The major aim of the people working at Vanya Organic is to work towards restoring nature and soil to their original form. The end of the 20th century brought into focus the perils of modern agriculture. We have adopted several measures and techniques to resolve the issues, but nothing seemed to help.
Starting from adopting organic farming to taking up measures for afforestation, everything was done. But then finally we were introduced to Vanya – An Organic Farm, by none other than a 1986-batch IRS Officer Mr. Patanjali Jha in Madhya Pradesh.
Patanjali Jha – Founder’s Background
Mr. Patanjali Jha, an IRS officer, currently posted as the Director-General of Income Tax Investigations, Karnataka and Goa. He pursued his Masters’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics. Being the inspiring person he is, he has well-established himself as one of the leading government officials of India.
This selfless person came forward and took several initiatives during the covid-19 crisis for which he was immensely appreciated. Vanya results from his epiphany in food forestry, a fact which is not known to many. It came as a surprise to us when we found he has been managing 100 acres of food forest land for the last 20 years. We can’t thank him enough for doing this great work and helping our environment a little more.
His Journey
Mr. Patanjali Jha said that he has always been inspired by Swami Vivekananda and to an extent, he is the reason behind him stepping into natural farming. Being inspired by him, Mr. Jha converted his thoughts into action by converting 10,000 hectares of land into a food forest in a few years.
Soon he realized that the country which has it all, like sufficient solar energy, arable land, young population, and a decent amount of rainfall deserves to have organic farming as its solution to the pertinent agricultural issues. Though the implementation of this initiative is completely his own, he extends credits to Bhaskar Save, the Gujarati natural farming pioneer, and Masanobu Fukuoka, the Japanese no-till farming visionary for being his inspiration.
Vanya Organic – The Initiative in Madhya Pradesh
Vanya Organic farm is located at Khalghat in Madhya Pradesh on the banks of the Narmada River. Along with his epiphany in food forestry, Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution inspired him to build this forest on the banks of Narmada in Madhya Pradesh, as said by Mr. Patanjali Jha. The name of this project is Eureka Food Forest, and it has the potential to provide solutions for ecological, economical, and physiological ills.
It has huge biodiversity of various kinds of trees such as 400 Mango trees, 5000 Drumsticks, 5000 Citrus, 7000 Papaya, 500 Neem, 5000 Subabool. It also has thousands of perennial trees such as Arhar, Amla, Amrood, Pepper, Jamun, Banana, Babool, Teak, Bel, Wisdom tree, Champa, Khajoor, etc. They do not use cattle manure as their vast quantities of varied biomass from the trees is sufficient for the soil. They avoid any herbicides, chemical fertilizers, or tilling.
Vanya Organic – Success story
Mr. Patanjali Jha’s father had around 10 acres of land in Khalghat. He brought that land from his father and along with five other farming enthusiasts he also brought another 60 acres of land in the same region. His interest in ancient Indian scriptures and traditions has also influenced his way of farming. Several people warned him against following Fukuoka’s methods, stating that the crops wouldn’t survive.
But the determined and confident person he was, he realized we had enough sunlight, arable land, and sufficient rainfall and all these things are enough for a plant to survive. He was proved right and in the last ten years, the beauty of the land grew by leaps and bounds.
To know more about Vanya Organic, please check – Website, Facebook, Twitter.
If you know more inspirational stories about a person, company, new idea, or social initiative, and want us to write it on mad4india.com, share such information with us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
