Lessons from Auroville Farm Assessment 2023

Across the red soils of Tamil Nadu’s southeast coast, Auroville’s farms continue to hold space for one of the most enduring experiments in community-scale organic farming and agroecology. Home  »  Blog  »  Lessons from Auroville Farm Assessment 2023 Lessons from Auroville Farm Assessment 2023 October 2025 · Anshul Aggarwal​ Across the red soils of Tamil Nadu’s southeast coast, Auroville’s farms continue to hold space for one of the most enduring experiments in community-scale organic farming and agroecology. With the rising ecological, social, and economic pressures on agriculture, it is important to review Auroville farming and put it in perspective with the ongoing global discourse on food and agriculture. As a first step towards this, in 2023, a sector-wide assessment brought together five-year data from sixteen of Auroville’s twenty-six farms to understand the state of farming in Auroville. The study examined land and water use, production, labour, and finance. What emerged is a picture of both resilience and fragility — a network of farms that have weathered shocks, diversified their outputs, and upheld ecological integrity, yet remain challenged by issues of labour, finance, and generational renewal. The full assessment methodology and results can be found here: https://www.avfarmassessment.in/ The assessment team comprised four Aurovilians: Anshul, Avinash, Madhuri, Nidhin. A summary of the main insights gleaned from the assessment with recommendations from the assessment team are given below. 1. A Network of Commons-Based Farms The sixteen farms together span 306 acres, of which 84% are actively used. About 60% of the cultivable land is irrigated through borewells, ponds, and rainwater harvesting systems, reflecting adaptation to Auroville’s dry plateau ecology. All the farms practice organic management, relying on compost, green manures, and traditional bio-ferments such as jeevamruth and panchagavya. Dairy-holding farms close the nutrient cycle internally, producing manure and fertility inputs in-house. These are not industrial operations but diverse agroecosystems that integrate fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and poultry. 2. Resilience Through Diversity Production data show clear patterns of resilience. Vegetable output declined sharply—by 34%—in 2020–21 due to COVID-19 and extreme rainfall, but recovered by 2022–23. Fruits remained steady around 42 tonnes annually, while dairy production more than doubled and egg output nearly tripled. This diversity has been key to recovery. Perennial crops and livestock buffered the shocks faced by annual vegetables, demonstrating that integration across crops and animals increases resilience.  The findings reaffirm a core agroecological principle: diversity and cooperation, not specialisation, sustain farming systems in the long run. 3. Labour: The Strength and the Strain Auroville’s farms employ about 150 people, including 49 Aurovilians, 65 regular Tamil workers, and 30–70 seasonal workers. They remain a stable source of employment in the region, yet labour conditions reveal deep strains. Daily wages in 2022–23 ranged from ₹200–565 for women and ₹365–800 for men, exposing a persistent gender gap. Wages rise 5–10% each year, often faster than farm income, and the workforce is ageing with few young Aurovilians entering the field.  Auroville’s community agriculture cannot thrive without labour justice. Equity in pay (gender and Aurovilian v/s non-Aurovilian), social benefits, and apprenticeship pathways for youth must become collective priorities if Auroville’s farms are to remain viable into the next generation. Additionally, the costs of justice must not be passed on solely to consumers or absorbed by individual farms, but held collectively within the community economy. 4. Finance and the Fragility of the Shared Economy Between 2018 and 2023, the assessed farms collectively borrowed about ₹1.05 crore—43% from Auroville’s Farm Group and 57% through personal investment by farmers themselves. Only one-third has been repaid. This reliance on private funding highlights a contradiction within Auroville’s shared economy: collective food security often depends on individual financial risk. Even farms with positive farming surpluses remain vulnerable without structured capital support or budget-linked planning. To secure the future, the community must adopt shared financial frameworks—coordinated budgeting, transparent reporting, and collective investment—to replace ad-hoc dependence on personal loans and goodwill. 5. Ecological and Operational Constraints Wildlife intrusion—from boars, deer, and porcupines to peacocks and stray cattle—is among the most cited causes of crop loss. Periodic water scarcity and monsoon flooding further disrupt operations. Limited cold storage and processing facilities lead to wastage of perishable produce, especially fruits.Larger farms with machinery and infrastructure weather these challenges more easily, while smaller vegetable farms remain exposed.  Conscious and significant  investment in capital for shared tractors, boundary fencing, and expanded rainwater harvesting could greatly improve sector-wide resilience. 6. Aligning Production and Consumption The assessment reveals a mismatch between what Auroville’s farms produce and what its residents eat. While farms grow tropical fruits, greens, and grains, many community kitchens and eateries rely on temperate vegetables and external supplies. Bridging this gap requires closer coordination between farms and consumers. Seasonal menu planning, CSA-style prepayments, and small-scale processing of surplus fruits into dried or preserved products could stabilise farm income and reduce waste. In doing so, the community also reclaims its connection to seasonal, local food. 7. Education, Youth, and Food Sovereignty The long-term sustainability of Auroville’s agriculture depends on generational renewal. The study recommends a young-farmer pathway combining practical training, housing support, and education in agroecology and cooperative management. Farming education must be seen not just as vocational training but as an integral practice of consciousness—a way to unite ecological awareness, skill, and inner growth. Re-rooting farming within Auroville’s educational ethos can ensure that agriculture remains both livelihood and spiritual discipline. Beyond food security, Auroville’s guiding principle must be food sovereignty — the community’s ability to shape its own food system in alignment with ecological limits and social justice. This means shared governance among farmers, distributors, kitchens, and consumers; transparent budgeting; and participatory planning.   Overall the assessment presents a mixed but hopeful picture: a sector that holds the resilience to recover from crisis, has diversified its base, and maintained organic integrity, yet faces structural fragilities in labour and finance, remaining limited in utilising its full potential. In doing so, Auroville’s living experiment in community farming continues to offer a quiet but vital contribution to the search for

