pointReturn » Land

Inside pointReturn

pointR — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:40:28 +0000

A long over-due update on activities at pointReturn

What has been happening at pointReturn? What is daily life like? What have been the changes in the last three years?

What is the progress on the four self-sufficiencies of the mission- water, food, energy and cash?

Is the dream still intact? Who is keeping it alive? How are we going to realise them in full?

A new long story answers all your questions: Click here to read

Hosted cows

pointR — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:28:39 +0000

It is widely accepted that natural farming remains incomplete without integration of animals . When it comes to choice of animals, the cow enjoys the greater heart-share of an Indian farmer. My interest is not so much in its milk or its muscle power; I value its dung the most. A cow is the quickest converter of biomass into manure. In about 8 hours after grazing it drops fibre rich dung.

We buy in well rotted manure from a village nearby. Households with cattle save the daily drop in a heap by their roadside. There the dung pile grows until farmers nearby are readying their fields. Then the piles are sold, so much per tractor tipper load. With each passing year, I find demand for rotted manure increasing. Which is a good sign that means our farmers are reconnecting with traditional farming, after seeing the limits of chemical farming.

I too buy in a couple of loads of manure every year. The distance it travels is not more than 3/4 kM but the loading and transport charges are as much as the manure itself. But what repels me is what I get, unasked with the manure. Out of 240 cubic feet, I had to sift out 10 cFt of consumer trash- plastic sachet covers, bottles, shopping bags, broken plastic household wares, maimed dolls, cycle tyre bits, cardboard boxes, disposable razors, tooth brushes and paste tubes. About the only angerless thought I had staring at this sifted trash, was that a market researcher advising the consumer goods industry might want to buy it to discern buying trends. This heap certainly belonged on his plush table.

How wonderful it would be, if I could keep cows on this land! They would add a gracious presence, chomp on the wild growth and offer up dung and urine. Why don’t I keep them? Because, pointReturn is not manned round the clock- not yet, anyway. And, cows need caring. They must be grazed under supervision, milked regularly, watered, washed and their shelter maintained, . The tiny local breeds are a hardy lot but even they need some attention.

Then recently one day, the obvious occurred to me: one need not own cows to have them on one’s land. My neighbour Saminadhan farms eight acres. He has a herd of five – two bullocks, a cow and two calves. His home is half a kilometer away and he is too busy to nip over there often and mind them. pointReturn is next door, has enough grazing land, is fenced in and therefore keeps them from wandering.

So we worked out a win-win deal. He may graze them in ten acres, rotating the area, ensuring they don’t encroach the growing areas. The milk is his. We get the dung and of course all the urine.

Chellamma, in the mould of a classic Indian country woman, is a compulsive gatherer of cowdung. Off she goes browsing where the cows are tethered and returns with head loads. The land beyond pointReturn’s fences is grazing grounds for the village cattle. Chellamma collects cowdung from there as well.

Our treasure of cowdung grows by more than a cubic foot a day.

Yanmar VIO20 , a mini excavator

pointR — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:47:03 +0000

The decision to buy a mini excavator was not lightly made- the heavy price tag ensures you slow down and think things through.

By early 2009 there were intimations of a drought. The windmill began to be starved of suction from March which was three months before the usual. I began to realise that before the land can be said to be drought proof, a lot more earthwork needed to be done. A central pond was not good enough; water traps have to be distributed throughout the property.

The ubiquitous earthmoving equipment of India is the JCB. It’s a backhoe cum dozer mounted on tires. It somehow is not good enough for small, sensitive jobs like digging swales and canals. It’s a contractor’s workhorse, requires a skilled, certified operator, drinks far too much fuel per hour and can’t be hired quickly and economically for small odd jobs. If hired, it’s charged for by the hour; so you tend to rush your decisions, besides standing by to give running instructions to a driver more used to cut-price local government contacts.

I was looking for a small machine I can operate myself, consumes little fuel, is always at hand and is capable of small to medium scale jobs. I was looking for a reliable servicing dealer. I spent weeks prowling the Internet discussion forums, watching YouTube videos and studying company catalogues.

