FINAL MOMENT IN INDIA- a record from earlier this year, February 2014 by Jayadi Paembonan. At the end of this journey to India (sponsored by Susila Dharma America and Susila Dharma Australia), after many interesting stories, long road trips, seeing different landscapes and climates in the South to West, in the last week i visited my brother Samy for one week in Tamil Nadu - Chennai. His project is in the east of India and it took me a 16 hour journey to get there. Since 1999 he has run the Centre for Cultural Development (CCD), a project to help local people return back to the local indigenous knowledge about sustainable agricultural practices and knowledge. Unsustainable agricultural practices have been introduced by European settlement and the green revolution, and since that time the local people only became interested in how to grow white rice for profit rather than interested in preserving and sustaining the diversity of crops and food. Also so much more is spent on using heavy chemicals in food production since the green revolution. Gradually that indigenous agricultural knowledge started to be lost within the community. This is also an example of how the impact of unsustainable agriculture practiced at the moment affects the lowering of the water table. For instance usually the monsoon would fill the water well (see picture to the right) right up to the top but since 5 years ago it only rises up 1 meter then it goes down. The community also expressed many other issues. Now agriculture in many parts of India are facing big problems such as no water, no time, no money and many health problems.....Many farm lands are being sold to make way for real estate, farmers are giving up their farms and way of life because people found it hard to get income from agriculture anymore. So with all these challenging conditions, CCD has to work hard for the local community in order to facilitate positive change as well as developing capacity these communities. So during my time at CCD we sat together and had long conversations about how can CCD can work strategically to preserve their energy for long term. I also helped CCD relocate to a new site, a place where they can demonstrate sustainable agriculture to the community. We began to implement some permaculture techniques and strategies at the new site including site analysis, composting, mulching, boosting up the soil with hugelkultur, irrigation pipes for watering system. They were keen learn and to continue but I only had limited time there so hopefully this project will continue into the next chapter.... |
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