Recipe Alert!ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu One of my all time favourite meals that is extremely easy and quick to make is plain rice with some stir fried greens with an Asian style seasoning. Home  »  Blog  »  Recipe Alert! Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu September 2025 · Anuja Khokhani One of my all time favourite meals that is extremely easy and quick to make is plain rice with some stir fried greens with an Asian style seasoning. My universe of greens that one can consume expanded quite a bit when I moved to Auroville, but more so when I travelled to Thailand last year. I was mind-blown with the variety of greens I got to eat as a vegetarian in a country that predominantly enjoys non-vegetarian cuisine.    Now, I grow Pumpkin, Pok Choy, Chinese Mustard Greens in an attempt to stir fry them, replicate the flavours and think of the good times I had on my travels. The newest addition to this list of greens are the Sweet Potato leaves that I recently got in my basket from AuroOrchard.  Here’s my version of this Asian dish with a little protein added to it – because Protein!! 😀  Ingredients: 250g Sweet Potato Leaves 100g Smoked Tofu 3-4 cloves of big Garlic pods 1 chopped Green chilli / Red chilli ½  tbsp Mushroom sauce ½  tbsp Light Soy sauce ½  tsp Dark Soy sauce ½ tbsp Sugar ½  tsp Rice Wine Vinegar 1 tsp (Toasted) Sesame Oil for the sauce ¼ cup Water 1 tbsp Toasted Sesame Oil to stir fry Method: This step is very important to remove dirt – take a large bowl and fill it with water and salt. Submerge the leaves and wash them thoroughly. Wash again with clean water and remove the leaves and put them into a colander to drain off excess water. Now, chop these leaves and stems into 2 inch length, discarding the thicker and fibrous stems. Mince the garlic pods and chilli and keep them aside. Also cut the Smoked Tofu into similar 2 inch long pieces. You could use regular tofu instead, but I like the flavour smoked tofu lends to this dish. In a bowl add the sauces, sugar, vinegar, sesame oil and water and keep it ready for stir frying. To a wok, take ½ tbsp oil and on low to medium heat, stir fry the leaves till they wilt slightly. After which, remove them from the wok and keep them aside. Now to the same wok, add the rest of the oil, saute the tofu till it browns slightly, then add the garlic and chilli into it. Saute for about a minute. Now add the stir fried leaves and mix them well with the tofu and garlic-chilli so everything gets mixed evenly. After about 1-2 minutes the leaves will wilt even further. At this point push them on one side of the wok and pour in the sauce mix and stir fry everything thoroughly for another minute and then turn off the heat. Adjust the seasoning if required and serve it with some sweet chilli sauce if you’d like. Feel free to swap the oil to any neutral oil of your choice, the vinegar could also be plain vinegar and the mushroom sauce can also be replaced with some more soy sauce. Mushroom sauce adds a bit of umami so I like to add it. Previous Article Featured Articles Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 19 Sep 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 18 Sep 2025 Recipe Alert – Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu 22 Sep 2025 Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India 18 Sep 2025

Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India

We are being called to view agriculture not as a ‘business’ or a transaction with nature, but a participatory ‘joyous sacrifice of interchange’, a way of mutual action and growth. Home  »  Blog  »  Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India September 2025 · Anshul Aggarwal​ As consciousness advances, Sri Aurobindo (1939) envisioned that the desire for food would, “progress from the type of a mutually devouring hunger to the type of a mutual giving, of an increasingly joyous sacrifice of interchange…Thus the law of Hunger must give place progressively to the law of Love, the law of Division to the law of Unity, the law of Death to the law of Immortality” (pp. 207-208). We are being called to view agriculture not as a ‘business’ or a transaction with nature, but a participatory ‘joyous sacrifice of interchange’, a way of mutual action and growth. Can agriculture be more than growing food? Can it be a path toward human unity and the evolution of consciousness? Over the last five decades, Auroville has undertaken remarkable ecological restoration work—today, much of the township is now under a forest canopy. Alongside this, a network of community farms has taken root, supplying fruits, vegetables, grains, milk, and eggs to the kitchens of Auroville. Yet, like farms everywhere, Auroville’s food system is not without challenges. Farmers face the same global pressures: commodification of food, labour shortages, climate shocks, wildlife pressures, and financial strain. At the same time, Auroville’s farms hold the potential to be something more—collective experiments in the advancement of human consciousness. But we need a new language to address the often overlooked potential of agriculture, and of Auroville farms in particular. Looking at agriculture through the lens of Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s Integral Yoga allows us to discover its multiple dimensions, which could all be integrated into what we can call- Integral Agriculture. The Dimensions of Integral Agriculture 1. The Physical (Ecological) Dimension    Farming is becoming increasingly complex due to the changing climate, the presence of wildlife on farms, and sudden attacks by insects and microbes on crops, among other factors. Being a farmer means bearing these challenges and risks while still trying to put food on the table. At the same time, agriculture itself has a massive impact on the land, and especially modern agriculture has caused large-scale biodiversity loss.    Through agroecology and ethical stewardship, farms in Auroville are attempting to restore the balance between wilderness and cultivation and turn agriculture from colonisation of land into a conscious partnership with it. Auroville farms have an interesting history of regenerating land in different ways, and the diversity of soil profiles, diets and farming techniques in this community presents an incredible opportunity to experiment with different approaches toward this goal. 2. The Vital (Social-Economic-Political) Dimension    Every farm is as much a self-contained community as it is a part of the wider socioeconomic and political network. A healthy farm cannot just be healthy ecologically but needs to address issues of financial sustainability, people’s welfare and the sovereignty of food production. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo envisioned self-sufficiency in food as essential for a gnostic community. In Auroville, this is both practical and symbolic: a way of lessening dependence on fragile global food systems and cultivating responsibility at a local level.    An assessment of Auroville’s farms (2024) showed that the shortfall in community-grown food is not only about production—it is also about distribution and consumption patterns. Interestingly, 70% of the farmers themselves come from outside Auroville, reflecting the community’s openness and the challenge of embedding farming into its core culture. Community farming in Auroville is thus a rare, living laboratory: small enough to manage, yet complex enough to mirror the dilemmas of global food systems. 3. The Mental (Scientific) Dimension of Agriculture    Technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence, is making inroads into all aspects of our lives, and agriculture is no exception. Today we have automated irrigation systems managed remotely at the touch of a phone, drones sowing seeds and spraying fertilisers and pesticides, drone bees facilitating pollination, satellite imagery being used to predict soil moisture, plant health and so on, multi-purpose tractors and combines that can manage a large monoculture farm almost independently. There are many who believe that ‘smart farming’ with technology will replace human farmers. But this will come at the cost of diversity and traditional human knowledge and experience, which has developed and sustained agriculture for at least over ten millennia. We need solutions that do not seek to replace farmers, but become their allies and partners in supporting a new future of agriculture, which is technology-driven and yet remains at a human scale. With its interest in the evolution of consciousness, Auroville is poised to become a pioneer in discovering frameworks of conscious technology, particularly in fields like agriculture. 4. The Spiritual (Community) Dimension of Agriculture    Agriculture teaches us the need for expanding our notion of community from only humanity to the non-human beings on this planet. It requires us to re-establish our lost connection with nature and locate ourselves as participants in the larger flow of energy. As Sri Aurobindo (2005) notes, “All Matter according to the Upanishads is food, and this is the formula of the material world that ‘the eater eating is himself eaten’ (p. 204). Thus, food must be considered not only as an object of sustenance of the material life but also as an object of contemplation for a spiritual life. It is a reminder of our separation, our desire to complete ourselves through each morsel. Auroville’s commitment to realising human unity, a unity not only within the human community, but unity of human with the Divine, adds a spiritual dimension to the agriculture practised here. 5. The Psychic (Educational) Dimension of Agriculture    Finally, we are in a time in the world when everything has stopped making sense. The solutions of the physical, vital, mental, and even spiritual are hard to grasp and are not

