Watering Hole – Sunith Reddy

“Alone we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”

Helen Keller’s words ring so true in my mind when I think about 2022. Coming straight out of the pandemic, we took our time to adjust to the new normal and evaluate the impact of our collectives since 2019. Looking into our data, a couple of things stand out clearly.

Money saved is money earned.

The permaculture principles are not just earth-friendly but also pocket friendly. In June this year, we started an exercise in Poomaale to understand the social connections we established in the area and assess the problems of the community we were able to solve. To our surprise, we found that in its heydays, Poomaale employed almost 100 people full-time in the coffee and cardamom activities. Today, we run the same estate with 16 regular workers by shifting focus from the produce and aligning ourselves with the natural flow of energy. Bottomline – our costs are low, our produce is good, and the estate faces lesser pressures.

Never underestimate the rookie.

The cherry on the cake was the cupping of our coffee. Since we cared deeply about the quality of coffee, we got our wildly grown coffee tested by experts. It turns out the rookie hit a home run. Our single estate, natural, 100% Robusta coffee had an excellent cupping score – even better than some of the speciality ranges. Upon further analyses, we found that the flavours are unlocked by the bacteria on the skin and yeast in the pulp. This showed us how biodiversity is closely linked with flavour notes. It held true for the custard apples and the veggie boxes for the Hyderabad Collective too. We are convinced that the more natural you go, the more abundant the flavour profile is.

Inspiration is everything.

We had a hunch about this but we saw this unfold beautifully this time. As a company, we have been upfront about what we don’t know which helped us ask the right questions to the right people. Like any team, we experienced varying levels of motivation. As we work on the collectives, it is becoming increasingly clear that a sense of purpose is the seed that eventually results in a productive work environment. A great example is our interaction with the neighbours in Coorg. Outsiders who entered the village to set base, we were demotivated by the suspicious feeling the community held towards us. We viewed the scenario from the other side and couldn’t fathom the reason for suspicion when all we wanted to do was good.

Our first meaningful conversations happened this June. We invited the community over to the estate and walked them through what we are up to. To our surprise, the neighbours acknowledged that we cared a lot more about the ecological impact than they did. I remember the astonishment on their faces when we showcased that our cultivation methods have used 20M lt of water lesser than the estate had in the previous 3 years. That’s the drinking water usage of 95 families for a year. More importantly, we saw a stark difference in their attitude towards us. Their suspicion has turned into curiosity.

This clearly is reflected in our workplace. Faster turnarounds and fewer costs. What changed? I think we saw a sense of purpose as a village. Collectively, we all acknowledged the aspects of our life that the existence of the Poomaale collective was addressing. And our interests shifted from let’s do what’s best for the individual to let’s make it happen for the group. A classic case of inspiration translating to social capital that, in turn, results in financial capital.

And the natural capital this results in is beyond words. It has to be experienced.

In May 2020, a lady reached out to us asking if it is possible to grow grapes in the permaculture way. I resisted the urge to break into a gyan session about how everything can be grown. Instead, I asked her what her intention was. She told me she wanted to live in a vineyard with a few of her friends who were all wine enthusiasts. They wanted to make their own wine and dreamed of idyllic countryside living. Enter Beforest and that was how the seed of The Mumbai Collective was sown.

The idea of a ‘vine forest’, a term we had invented then, did not have the wind behind it, but the seed took on a different form with folks reaching out about creating a food forest. This was the first time we received calls from people who were excited to know if Beforest was coming to Mumbai, which was a pleasant surprise for us. ‘Vine-forest’ transformed into a more overarching ‘food forest’ and we put a shoutout about creating a farming collective near Mumbai.

Skip to two years down the line, we have identified a beautiful location in the Khopoli region that reminds us of the Highlands of Central India by J. Forsyth. The winding road that traverses through idyllic villages, makes for an excellent cycling track (especially in the winter) and then gives way to a small valley. This valley gradually meets a slow rise that eventually becomes a tabletop with mind-blowing views of the horizon. The beauty of this place is that you can see the sun – horizon to horizon – sunrise to sunset.

Contrary to conventional planning, we love terrain difference, especially when it is stark. Every time two different terrains touch, it presents an opportunity – to collect water, explore the microclimate and create an experience which opens our horizons to what is possible. This is what excites us because it presents an opportunity for a better way of managing the landscape and we look forward to enabling the dream of our seed community in Mumbai.

After the hottest summer in 108 years, we witnessed the wettest monsoon in a decade. Irony or Climate Change? In coming times our resilience is going to be tested. We operate across a wide spectrum of landscapes. In August, our Hyderabad collective received 7 inches of rain and Poomaale 178. While Bhopal and Bangalore were brought to a grinding halt, Poomaale operated smoothly despite 4 times the rain. So why was that?

