.
We use an appropriate mix of manual as well as mechanical methods in the processing of our products
Oil is extracted using the cold pressed or Ghani method, which this preserves the flavour, aroma and colour along with several nutrients, that are normally lost during chemical refining of the oil.

During procurement, Adisakthi Dharani makes sure that the farmers get a good price for their produce. The villagers themselves weigh the produce and then quote the price. Adisakthi Dharani then gives the farmer a 5% premium on the sales prices agreed upon mutually.

Storage of organic produce is a challenge and Adisakthi Dharani has been successful in finding out chemical free methods to store organic produce.

You can also

Read about our certification process
Why organic food is good for you
Please visit our Recipes page for cooking suggestions