Lime Gojjuㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Did you ever wonder about the origins of that idiom? It’s a little unthinkable that any self-respecting Indian would say something like “namma uurugai-la chenthutom!” or “hum aachaar me hain” and still be thought of as sane, Home  »  Blog  »  Recipe Alert! Lime Gojju September 2025 · Deepa Reddy Did you ever wonder about the origins of that idiom? It’s a little unthinkable that any self-respecting Indian would say something like “namma uurugai-la chenthutom!” or “hum aachaar me hain” and still be thought of as sane, right? An old Bon Appetit magazine article cites the venerable OED tracing origins to a strange poem from John Heywood’s 1562 Proverbs and Epigrams, which just needs to be quoted at length: Time is tickell [uncertain] Chaunce is Fickell [fickle] Man is Brickell [brittle] Freilties pickell [frailties preserve] Poudreth Mickell [≈ ‘crap piles up’] Seasonyng lickell [joy decreases]. “Frailties preserving” is interesting, possibly relates to the idea of perishables lasting longer in pickles, but being that being in a pickle is not a good thing like that. It’s the Dutch “in de pekel zitten” that produces the modern meaning of being stuck in brine that’s now pickling you! Thousands of saplings Lettuce bed To pickle the limes before you wind up in a pickle with too many limes, here’s a simple gojju recipe. Gojjus are the Kannada equivalents of thokkus: cooked pickles with a paste-like or finely-minced texture, spiced variously and sometimes thickened with masala powders. So: Lightly toast and powder: 2 teaspoons each chana & urad dal, dry coconut; 1 teaspoon each jeera & dhania; a small handful of dry red chillies  Do a quick tempering with mustard, red chilli and curry leaves Fry a few minced onions until translucent, then add the powdered mixture.  Follow with 2 cups of lime juice, a cup of jaggery (or to taste), and salt.  Allow this to thicken slightly on the flame and then switch off, cool, bottle.  This gojju is fantastic with hot rice and ghee or on sandwiches for that spicy-citrus kick! Make it while it’s still raining limes! Previous ArticleNext Article Featured Articles Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 19 Sep 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 18 Sep 2025 Recipe Alert – Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu 22 Sep 2025 Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India 18 Sep 2025

Photo Storyㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

A collection of pictures of small and big fauna of the farm.ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ  Home  »  Blog  »  Photo Story Photo Story August 2025 July 2025 · Karthick Mariappan Flora & Fauna of the farm https://auroorchard.auroville.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/PXL_20220707_044605599.TS_.mp4 Previous ArticleNext Article Featured Articles Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 19 Sep 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 18 Sep 2025 Recipe Alert – Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu 22 Sep 2025 Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India 18 Sep 2025