The final shortlist was for a 2 tonne class mini excavator with engine power of around 20hp. Tata has an India made machine TMX20 but neither is it being promoted enthusiastically by the company nor was it substantially cheaper. Bobcat representatives were truly assistive and we almost decided on their model 323 or 325.The rub was the price- close to Rs.20 lakhs; the lead time for importing was 3 months. There was also the issue that I’d be importing the first machine and they would be setting up a spare system once my machine arrived.

I was hesitant. Just then a friend suggested calling a company in Gujarat which was using a number of mini excavators in their loading operations. And these turned out to be Yanmar machines, 6 of them. “How did you get them?”, I asked. “Oh, there is a dealer in Vizag, Dozco. Call them. They are quite helpful,” he said.

Within an hour I was moving in. Dozco was indeed very friendly. They were dealers for Yanmar and a wide range of all types of earthmoving equipment. They have been in business for 25 years and had an India-wide network of offices and workshops. Yanmar VIO20 had recently been introduced by them in India. I quickly clicked over to the Yanmar site and studied the specs.
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The best part was hearing Dozco say this: “We had imported a first batch of 8 machine. We have sold 7 and there is one available off the shelf.” I played a YouTube video to pointReturn’s ATeam one night after we had had dinner. The video showed a 8 year old girl operating the machine.

Raju, Annamalai and Chellamma were excited. “Are you really going to buy it? We can get all our work done,” was the chorus. I also discovered the mini-excavator field is an established one. There are several third party developers of attachments for them ranging from rock splitters, augurs, mowers and varieties of buckets. Dozco quoted a price of Rs.16 lakhs plus taxes. I decided to visit Vizag to see the machine for myself.

In Vizag, I found myself quite at home with the intuitive controls within minutes of climbing into the seat. It was also a thoughtfully designed machine. Dozco were very patient and supportive. I decided to take the plunge.

I returned to Chennai raring to build a brand new garage for the machine. There was just that between us and the machine arriving. It arrived on Aug 30, 2009 amidst much excitement. The following pictures tell the story well.

Dozco Website

Postscript: November, 2009: In the three months the machine has been at pointReturn, it has become everyone’s pet- we christened it, Baby Elephant. Villagers have sauntered over to gaze and admire it. I,the 68 yo driver, have become a minor legend in these parts.

I find using it easy and its slow pace relaxes me and enables me to contemplate my work with enough time to spare. Ideas arrive to sort out tricky situations ahead, hours go by with hardly any stress or tiredness. The noise level is low, it drinks between 1.5 and 3 litres per hour of diesel depending on the rate of work and the machine feels very stable.

I found Dozco very responsive. Filters and parts were readily available and a Dozco man came on the appointed date to service the machine. I have used it for digging ditches, forming small roads within the campus and for clearing thickets and weeds. Of course, I dug a few swales.

And then came Ringo, a master of heavy machinery. He thought I had made a fine buy and operated the machine to carve out a text-book perfect swale. Him, a large Australian riding a small machine attracted more villagers than I did. Ah well…

Google Earth image of pointReturn in 2009

pointR — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:25:01 +0000

I finally have the GPS fix of pointReturn. It is N:12.43344 and E:079.92525.

I logged this into GoogleEarth and flew to the site. Joy! There it was, very uniquely identifiable. The shot here will be the baseline picture with which to contrast the changes as they occur in the future. As the project develops, I trust this image will get greener.
By the way, I had spent hours trying to guess the location by measuring out distances and poring over the image for identifiable marks – and I had gotten within 0.15km of where the GPS now says the project is.

Google doesn’t photograph Indian terrain as often or as precisely as it does the USA or the G8 countries. You can’t see street signs like those of New York’s; with India one must be content with fuzzy images. But this is bound to improve. The picture alongside is from an elevation of 1 kilometer.

The shaded area in the inset picture is the extent of the pointReturn campus.