Population scale impact : climate change
Revolutionising tree growing: deeptech
Scaling up massively: independently.
We all take the visible as the obvious and the obvious as the practical. And the practical as the sole option. Norms get established and finally get cast in stone. Farms produce 30 quintals of vegetables per acre. Or forests can hold 100 trees per hectare. And so on.
These ratios become norms and deviation from norms is discouraged. Till someone decides to check if these are indeed relevant in the light of modern technology.
One such experiment started off in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh at the border of the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in 2021. One sole individual Srinivas Rachakonda decided to question everything.
In god we trust, the rest let’s verify
Is what he started off with.
Indian imports of timber are broadly equal to their exports of software services (which is IT industry less people exports). The average indian family spends more on timber in their lifetime than they spend on technology. Making timber a humongous Rs 3 lac crore pa market.
What Srini decided to do in these four years has destroyed every norm, challenged every belief and uprooted every established technology paradigm.
Like green is no good unless it is cheaper. He likewise prove beyond doubt that organic farming can give a yield which is far greater and profitable than conventional farming. Or that forests can be grown without planting. Or agro produce can be produced with the consistency and at lower cost than ultra processed foods. And that all of this can help build healthspan, reverse disease and prevent sickness. Here is an overview:
Now the results:
Brinjals – 45 tons per acre pa
Water melons – 150 tons
Trees – 1 sqm per tree
Agro forests – multilayer farming
Time to grow full timber trees – 4 years
This decimates all known norms.
What the experiment- the first of its kind in India proves is that – everything we know about agro and forestry is either wrong or obsolete.
The entire policy approach of spending Rs 150,000 cr pa on chemical product subsidies is probably faulty. It is making Punjab into a desert, killing the people with cancer and decimating Agri output. Madhya Pradesh in contrast is well set to be the food bowl of India. With sustainable and responsible practices, avoidance of polluting industry and a carefully curated development plan – Madhya Pradesh – which is home to several initiatives like Prakriti Prerna has the potential to revolutionise both agriculture and forestry.
The miracle is playing out in three districts at three ends of Madhya Pradesh. Umariya in the centre, Jabhua near Gujarat border and Neemuch near Rajasthan border. Neemuch is already the worlds largest ayurvedic herbs Mandi and cultivation centre. Umariya is re inventing the circular economy with a zero waste strategy. Jabhua is building the worlds only Khairmor sanctuary.