M.S. Shanmugasundaram grows curry leaves, vegetables, jasmine and, if there is water, bananas on his eight-acre farm near Coimbatore.Normally, there is rainfall for three months a year in his area making him dependent on open wells, borewells and the rainfall for water. However, Mr. Shanmugasundaram has also faced days when all the water sources on his land had gone almost dry when the northeast monsoon failed. Hope came for Mr. Shanmugasundaram in the form of Firmenich, a Geneva-based perfumery, along with its joint venture partner Jasmine Concrete. They provided funds for setting up Bhungroo, a water-harvesting system, on his land in August last year.Firmenich sources flowers, gum and essential oils from a number of farmers in the country through
Tag: farming
This former techie’s organic strawberry farm is blazing a trail in the Nilgiris
Five-acre farm is nestled inside a patch of Shola forest with natural streams and artificial ponds running through it Babu Rajasekaran wields a machete as he meets us around 30 km from Udhagamandalam, down the slopes adjoining Mukurthi National Park. He is there , to escort us to his organic strawberry farm.We look a bit dubiously at his weapon. “It just makes me braver about facing any wildlife I might encounter on the way,” says Rajasekaran. The five-acre Heartberry Farm is nestled inside a patch of Shola forest, with natural streams and artificial ponds running through it. “There are tigers here, spotted almost every day by the workers on the farm. Sloth bears and leopards are even more common,