Recipe Alert!ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

We get asked this question quite a lot! As Permaculture becomes more and more popular and perhaps projected as a wonderful solution for diversity and abundance, it is a general perception that “being a Permaculture farm” is the next big innovation in farming.  Home  »  Blog  » Is AuroOrchard a Permaculture farm? Odia Poi Ghanta (Vegan) August 2025 · Deepa Reddy This is one of those classic mustard paste dishes so beloved in the Anga-Vanga-Kalinga region that is modern-day Bihar, Bengal, Odisha; its constitution changes across borders and becomes a virtual vocabulary of love in its various regional inflections.  I’ve made it here following a recipe from Ritu (find the video on her page). Malabar spinach leaves and stems are the dish’s eponymous heroes, but I’ve also used Siru Kizhangu/Potato Yam/Dioscorea Esculenta and tender eggplants. The rest are “desi vegetables”: ridge gourd, red pumpkin, potato is beloved, raw banana wouldn’t be out of place. Roots, shoots, leaves and all besides. Badis (lentil dumplings) are customary in the absence of shrimp – but I didn’t have any, so went without and without complaint.  How? Make a paste of 1T each black+yellow mustard seeds, 1T cumin, garlic; leave to bloom. Prep the vegetables, fry the spinach stems and eggplant separately, boil the root vegetables until half-done. Tempering is panch phoron (mustard oil of course), followed by chopped tomatoes. Then the mustard paste, a little water, jaggery, the half-cooked roots in relatively quick succession or mustard turns bitter, the gourds held in reserve. Once those are tender, add in the fried stems and eggplant+the spinach leaves. Mix, simmer, eat with rice! My thanks to Ritu Apa for inspiration+guidance and Lopa & Sheetal for connective details that brought it all together in my head and on my plate. Previous ArticleNext Article Featured Articles Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 19 Sep 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 18 Sep 2025 Recipe Alert – Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu 22 Sep 2025 Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India 18 Sep 2025

Is AuroOrchard a Permaculture farm?

