Natural Farming

CODE: RC-MTV-AGR-08/25

Work:

With an aim to promote natural farming and double farm income initiatives we aim to educate and train farmers in nearby communities by acting as a resource and demonstration centre for sharing good practices among farmers.
The volunteers are required to assist us in following areas:
• daily maintenance of farm and make natural/organic sprays, pesticide and produce chemical free products.
• Actively assist our team to realise our dream to be self sufficient by producing majority of fruits, vegetable that we consume.
• Introduce or reinforce good farming practices and grow off season and low water consuming vegetable.
• Assist in installing a low cost hydroponics system at campus.

Accomodation and food

Accommodation: Basic, simple, safe & clean accommodation will be provided either at host family or RUCHI campus on sharing basis (Twin or triple) with common toilets and bath.

Food: Food offered will be simple authentic Indian vegetarian and freshly cooked. Three meals a day will be served. Assistance while cooking is desired and self cooking can be organized by volunteers.

Location and leisure

The project site is Ruchi campus and the nearby Bandh village (1 km) in Solan district. It is 30 km from Kalka and 70 km from Chandigarh. The village is small with 35 families. Self organized city tours and excursions. Old Sikh and Hindu temples in the near vicinity can be visited. Nearby Kasauli town is another hill station as a tourist attraction. A visit to Shimla will offer an opportunity to see high Himalayan Mountains, tall God Monkey (Hanuman) and other scenic places.

Project hosted by

RUCHI is an NGO committed to community development since 1983 in the foothills of Great Himalayas.

Directions to meeting point

Kalka station

Additional comments

Himachal Pradesh is a mountainous area where people are highly dependent on agriculture to complement their living in addition to their daily work. However, due to shortage of water and small terraces on sloppy land the agriculture is unsustainable and farm output is not sufficient keeping in mind economic value it gets. Also due to steep terrain and small terraces automated machines have limited usage here. As a result we fear food security in the future as many people are or about to leave agriculture. RUCHI campus is spread over an area of 3 hectares and has good fertile soil. We at present are using our campus for exploring options of pesticide free scientific farming using natural materials. We have successfully demonstrated, Wormicompost, NADEP compost, Kitchen Gardening, Agroforestry, floriculture, organic farming, orchard development here. At present we are gearing to install hydroponics system at our campus for demonstration, training and self sufficiency. In due course we would like to serve as demonstration centre for farmers.