Plains are very different from hills. In the hills, water gushes down faster into gorges and takes on depth rather than breadth. Secondly, water moves out, potentially eroding topsoil, causing landslides. In the plains, we witness floods and as streams ramble on towards their next stop; it becomes important to capture water.

Apart from a few pockets like Manali, Shimla, Madikeri etc, hill landscapes haven’t altered much from their original form. However, in the plains, especially cities, have witnessed significant changes. Traditionally, old maps and revenue records acknowledged rivers breaking their banks or lakes filling to the brim with terms like Full Tank Level, or Flood Prone Width. With real estate speculation and greed mounting, it became easy to overlook these by redefining nomenclature and justifying their blocking and closure. Thus ignoring that once in a decade rainfall, where the lake doesn’t just depend on inflows from an upstream lake, but the water falling in its own catchment.

This is not some doomsday scenario but a design that is unravelling at an alarming rate. Sensible planning, factoring in aberrations in climate is possible and in most cases, does not mean a trade-off. You can read about how we approached the landscape for housing clusters through this lens at our Poomaale Estate in Coorg here.

Since 1973, over 2003 hectares covered by lakes and nullahs in Bangalore, including Domlur and Koramangla lakes have been covered and reduced to around 917 hectares by 2007 and even further today.

The above image illustrates the dwindling of lakes over time.

On a day with 5” of rainfall, these 1000 hectares alone transforms to 1.3B litres of water with no place to stand. This number grows exponentially when you consider the catchment areas. But nature does not recognise the rules of man. It will find a place which could be the parking lots and drawing rooms of our neighbourhoods.

We are often asked why it take 4 years to build a collective and if it can be done in 2? We could, but do we want to approach landscapes without understanding how they behave and adapt to changing conditions? Do we want to identify homes solely based on the best view (often the excuse for lake view homes and river view chalets)? And most importantly, do we want to give up our resilience for instant gratification? We have answered these for ourselves and are crystal clear on the path we take and we hope to have inspired folks to put on their thinking hats and introspect.

Someone once told me, “A farm is always 10 days away from starvation. But a forest never dies, come rain or fire”. To us, working on landscape restorations, that was empowering to hear. Forests, by definition, are self-sustaining systems, independent of external agents for critical inputs. For e.g. no one waters plants in a forest. They have healthy ‘spongy’ soil that stores water until the next monsoon.

The plant and predator diversity makes it almost impossible to wipe-out a forest with pest infestation. Simply put, a forest is like a bank account, with more deposits in the form of increasing diversity, than withdrawals from it. Sounds too good to be true? But we see this all around us. The abundant central Indian forests which inspired several books are a great example despite their rocky landscapes, huge temperature variations and frequent droughts.

At Beforest, we are deeply inspired by permaculture, which provide for food production to be designed on forest-like principles. Food forests are forests that provide ‘human food’. It is only after we started designing and setting up food forests, did we realise that single plant layer and not natural and this imbalance needed correction. Forests are naturally diverse, with plants interspersed across the landscape in layers. Roots, tubers, vines, shrubs, grasses and trees all grow in layers in the same space.

Over time, the ones that fit into the self-fulfilling cycle survive and those that don’t, die. We borrow from this concept and try and pair these layers through research and experiments until that much desired self-fulfilling cycle of life is created. Once established, we don’t worry about nutrition, pest attacks or varying climate cycles because that is factored in. Now the phenomenon of increasing bank balance takes over and enriches the soil eventually creating a perennial moisture cycle for the plants to survive. Since the produce is so varied, we are not as exposed to market vagaries, much like a diversified stock portfolio.

This is a constantly evolving concept. We don’t claim to know it all, but are humble enough to learn from new insights and revisit the drawing board to course correct. So when surprises come our way, we accept them as facts of nature – like the once in a decade downpour or the once in five years monsoon deficit. There is no point dissecting it. It is what it is – quite natural that way.

Back in 2019, when we first iterated through the major offerings of a collective, I remember thinking of a day at the collective when it is fully implemented. “Wake up to the birds” was the first line that I had put down. 3 years later, it was deja vu of sorts, when I woke up at around 6:30 in the morning to the soothing whistling of a Malabar Whistling Thrush. Although I had heard this little one many times before, the experience of the call acting like an alarm, was just something else.

As our dream translates to reality, I cannot express my excitement in words. June in that sense is always an inflection point. The hot months of May give way to the dark clouds and downpours as the sun baked soil quickly absorbs its fill and gives out that beautiful scent of the first rains. June is when our theory gets translated to reality and projects see fruition as our planting begins.