We get asked this question quite a lot! As Permaculture becomes more and more popular and perhaps projected as a wonderful solution for diversity and abundance, it is a general perception that “being a Permaculture farm” is the next big innovation in farming.  Home  »  Blog  »  Is AuroOrchard a Permaculture farm? Is AuroOrchard a Permaculture farm? August 2025 · Anshul Aggarwal​ We get asked this question quite a lot! As Permaculture becomes more and more popular and perhaps projected as a wonderful solution for diversity and abundance, it is a general perception that “being a Permaculture farm” is the next big innovation in farming.  My first answer is ‘NO!’, and my second, in classic permaculture style, is ‘it depends.’ We employ Permaculture design principles where needed and possible, but that does not define the farm. I have had the privilege of studying and working with some exceptional Permaculture teachers and practitioners from India and across the world. I took the Permaculture Design Certificate course in 2014 and the Permaculture Teacher Training Course in 2016. So this explanation comes from an informed place, a place of deep gratitude for Permaculture but also a place of recognition of its limitations. How did it all start? Permaculture was conceptualised by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s in Australia, in response to the crises of industrialised agriculture that intensified with the Green Revolution of the 1960s. They drew on the Aboriginal worldview,  a philosophy of life that has sustained people for millennia without degrading the land,  and on systems thinking, a then-emerging approach that studies the whole rather than just the parts. Combining these perspectives, they proposed a regenerative landscape design through which humans could practise sustainable, permanent agriculture, giving it the name “Permaculture.” Permaculture is a ‘design system’ Essentially, Permaculture is a design system. Design has long been a vital tool for human beings, enabling us to imagine and create. We are all designers in some way, using it moment to moment — thinking, planning, visualising, and adjusting with feedback. Over time, design as a discipline became more elaborate, shaping professions that relied on visualisation, spatial planning, architecture, product development, technology, and the power of imagination. Yet in the last couple of centuries, the means and tools of design have evolved so rapidly that the almost godly power it confers can sometimes turn the designer against the designed, and even against life itself. Ethics What makes Permaculture unique is that its design process is founded on three key ethics: Care for Earth        Care for People        Fair Share By placing these at the core, Permaculture calls on the designer to weigh every decision by its impact on the land, its people, and all forms of life. Echoes of these ethics run through ancient traditions and modern ecological thought, and Permaculture weaves them into a coherent, practical framework for action. Design principles and strategies Click to enlarge The principles of Permaculture are the guidelines for turning its three ethics into practice. They can be applied to systems of any scale, in ecology, communities, or even in one’s personal life. While many practitioners adapt or reinterpret the principles to suit their context, they all rest on natural patterns of circularity, interconnectedness, diversity, flexibility, and cooperation. From these principles emerge strategies such as earthworks, water and soil conservation, and community-based work. Bill Mollison outlined many of these in Permaculture One and Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual in the 1980s, and since then they have been applied and expanded upon by practitioners around the world. Permaculture in India Permaculture is a rapidly growing movement in India, attracting people dissatisfied with the status quo and seeking to reconnect with nature, learn integrated design, or grow their own food. Permaculture offers a strong foundation for working on the land, cultivating a sense of design, and developing an integrated approach to planning — skills especially valuable for those moving from cities to smaller towns and villages in search of a simpler, more meaningful life. Across the country, the number of groups and professionals offering design consultations and courses keeps growing and the community continues to share their challenges, successes, and conclusions here. However, many courses are urban-centric, catering to newcomers without deep farming experience; imported temperate-climate techniques sometimes need significant adaptation for tropical conditions; and short-term enthusiasm can fade if not grounded in daily practice and community support. The challenge of a mass movement Today, Permaculture extends far beyond agriculture. Within a few decades of its inception, the founders recognised that a permanent agriculture solution alone was not enough; creating such systems also required rethinking how people live and work together. This gave rise to social permaculture — an expansion from permanent agriculture to permanent culture. Over the years, it has captured the imagination of many, especially urban dwellers seeking a new language to imagine different possibilities. Yet such growth also brings dilution: Permaculture has come to mean many things,  from crop diversity and organic farming to food forests and local food, and sometimes, as a result, it risks meaning nothing at all. It is certainly all of these, but not only these, and it resists absolutes, always seeking to understand the context and build from there. In my observation this enthusiasm for Permaculture can also sometimes overshadow the purpose of the work and a deeper, long-term relationship with land and community. The absence of spirit There is a concept in Permaculture called invisible structures, the subtle relationships that hold physical reality together. On a farm, for example, visible structures include the soil, water, plants, and infrastructure; the invisible ones are the relationships among the people working the land, their ties to the wider community, and the economic exchanges that sustain them. While the visible is rooted in the physical landscape, the invisible is grounded in the landscape of the mind. Permaculture recognises the need to design and cultivate this inner landscape as much as the outer, yet it avoids explicit conversation

Our experiments with food processing

At AuroOrchard, the rhythm of the seasons is not just something we observe—it’s something we taste, preserve, and share. And nature loves being abundantly oversharing. As the farm chef and someone deeply involved in food processing, I have the privilege of working at the convergence of fresh harvest and long-term preservation. My role is about transforming nature’s abundance into flavors that last, while compromising as little as possible on sustainability and nutrition. With mango season in full bloom, every morning I’m met with crates and crates of ripe produce. But as anyone who’s worked with fresh food knows, nature doesn’t wait. Nature loves being abundantly oversharing. That’s where food preservation comes in—drying, fermenting, pickling, and freezing are just a few of the methods we use to stretch the season’s generosity across time. Home  »  Blog  »  Our experiments with food processing Our experiments with food processing August 2025 · Reuben At AuroOrchard, the rhythm of the seasons is not just something we observe—it’s something we taste, preserve, and share. And nature loves being abundantly oversharing. As the farm chef and someone deeply involved in food processing, I have the privilege of working at the convergence of fresh harvest and long-term preservation. My role is about transforming nature’s abundance into flavors that last, while compromising as little as possible on sustainability and nutrition. With mango season in full bloom, every morning I’m met with crates and crates of ripe produce. But as anyone who’s worked with fresh food knows, nature doesn’t wait. Nature loves being abundantly oversharing. That’s where food preservation comes in—drying, fermenting, pickling, and freezing are just a few of the methods we use to stretch the season’s generosity across time. Each batch of preserved food is a quiet thank-you—to the land, the farmers, and the unseen hands in the cycle. We do our best to make sure nothing is lost and everything is shared. Whether it’s a jar of lacto-fermented beans, a bundle of dried flowers for tea, or salted pickles that brighten a cold, rainy day, these offerings carry a memory of the sun. Cooking with produce we’ve grown and preserved on-site allows for a deeper, slower relationship with the land. As the seasons turn, I’ll continue sharing small windows into the kitchen and the work behind it. There’s always more to learn—and like nature, I hope to keep being abundantly oversharing. Previous ArticleNext Article Featured Articles Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 19 Sep 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 18 Sep 2025 Recipe Alert – Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu 22 Sep 2025 Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India 18 Sep 2025

