With an offering of rare seeds aplenty and diffusion of sustainable agricultural knowledge, the recent Auroville Seed Festival took forward the effort to both improve the lot of the farmers and quality in the food bowl at the consumer end.
The third edition of the festival held at the grounds of the Auroville Village Action Group (AVAG) in Irumbai featured 43 stalls with more than 800 seeds on display and sale.
Record visit
“More than 2000 people have visited the stalls this year”, said event coordinator, Sathyaraj.
“This was more than the 1500 attendees last year, considering that the first edition of the festival began three years ago attracting just about 400 participants. This time the increase in participation , particularly of the local farmers, has been really encouraging and satisfying for us”, he added.
Joint venture
The annual event held by the Sustainable Livelihood Institute (SLI), is a joint venture between the Rural Development Department of Government of Tamil Nadu and Auroville Foundation, which has been providing training and follow-up onsite support services on sustainable agriculture and other livelihood activities in rural parts across Tamil Nadu for over four years.
“Traditional seeds need to be conserved for three important reasons today, because of their capacity to be climate resilient, which is increasingly becoming a critical factor for us in Tamil Nadu facing the climate change phenomena,” said Ramasubramanian, former Director of SLI.
Traditional foods provide the kind of nutrition required to withstand the various new forms of ailments induced by current lifestyles.
“The control of seeds has shifted to a few multi-national companies which has rendered the cost of seeds to increase exponentially, unless farmers regain control over the seeds and all inputs, their economic situation cannot be improved.
For these three reasons, such seed festivals become critical platforms for us”, he said.
“This is the first time that the seed festival is being hosted at AVAG, I hope it will become a permanent fixture henceforth”, suggested Alain Bernard, senior Aurovillian and Trustee of AVAG.
Farmers awarded
“Such seeds festivals are occasions for the farmers to look at climate change resilient seeds and exchange seeds among themselves”, said Ulavar Anand, one of the young organic farmers honoured during the festival. More than 15 of the young farmers from across the state were honoured during the festival.
All of them shared their experiences and insights, the ensuing discussion was one of the highlights of the festival this year.
“Meeting these young farmers and listening to their insights has provided us with lots of hope”, said a senior organic farmer and popular columnist, Arichalur Selvam.
“We are only exposed to conventional farming and only when we visit such festivals we get to realise the relevance and importance of organic farming”, said a student from agriculture college in Karaikal.
He was among the several college students , apart from school children, who had turned up for the seed festival. The student activity corner in the festival had pottery, making seed balls, trying out spinning and do-it-yourself science experiment sections as part of it.
Good sales
Many of the stalls selling produced or traditional seeds reported good sales at the end of the day. In fact, two pavilions had to shut shop after the stock was sold out in a couple of hours, organisers said.
“The sales has been quite good in the stalls and it is good to see several first timers come visit the festival”, said Ananthasayanan, founder of Tula brand of organic clothing.
According to the organisers, the back-to-the-roots festival proved to be a zero waste event by totally avoiding plastic or non decomposable material across the four venues.
If the banners were cloth and hand painted, all signages were hand made and the festoons prepared from traditional, refreshments were served in steel tumblers and not disposable cups.
