Have you talked to your farmer Recently??
If we ask the city dweller on whether he talked to his farmer, the most probable answer is : NO. But if a normal person is sick for a few days, he mostly gets a doctor appointment and meets him. Although he may not remember all the doctors he met in his life, he knows he needs to go to the doctor when he is quite sick.
Changing this way of decision making during illness, may be something to ponder about. What if our food is not good enough to nourish us from Inside ?. Then in that case, No matter what the doctor does, you will eventually end up visiting the doctor again because the food you eat is making you sick although the medicine that doctor gave is putting a temporary band-aid for the underlying problems.
I believe that farmer plays the VERY important role of taking care of the health of his community. But both the farmer and city dweller have moved far apart from the principles laid down for good health of community.
The farmer needs to grow food that nourishes the community from inside. But the farmer is always focused on making ends meet, selling his goods, extracting yield from the soil no matter how healthy the soil is and looks at soil as a means to extract a livelihood. Mostly, Agricultural land is looked at as money and not as the real wealth that needs to be preserved for generations.
The customers need to know what they are eating and where is the food coming from. He needs to talk to his actual farmer who grew the food. Not just those who are selling the food to the customer.
The more i think about it, the more clear it gets. We have taken a tough journey to grow most of what we sell. I would say, “if you don’t grow, then you don’t know”. Many do not understand what it takes to grow and if they are really buying truly healthy food from truly healthy soil. This is the difference that Mapletree farm brings, as we are farmers. Please visit our farms to find this out in our greenhouses with plants in great health. A reason why our plants are quite healthy is below.
Our work with soil over many years has helped create methods to build soil with a special mix of 1) desi cow dung, 2) Indian earthworm special vermicompost with processed neem and other herbal leaves, 3)calcium mix, 4)mineral mix, 5)bentonite clay, 6)Honge cake, 7)neem cake, 8)groundnut cake, 9)sesame cake, 10)Beneficial bacteria and fungal culture mix. We add 270 KG of the mix made with above ingredients to 250 square feet beds in the greenhouse every 3 months. This mix has live Indian earthworm eggs as well. This mix converts the soil in to black gold. Over time, the nutrition density of this soil is so good, it shows in the crop. The crop speaks about the soil below. Since we do not plough the beds, the soil improves to great health that has to reflect as customer health. Our investment in our soil health alone will cross more than 50 lakhs this year. We invest like this because we believe in the inevitable and deep health connection between the customer and the soil. Our customers have contributed to make soil healthy and help grow better and better food for them. Thank you — Shankar Mapletree farm.
