01/02/2026
I recently visited Annapoorna Farms in Auroville, a 39 year old regenerative farm spread over 135 acres. The way it is managed inspired me to share. Their approach to farming keeps alive the various complexities of ecology, nutrition, economics and ethics. They are dependent on the entire system, including consumers, to work together with a shared value system. There is no simple answer but their approach shows that anything can be yoga.
Annapoorna Farms is Auroville’s “grain basket, growing different traditional varieties of white and red rice which are over 1.5meters tall and have less yield but are more nutritious, tasty and resistant to floods and droughts. They do a mixture of machine and hand processing to balance needs of economics, efficiency and consumer demands. They also process the grains of several other farms from the community. They use rain-fed irrigation and water harvesting ponds. All their cows are from the same mother calf (with different bulls). They are currently experimenting using ducks for weeding.
The farm is currently experiencing financial difficulties and facing the challenge of a proposal to use a 100 acre portion of the land for an IIT campus testing EV vehicles.
They are conducting tours on February 4th and 11th at 2:15pm. Registration is mandatory. Please support them by finding out more, visiting, volunteering and buying their products.
edited by .mical
