Boobalhan involving students of a blind school in making of vegetable garden. Photo: Special Arrangement
Panai – Organic farming and native seeds
“In the last two years, I haven’t visited the market even once for buying vegetables. All that’s sold there is grown with harmful chemical fertilizers. I grow my own vegetables, rice and pulses and they are safely grown with just water, soil and sunshine,” says 27-year-old M.R. Boobalhan, who quit a lucrative job in Chennai to take up organic farming. Coming back to hometown Madurai, he hit a dead end but that didn’t deter him from going ahead with the mission. “My idea was to develop a self-sustainable independent farm and it was no easy task. The land had to be rejuvenated and renewed from the chemical abuse it had undergone, the farmers had to be convinced about not using fertilizers and the native seeds had to be searched for,” he says. “To start with, I cultivated millets and pulses at a small farm in Aviyur. I took the land on lease and sowed the seeds in the ‘manavari’ technique and the entire farming was rain dependent. It was a normal monsoon year and the yield was decent.”
Boobalhan tending to a calf at his integrated farm in Therkutheru, Madurai. Photo: Special Arrangement
Boobalhan at his millet farm in Aviyur. Photo: Special Arrangement
After toiling for nearly two and a half years, Boobalhan has tasted success as he now grows paddy, pulses, a variety of vegetables and fruits at a six-acre farm in Therkutheru. “It’s a joint effort by a small group of friends. We sow only native paddy variety and method is integrated farming where there are different kinds of crops in the farm. I have also introduced native breed of cattle for natural manure and ploughing. We have reached a point where all our food requirements is met by the yield we get.”
M.R. Boobalhan. Photo: Special Arrangement
His quest for developing sustainable organic farming and food habits into a lifestyle has led him to start Panai, an initiative that aims to promote organic farming as a way of life. “I am inspired by the ‘rural economy of permanence’ proposed by Gandhian J.C. Kumarappa and Panai is a reflection of that,” he says. “Under the banner of Panai we helped a blind school in Vadipatti to develop a vegetable garden in the premises, from which their need for vegetables will be met. After that we documented agriculture methods practised by the Soligar tribes of Andhiyur. Their model of agriculture is quite basic, sustainable and eco-friendly using locally available resources, which we follow in our farm.”
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Adhinilam – Vernacular architecture and eco san toilets
Vishnupriya Seenivasagam is a young architect from Madurai and in the past three years she hasn’t constructed a single building using cement and concrete. “I have stopped practising conventional architecture and taken up earth architecture. I am researching on local methods of construction that differ from region to region. My idea is to arrive at a commercially viable and an environment friendly construction technique.” After five years into the field, Vishnupriya had a turning point when she worked on the construction of Cuckoo Forest School in Tiruvannamalai. “The project was based on vernacular concepts of construction and we used only mud, stones and other locally available eco-friendly materials for building the place. “I realised how much waste is generated due to concrete constructions and how harmful it is to the environment. Once I saw building debris being dumped along the banks of the Vaigai River in Madurai and that’s when I turned to earth architecture. I didn’t want to contribute to the pollution,” she says.
Vishnupriya at the eco san toilet at Musiri. Photo: Special Arrangement
The eco san toilet block in Musiri. Photo: Special Arrangement
Under the banner of Adhinilam, Vishnupriya is currently making a documentary film titled Meel. “I started Adhinilam as an initiative to research on the lost methods of earth architecture and bring it back to practise. That’s when I branched into eco friendly toilets and waste disposal from households. Meel is a film on the concept of recycling domestic waste and eco san toilets.” The research includes studying the different kinds of waste discharged from a household and suggesting practical solutions that can be incorporated in the building style. The documentary puts together the various projects going on in the country in eco-friendly architecture and the highlight of it is the eco san toilet which is a concept that saves water and doesn’t contaminate ground water. “I happened to meet eco scientist Paul Calvert and was inspired by his model of eco san toilet. Later, I visited Musiri near Trichi where the town Panchayat has constructed a community toilet complex for a street of 250 families. I am currently trying to combine earth architecture and eco san toilets where I intend to construct the compost chamber of the toilet with just mud and bricks.”
Vishnupriya. Photo: Special Arrangement
Eco san toilet cuts down greatly on the usage of water and features anaerobic bio degradation of human waste into farm manure. “Through the documentary I want to create awareness among architects and people involved in the construction industry, so that the public gets to know of the cost-effective and sustainable toilets.”
