Birth of a New Farming Collective

99 km from Mumbai & Pune, Off Khopoli-Pali Road, Medical amenities within 30 km

All our collectives are born from a longing to connect with nature. The Mumbai Collective is no different. It is a manifestation of our desire to create a community that encourages its members to move away from their ‘apart’ments and find their inspiration in nature and with each other. 

After our successful collectives in Hyderabad and Coorg and support from the 200+ families of these collectives, we received a lot of requests from Maharashtra to do something similar near Mumbai/Pune. We took this as an opportunity to build yet another thriving collective in the Western Ghats that are rich in biodiversity. This makes a perfect canvas for creating a food, water and power-secure landscape for all the members and staff of The Mumbai Collective.

Why Farming Collectives?

If you want to change the world, start in your own backyard. 

The need to connect with nature is undeniable in an urban audience. It could manifest as frequent trips to natural retreats, adventures in the wild or owning a farm. But running a farm comes with a lot of effort and commitment. After the initial years of enthusiasm, most farm owners lose interest (or patience), leaving the farms in limbo. We saw this repeat several times before we set out to devise a holistic solution to address this innate need.

Farming collectives are our answer. Collective ownership of large landscapes has happened in the past – sacred groves, community forests, etc. It has many advantages over individual ownership of farmland.

122

Acres

90

Families

Join our Mumbai Farming Collective today

This is a perfect canvas for creating a food,
water and power secure landscape that can
provide complete self-sufficiency for 90 families.

Join our
Mumbai Collective
today

Together, let's build a community that is self-sufficient, resilient, and eco-friendly. Let us make a difference together!

Growing a Lifestyle

Maximum impact with minimum intervention. 

Imagine your day starting with an orchestra of birdcalls. Aren’t they the perfect alarm! Energise for the day with a morning walk along the trails of the wilderness zone or a workout in the food production zone.

On the way back, pick up some fresh berries for a morning smoothie from the edible pathways. If you are not one for a workout, you may indulge in deep thinking at your favourite introspection points. Find an ergonomic stone that will serve as your work desk for the day under the shade of a mango tree near one of the water bodies. Take a break at noon and refresh yourself with a farm-to-table lunch. An afternoon siesta, perhaps?

Let the inner poet come to life. There is nothing like a sunset to connect with those emotions. Have a nice quiet dinner as the birds settle down and denizens of the night come out.

Over 200 families have chosen this lifestyle in our farming collectives. You can too with Beforest. 

The Mumbai Farming Collective

The focus is to use natural resources efficiently.

The food production zone is planned to grow enough grains, pulses, and seasonal vegetables for all the members and staff in a completely natural way. The focus is to use natural resources efficiently.


Integrated pest management species like Citronella and Calotropis are introduced to improve biodiversity along with protecting the food plants. Receded water bodies (especially the lake) are used to cultivate paddy and other wetland crops. Untenable spaces between the housing clusters are turned into medicinal and edible gardens. These are the simple measures we take to ease the load on the ecosystem.

Upcoming Event(s)

The Estate of the Future

Our approach to land management divides the area of the estate broadly into 3 zones - Economic zone, Wilderness zone and Mixed-use (or Combined) zone. The zoning is done based on a deep-layered study of the land including biodiversity studies, hydrology studies, contour analysis and more. A detailed Land Use Map is then prepared by experts which defines zones that best suit the landscape.

The Economic zone hosts areas for annual food production, housing, storage, staff accommodation, and related activities. The Combined zone usually has a host of perennial produce crops growing and intermingling with native species. This is an area of mixed usage, livestock grazing and active bird and butterfly sanctuaries.

The wilderness zone is where we preserve our natural resources. We derive value here by extracting ecosystem services like the preservation of our springs, replenishment of our biomass, housing of bird colonies, etc.

Food, Water and Power Security

 Grow not what your heart desires but what the land allows

The Food Production Zone (FPZ) will account for enough grains, pulses, millets and veggies for all the members’ families and the staff grown in a completely natural way. An integrated pest management system including barrier species like Citronella and Calotropis will help maintain the diversity without any external intervention. We focus on growing through forest-friendly methods.

Power Security at the Mumbai Collective will be achieved by a combination of solar and grid power. Cleverly designed homes, gravity-fed water systems and biomass heaters can further reduce the power needs of the estate.

Water security is something that most cities across the world have failed to provide. Our estimates suggest that we need about 10 million litres of water to provide domestic water security for 100 families. Considering this region receives over 2500mm of rainfall every year, this is should not be a problem. An excess or deficit of water, both can cause harm to the life of the collective. We plan to implement water management systems for conserving water in case of droughts and channelising it efficiently in case of excess.

What is most important for water security, however, is soil health. Our studies show that an increase in soil carbon raises the absorption of the soil where it acts like a giant sponge soaking up all the water that falls on it during the monsoon.

Join our
Mumbai Collective
today

This is a perfect canvas for creating a food,
water and power secure landscape that can
provide complete self-sufficiency for 90 families.

Join our
Mumbai Collective
today

This is a perfect canvas for creating a food, water and power secure landscape that can provide complete self-sufficiency for 90 families.

Seed Community

Turning Problems into Opportunities Together

Like any collective, the Mumbai Collective is a crowd-funded initiative. The Collective builds on the support and trust of the Seed Community - the early adopters who buy into the first 25% of the collective land. They are instrumental in defining the character of the community and the rules that govern it. The Seed Community of the Mumbai Collective has been nothing but supportive and patient as we build the collective and prepare to welcome new members. We are eager for more like-minded individuals to join our journey.

 

Join The Mumbai Farming Collective

 There is a huge circle of concern which encompasses most urban audiences. Within this is a circle of action. This circle believes in doing something for the change they wish to see. Our community falls right in the centre of this circle of action. It involves people from different professions, age groups and backgrounds, all having the thread of sustainable living holding them together.



If you want to move the needle a little every day towards a sustainable life and join the 200+ other families who have already come on board, then show your interest below.