This year, the monsoon seems delayed by about 2 weeks. However we have received some strong pre-monsoon showers that have encouraged us to start some preliminary seed bombing. Come the first showers, and we get started with our swales in Hyderabad and diversification in Coorg. This monsoon we are also trying to do some interesting measurements on our stream, the Kembuva Poley to see if hydro power can be a reality for us.

As we move towards design finalisations for the houses in Poomaale, and plot choices in Hyderabad, what really gives us a kick about June is that this is the month that simply transforms landscape from a brown-scape to a green-scape. This helps us to imagine the final form and shape and helps even our members imagine what they have signed up for. It also reminds us of the long road ahead and the need to stick to the road that we have embarked upon.

“When monsoon storm pass over my home,
Then there’s no time for me to roam;
I plough the fields, plant rice with cheer,
But still remain a mountaineer.”

Excerpt from the Coorg Ballad.

At Beforest, we pride ourselves at bringing back long lost things. Swimming in lakes, huge stone wells, bulls resting under the shade at noon, a night under the stars. We find ourselves focussed on the simple luxuries of life and the W.H.Davies poem that goes

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

This has been a constant north star for us. So when we started thinking about the simple pleasures of peak summer, two things stood out prominently – the humble mango and train journeys!

As kids, summer vacations were synonymous with finishing off a ‘gampa’ of mangoes and competing with cousins gathered at our village with my ammamma (maternal grand-mother) diligently watching over and ensuring a fair share. That is when it struck me that equitable distribution and fair share was such an integral part of Indian households. Ammamma made sure the elder cousins (bigger in size, with larger appetites) got more without bullying or depriving the younger ones. What is even more interesting is the differentiation between equality and equitability. This was such an aha moment and I was blown away by how these subtle aspects were ingrained at a household level of granularity.

Back then, reaching my village Shankarpally was a 4 – 5 hour affair, which included a train journey, followed by a bus ride. The travel time now is around 45 minutes from home to farm. Today, not many take the train, but I will always cherish those memories. The shorter ones were chaotic but the longer ones – trips to Ooty or Tirupati, were so much a part of the holiday with its detailed planning. Food for multiple stops, pillows, blankets, snacks, Tinkle and Chacha Choudhary comics. For journeys, where meals could not be carried, we had to coordinate with folks that lived in towns on the way. It saddens me that my next generation may never have these experiences and even if they do, I doubt they’ll look forward to it. But they have their own stories and for those like me who hold these simple joys dear, I’m glad we are able to create at least a few of those at the collectives.

Summer has long been associated in our minds with sweat, discomfort, heat and a general sense of “when will this get over” in our country. Like all things natural, we look at summer in the same way one looks at a dry deciduous forest. It doesn’t have the green of a tropical forest, but it is just beauty of a different kind. In fact, summer and monsoon are two sides of the same coin and one would not exist without the other. So in that sense, it’s also a necessary part of the process. 

The landscapes in our collectives have transformed dramatically. The chilly mornings of February have given way to the early break of dawn and the heat setting in by 8:30 am. So naturally, we adapt to this change. The work hours shift towards the cooler parts of the day and the nights are a lot more active than they used to be. The beauty of it is how it showcases resilience. Rural India is the last place in our minds to have flexi-hours but here it is! 

The streams have completely dried up and the mighty Kembuva Poley at the Poomaale Estate, is reduced to a little trickle, as the estates downstream pump out water 24×7 for their irrigation. Forest systems have a large bandwidth of tolerance when it comes to changing conditions. This March for example, was the hottest in 120 years. But the Kembuva Poley hasn’t dried out completely and is still flowing. That is the trick about building resilient landscapes. There’s a lot of buffer built over the years, incrementally that one can survive the few shocks that come our way. 

Incidentally, and what might be very counter intuitive, our nursery work reaches a peak in summer. There are many reasons for this. Firstly its work in the shade, so the staff is naturally more inclined to do it over the estate work. Secondly, we are close to the monsoon and that means we need to get the sapling bank ready. That is the single point agenda at all the collectives in March and April. Poomaale is ready with its 3,000 saplings this time while Hyderabad is getting to its target of 15,000 saplings.

It may be summer right now, it may be too hot to work in the day, but it’s all hands on deck right now at Beforest.

The power to create life is only present in women and in soil. At Beforest, we are lucky enough to be working with both. While we have spoken about soil on many occasions, we rarely touched upon the women behind the collectives. Take for instance Pushpa who works at the Poomaale Estate. First of all, she is the mother to two school going kids who need to be cooked and packed a meal before 9 am. She also has to make sure the breakfast supplies and utensils are all intact before her husband (the cook) gets started with the morning routine for the staff. It doesn’t stop there. She has taken on the onus of taking care of Laxmi and Harshad – our cattle. This means, clearing out their shed and milking Laxmi in the mornings. To be honest, when I first heard of this, it sounded like an entire day’s work but this is just her pre 10 am routine. Because, after that, she also participates in the plantation activities of picking coffee beans. 

