New Ideas in Agricultural Productivity Research and Innovations

In Shri Mouni Vidyapeeth, each member of the staff was provided one part of the twin quarters with a small space to each. The space was well protected and with daily limited water supply by tap. My latent desire to experiment with plant kingdom flourished spontaneously in that setting. The small space around my quarter soon became an experimental ground for my studies in agriculture, horticulture, poultry, sericulture, goat and rabbit rearing, soil fertility building, new techniques of waste land development and so forth. I decided to treat myself as a farmer below poverty line and living at the level of disinvestments (i. e. under constant debt) having no other resource than his own free labor.

I soon began to realize that the so-called packages of practices, professed by agriculture extension agencies were out of place in such dire conditions. The whole process needed a new approach towards the application of scientific principles and techniques. It had to become entirely a within process of assured day-by-day resource enrichment and enhancement.

I applied myself to work out these constraints, and my insights and innovation in these constraints began yielding results. In a very small area of barely one thousand sq. feet I was able to raise variety of fruit plants, grapes, lemon, pineapple, guava, pomegranate, papaya, drum sticks, custard apple, mango and so forth. Along with these, I used to grow a variety of vegetables with assured yield. The whole place which used to be a barren, wasteland became a rain forest of fruit plants all healthy, all productive and all taking their nourishment from the symbiotic built in aggregate from the garden waste and of goats and poultry, sericulture and rabbits, that too lived happily with my young children as their loved pets.

As I had decided to work under the constraints of last rural person, I had to search for new techniques outside the techniques taught in the universities and in regular village extension workers courses. Soon I found that a even on barren, stony soil you can take good crop in heaps of soil and it is not necessary to cultivate and turn the soil as is usually thought.

I took very good record crop of sweet potatoes only in the half decomposed leaf mold heaps. Similarly I succeeded in raising prize pineapple fruit in such heaps of leaf mold. I still remember how Dr. J. P. Naik had phoned me to come to Delhi with some of my plants by air to speak before a large gathering of more than 200 youths from different states in the northern zone of India. I had then carried one such pineapple plant with its light leaf mold soil in a plastic bag. It was then just at the full flowering stage. My exposition on science behind that success had triggered spontaneous desire in many of them. One from Rajasthan asked how he could grow it in hot climate, and I handed over that plant to him to see how he could succeed in the micro-climate of the bathroom.

I had found that my papaya fruits, when half ripe provided all the necessary nutrients to egg laying poultry birds and no market purchase of costly mash of poultry was required. Most of my chickens were raised in chick mash that I got by rearing plump larvas of houseflies, by breeding them in poultry droppings or in some oil cake powder mixed with crushed green leaves. I had also dug and maintained special white ant pits & kept inviting them on waste papers and dry garden waste. Poultry and chicks had a special weekly dish of this rich food.

I found that the slurry of animal dung and urine, or fish waste works miracles in plant growth. I used to get tasty, deep red, watermelons on this slurry fertilizer, by methods similar to my young age basket pot experiments.

I had taken regular lemons throughout the year on a very small size (only ten sq. ft canopy size) lemon plant in the heap of special soil made from composted kitchen and garden waste with the slurry. I used to get about 250 lemons on this Lemon plant. I tried custard apple, fig fruit plants and later grapes as mobile tabletop plants.

My success in that small but very productive self-sustained rainforest type multi-tier garden became a sensation to everyone in the locality (educated, uneducated, literate, illiterate) and to every one who came for short long term training courses in our institute. The fame of my garden spread from mouth to mouth. Daily on an average about thirty people used to visit my work. In my spare time, we sat together to discuss and understand my approach and gave their written impressions with their addresses and with a desire to collaborate. I still have this file with me.