Updates from the Nurseryㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

We have been starting a lot of fruit trees from seeds gathered during this season. We are also actively propagating more biomass plants for the farm as well as for other gardeners. Home  »  Blog  »  Updates from the Nursery Updates from the Nursery July 2025​ We have been starting a lot of fruit trees from seeds gathered during this season. We are also actively propagating more biomass plants for the farm as well as for other gardeners. You can see a list of available saplings here: Saplings order June 2025 Our nursery continues to grow. We have distributed hundreds of different kinds of plants over the last couple of months to individuals and units. We now have a dedicated team working solely on propagation of flowering and edible plants. February 2025 The first two months of 2025 have been incredibly productive at our nursery. With the purpose of maximising on the cold and dewy weather, we had been focusing on a variety of greens and herbs, sowing them in big numbers, here’s what the numbers look so far – Lettuce: 4,000 seeds Pok Choy: 6,000 seeds Rugula: 2,500 seeds Basil: 2,000 seeds Thousands of saplings Lettuce bed Each of these seeds have been carefully sown, ensuring better germination and strong and healthy saplings that will thrive in the weeks ahead. In addition to planting these and the usual vegetables and greens, we’ve also begun sowing seeds for sapling that you have ordered! If you’re interested in placing an order, you can do so here.  Special Mention One of the most exciting developments in these two months has been the sowing of cacao seeds, sourced from a trusted farm near Mangalore. This marks a new step in our journey, and we’re looking forward to seeing the first of the seedlings germinate and flourish! Cacao pods First of the cacao germination! With plenty more to come, we’re excited for what the rest of the season holds. Stay tuned for more updates as our nursery continues to grow! January 2025 As January rolls in, our nursery is busier than ever. The recent cyclone set us back briefly, but with teamwork and determination, we quickly got things back on track to make the most of this productive season. The damage to the nursery after cyclone Fengal (left) and the partial reconstruction (right) to help us continue in this crucial planting season. Each winter, we focus on cultivating a variety of salad greens such as Arugula, Lettuce, and Celery, along with our staple vegetables. This year, we are pleased to introduce a new addition to our crops – Palak Keerai, also known as Spinach; a much-loved favourite! We’re also experimenting with a few different types of greens and hope to expand our offerings soon. Stay tuned! Previous ArticleNext Article Featured Articles Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 19 Sep 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 18 Sep 2025 Recipe Alert – Stir Fried Sweet Potato leaves with Tofu 22 Sep 2025 Food and Agriculture in Auroville, India 18 Sep 2025

