The Times of India had an article about an Oota from your Thota (OFYT) meetup at St.Johns road on 7th September. I heard of such events happening in Electronic city in 2013, but since this was close enough I decided to attend. Oota is the Kannada word for food and Thota is the word for garden. What surprised me is that as per this article there were more than fifty thousand farms on people's terraces in Bangalore in 2020. Started by Dr. B. N. Vishwanath who created an NGO named Garden City Farmers way back in 1995. Unfortunately they seem to have stopped publishing on their website and switched over to Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, none of which I use. Particularly after reading this security warning. Anyway, OFYT organizes frequent meets where they even share seeds, so the seeds eventually become a Thota from somebody else's Oota :-) which then grows into an Oota from your Thota.
At the event what surprised me was the drive everyone had. They were very courteous, eager to help and made sure they proactively asked questions to figure out what problems people were facing with their terrace garden and readily offered suggestions and options on how to tackle the problems. There were various types of stalls put up around B.M. English school along the footpath. I heard there was even a workshop held inside the school regarding composting, but I missed it because one of the scouts told me there was no stall inside the school, and because there was no announcement about it other than a tiny sign that pointed to the school saying "workshop".
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| An encouraging glimpse into the world of various terrace farmers in Bengaluru |
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| These grow bags seemed quite sturdy. The small ones cost Rs.65 |
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| Natural chemical free products from LittleSilk (I believe this is different from another brand named The Little Silk) |
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| Natural soaps |
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| Natural lipsticks using beetroot, rose and perhaps natural oils |
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| Chocolate wax to remove tan, natural facials, etc. |
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| Organic honey, ghee, nuts, etc. |
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| A green kitchen whose people are willing to teach you how to reuse or recycle things in such a way that you reduce waste significantly |
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| They provide free steel plates, spoons, tumblers and bowls for any event you organize. You have to collect it from them, wash it and return it at your expense. There's also a security deposit. But otherwise it's free to use and return. Their objective is to reduce waste by allowing you to use the utensils for free. |
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| A mixture of powdered pre-cooked organic millets etc which can be dissolved in water or milk and consumed |
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| A stall by sunshine enterprises |
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| Various gardening tools |
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| Decomposting agents |
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| Compost and manure |
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| Rooting aid |
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| A stall showcasing items which I understand was from the ministry of tribal affairs |
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| These are lanterns made from actual vegetables. A bulb can be placed inside, creating beautiful light patterns |
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| Sound tubes used by tribals to communicate during hunting. The bamboo tubes have zig zag channels inside and seeds flow down them when you turn the tubes upside down, creating a unique flowing noise. |
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| The rhino on the right is said to be made from Assam tea plant wood |
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| Various ornaments and spoons made by tribals |
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| Bows used by fishermen in Andaman. The actual arrows would have metal heads. The arrows are shot through a hole in the middle of the bow so the arrows have no feathers. Said to be able to fly as far as 100m. The bow costs around Rs.450 and two arrows are given with it. |
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| Various homemade snacks made by a brand called "Tasty Crunchy Products" at Kammanahalli. They even make Kerala pappadam and appalam. |
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| Various organic pickles |
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| These people provide elevated garden growing containers on rent. They also do the growing of the veggies. Total cost of the rental is Rs.5000 per month. Else, you can purchase these containers. The container slightly larger than what's in the picture cost Rs.6500. It's made of fiberglass (though it looks like aluminium). The weight matters, because a roof can only support around 200kg per square meter. |
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| Various saplings, grow bags and garden tools available for cheap prices. The saplings on the right were just at Rs.5 each. |
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| Various kinds of rice and millets from JivaBhumi |
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| Organic sugar, jaggery, dal, ancient variety of wheat |
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| Cold pressed oils |
Various snacks and pickles created from organic produce.
Products from Quantum Leap (they have a vertical named Quantum Leaf) for terrace gardening.
Various seeds available at reasonable rates. They'll send it to you via speedpost when you order.
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| Various products from Akshayakalpa. It's worth watching their Good Food Movement videos https://www.youtube.com/@goodfoodmovement |
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| Products from Biological Research Innovation Centre and Solutions (BRICS) |
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| MycoDim is a broad spectrum, contact foliar fungicide that prevents a variety of diseases on ornamentals, trees, potted plants, fruits, vegetables and turfs. SasyaRakshak is a water-soluble plant protectant, carefully designed to contain all good constituents derived from select botanicals of known pesticidal properties. The combination of active ingredients from these plant sources provides excellent protection to the crop plants against sucking (Aphids, thrips, mites, mealybugs, hoppers, and bugs) as well as biting ( leafminers, caterpillars, beetles, weevils) insects. |
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| Natural shampoos, hand wash and face wash |
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| The stalls were put up on an actual footpath |
Oota in my thota
In around 2014, I purchased a few grow bags and tried growing some veggies on my terrace. I deleted many of the photos but found a few thumbnails.
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| Tomato, curry leaf, corriander, pudina, mustard, green chillies and even an apple sapling grew |
The first tomato had a worm/caterpillar enter it. I soon found that a butterfly or moth was laying tiny yellow eggs on the leaf and those were becoming the caterpillars that ate the tomato. Removing the eggs early helped avoid that issue. I didn't purchase any seeds. I used the seeds from whatever veggies I purchased from stores. I did face issues of the soil getting very soggy during rains, the water at the base of the grow bag accumulating at the bottom without draining off sufficiently from the drainage holes, earthworms slithering away during rains, fungus at the roots and those white flies infesting the green chilly plants.
I mentioned some of these issues to the people at OFYT and they gave me some nice solutions.
There are things that can be improved with such initiatives in terms of being able to make people aware of what is available, visualizing where organic farms are nearby on a map, using tools like what3words or digipin, a trained LLM that can explain things for people instead of them having to connect with a person and worrying if one would be disturbing them, using a website or a dedicated organic farming app instead of third party tools like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
As for the organic produce, one of my main concerns has always been whether the farmers were honest. I was told that Aditi organic certification and India Organic certification ensures that farmers are compliant, but there is also the fact that those whose turnover does not exceed Rs.12 lakh do not have to go through the verification of compliance. Even for those who comply, there are residual limits of insecticides, other contaminants, heavy metals and toxins measured. Which makes me worried about whether at least some farmers may use insecticides etc thinking that nobody would find out. Whether bribery would be an issue is also something I wondered. A survey by the government found that even some organic veggies had heavy metal contamination. Then there's the issue of price. Most of the organic produce is priced at double the cost or more. An organic farmer named Naveen in Mysore says that organic food could be priced 10% or 15% higher than other food. This seemed reasonable to me. However, as long as others buy it at double the price, it'll only encourage farmers or FPO's (farmer producer organization) to price the items high.
Healthy food is not meant only for the rich. It's a basic necessity of life.