Pushpa is not alone. She is one of the many women at Poomaale, who brave the back breaking hours, the bugs and the bees to bring to us some of the best tasting coffee in the country. All of this is done with a smile on their face and none of the airs of a super woman. That is why at all our collectives,  we have equal pay for men and women. Sure the men do more physically intensive work, but the level of commitment shown by the womenfolk and the energy that they bring to the table cannot be ignored. 

We have also started an interesting initiative at our Hyderabad Collective, where in we are offering opportunities to vulnerable women groups like widows, single moms, etc. And by that we don’t just mean jobs, but also empowerment opportunities like skillset addition in overlapping spheres like bee keeping, jam making etc. These groups are generally either overburdened with responsibilities or are ostracised by social pressure. We thought of using our collective as a platform to create a win-win situation. 

These are still early days, but we are quite certain that women like Pushpa have played a vital role in shaping the collective. So cheers to that and the incredible spirit with which our women move towards achieving our common goal. 

‘Organic, natural, zero budget, bio-dynamic, rainforest alliance’, etc. etc., There’s endless jargon that surrounds food and farms today and yet we went ahead and coined – ‘forest friendly produce’. If you are wondering if this is a marketing term to give a positive spin to the food we produce, you are partially right.

But there’s more to it. To really comprehend that, you have to understand that Coorg and most of the Western Ghats receives between 100–250 inches (i.e. more than 6 meters) of rain spread across 4 – 5 months. In perspective, that’s an entire district submerged in about two floors of water! A lot, isn’t it?. But it is this catchment that drains into the Cauvery river – the lifeline of Bangalore and Chennai. In other words, the river really gets most of its water after draining through a few 1000 chemical pumped estates before making it into the plains as a source of ‘drinking’ water. 

With erratic weather patterns, several estates have replaced blossom showers with sprinkler systems for better yields.  When you replace 0.15 inches of rain with sprinklers on a 100 acre estate, that’s approximately 1.5million litres of water (the daily drinking water allowance of 10,000 people) that would have otherwise flowed down the hills into the cities.  

At scale, when 1000 estates do this simultaneously, literally sucking out water from the aquifers, to irrigate the farm; lakes dry and wells get deeper. For the surrounding wildlife, it means empty watering holes. What one needs to do is go beyond using only neem oil and manure and think of the impact the existence of the farm has on the surrounding ecosystem.

The Poomaale Estate was an attempt to create an alternative, by building a resilient ecosystem to deal with inconsistent weather.  By doing so, we may not be as ‘high yielding’ as our neighbour, but for the 5 tons of wild beans produced, we have allowed 300 litres of water to stay in the aquifers, gradually draining into the watering holes in the area. Hence the term – ‘Forest Friendly’.

So the next time you collect produce from our farms, know this – you have helped a forest dwelling species with 2 days’ worth of water. So sit back, sip that cup of guilt free coffee and reach out to us to know more about the processes that allow us to be this resilient.

Long ago, I remember eagerly running up the stairs of a watch tower in Corbett National Park, to see if I could spot a tiger. When I reached the top, I remember thinking, vantage points give an entirely different perspective. I was now able to see over the grassland, across the Ram Ganga River onto the other side. The alarm calls lost their significance as I stared at the reservoir and the setting sun beyond. The sky turned a fiery red and I said to myself that the best views are always from the top when looking at the horizon. 

Every New Year’s eve, I think of that day. The nitty-gritties of daily life fade away and a horizon view emerges. Beforest collectives have long moved on from being experiments to full-fledged plans. The journey has been so rich that the excitement to do more and more is unbearable.

Can we scale this idea to multiple geographies, can we get to transform bigger landscapes? These are some of the questions we are evaluating at HQ. For every collective we have started, we have said no to at least 4 others as we try to steer clear of hyper growth ambitions and instead focus on solid learnings and a steady impact.

It is more important to grow organically and understand the landscape and the natural forces at play. For e.g., we can’t be using the same methods from the Poomaale Estate in Coorg which receives around 6000 mm annual rainfall at the Hyderabad Collective which receives 650 mm annual rainfall. The priorities, goals and aspirations are very different for each collective and this learning cannot be accelerated.  

There have been innumerable conversations we have had where folks have asked us if they could contribute to a geography or an idea like a Western Ghats rewilding, or central highlands wildlife corridors. Effectively, this means participation goes beyond a particular landscape to a particular idea. This is a very powerful thought that has emerged from our interactions and we feel the timing could not have been better as we evolve our teams and deepen our understanding of the different ecologies in the country. So here is the big goal for the year. What can we do to move in this direction? The thinking caps are on.

Cheers and a very happy new year. Exciting times ahead.