Experiments with Syntropic Agriculture

In the last few years, we have observed that the consumption of Auroville vegetables is going down within Auroville. The five most consumed vegetables in Auroville- Potato, Tomato, Onion, Cauliflower and Carrot don’t grow here locally. The demand for locally grown vegetables is low in our international city and even then, we are competing with produce available in Pondicherry and around at very low prices. Considering all this, we have consciously decided to grow more fruits as there is a lot that we can grow and that is still is being bought from outside- Papaya, Banana, Pineapple, Chikoo, Guava, Citrus, Coconut, Jackfruit, Custard apple, Ramphal, Avocado, and so forth. Home  »  Blog  »  Experiments with Syntropic Agriculture Experiments with Syntropic Agriculture July 2025 · Anshul Aggarwal In the last few years, we have observed that the consumption of Auroville vegetables is going down within Auroville. The five most consumed vegetables in Auroville- Potato, Tomato, Onion, Cauliflower and Carrot don’t grow here locally. The demand for locally grown vegetables is low in our international city and even then, we are competing with produce available in Pondicherry and around at very low prices. Considering all this, we have consciously decided to grow more fruits as there is a lot that we can grow and that is still is being bought from outside- Papaya, Banana, Pineapple, Chikoo, Guava, Citrus, Coconut, Jackfruit, Custard apple, Ramphal, Avocado, and so forth. We are now either densifying the existing orchards or reorganizing some orchards towards more efficient and productive plantations. Main design objectives: Increase fruit production in the next 2-5 years. Employ syntropic methods to increase density and use biomass to feed the soil. Try new plants like Coffee and Cacao- create microclimate to support these species. Using compost tea is a permaculture practice that respects the life in the soil, understands how important it is, helps it grow without harming it while still allowing farming to continue. The main intention is important : to make all systems more efficient, in other words an healthy system which works on its own and not with the aim of exploiting the soil. Compost tea can be poured to the roots of the plant to enrich microbial life of the soil as we just explained or it can be applied as a foliar spray by sprinkling it on the leaves to strengthen and protect them. More precisely, compost tea protects the pores on the leaves (called stomata). Because they are open areas, bacteria can deposit there. In general, good bacteria in the compost tea can live on the stomata protecting them from bad bacteria. Entropy, Negantropy and Syntropy The idea of entropy originated in the late 19th century in thermodynamic studies. Entropy is the measure of disorderness of a system, a measure of its chaos (Clausius, 1865). The conventional understanding suggests whenever a system goes through any transformation, the entropy of the system increases, giving us the famous axiom that the universe is increasingly moving towards chaos. While this may be true for theoretical models and isolated systems, we, in fact, observe a completely opposite phenomenon in living systems that are transforming all the time. Later scientists observed that what we see as chaos in living systems over time, is in fact, higher forms of natural order, spontaneous configurations that make the system more and more stable. A seed releases its energy to germinate, to grow as a plant, as a tree towards higher complexities of life and order. Human beings learn over time to develop a more and more complex consciousness.  This leads us to the idea of a decreasing entropy of systems, a negative entropy, or negentropy (Schrödinger, 1944). While negentropy gives us a new perspective of what is happening in nature, it still doesn’t tell us why it is happening-why is disorder moving to more order. Syntropy fills this gap. It adds a teleological aspect to the transformation of systems. Syntropy suggests that we become what we become not only because of what we were, but also because of what we could be. A tree unfolds from a seed not only because of the nature of the seed, but the potential of becoming a tree that is inherent in it. This understanding highlights a goal, a pull from the future towards higher orders, as much as a push from the past foundations. We can also relate this idea to Yoga, a movement towards a complete union, a path of progress, development and unfolding of a harmony in greater complexities. What is Syntropic Farming? The concept of Syntropic farming method was developed by Swiss farmer and researcher Ernst Götsch, who settled in Brazil in the 1980s. Originally trained as a geneticist and plant breeder, Götsch became disillusioned with conventional agriculture and began experimenting with natural regeneration processes in tropical ecosystems. His approach, outlined in his influential paper “Breakthrough in Agriculture”, proposes that human cultivation can regenerate rather than deplete ecosystems. At its core, syntropic farming is based on ecological succession and stratification, mimicking the structure and dynamics of natural forests. Instead of combating nature, it works in harmony with it by planting a consortium of species—pioneer, secondary, and climax—across different light strata and life cycles. This method emphasizes high biodiversity, minimal external inputs, and a continuous process of pruning and biomass management to accelerate soil fertility and system evolution. How is it different from Permaculture’s Food Forest? It is important to make this distinction as a syntropic forest is significantly different from a food forest. Firstly, the goal of a syntropic forest is ecological restoration and not necessarily to provide food. It works on the principle of ecological succession and stratas which translates to light requirements and life cycles. In a food forest, however, the goal is to fit as many edible species into one consortium based on vertical spacing/layering as possible. There is emphasis on ‘support species’ in Syntropic farming to support soil fertility and main crop. In a food forest, edible crops are privileged over