When more and more urban professionals quit their 9-to-5 jobs and turn to a full-fledged farming career and the result is Beejom like self-sustainable farms and animal sanctuaries. Aparna Rajagopal, a trained lawyer is the one who runs the Beejom farm in Noida. It all started when a large tract of agricultural land on the banks of the Yamuna up for lease, she shares. The Beejom lands were just a sea of pure grey sand with hardly any living matter and dry and dusty. Thanks to Google, through which she developed her own crop calendar and now it's teaming with earthworms, birds and butterflies and home to other thousands of animals small and big.
Practising Natural farming and using these beautiful liquid fertilizers made with dung, urine, and enrichers, the soil at the farm is full of the organic matter today, the farm has lush green vegetation, medicinal herbs grow all over the place and birds and bees and butterflies thrive merrily. Apart from the fabulous clean chemical-free food, we are able to grow through the year; with every passing year, the yield and quality of produce are only becoming better. The farm runs completely off the grid, using solar power, biogas, and bull power and their own seed bank.
Therefore their tag line for Beejom is “Growing Soil, Changing Minds” Today Aparna grows grains, legumes, millets, oilseeds along with seasonal vegetable and herbs. Traditionally, the farming she follows is called Baranaja, a method that ensures self-sustainability, ensuring the farm keeps running even if a crop or two fails.
Beejom is an animal-centric /cow centric farm. Beejom is a cattle preservation center too engaged in the preservation of our beautiful indigenous species of cattle which are rapidly going extinct due to unsustainable agricultural practices. Dung ho is Beejom’s most passionate project. Beejom generates 1000 kgs of dung at the farm on an average. The biggest way of utilizing this surplus dung is to make these lovely dung pots in three sizes, dung logs. Vermicompost, GobarKhad, Gobar Ash, and GhanJivamrit (a lovely fertiliser with enriched cow dung). With cow urine, Beejom makes various liquid fertilisers and pest repellants like Panchagavyam, Jivamrit, Agnihastra, Nimastra, Brahmastra, Gomutra for gardening, etc. Beejom is retying up with local nurseries in the hope that they stop using plastic covers and start using these beautiful pots for their seedlings.
Beejom Shiksha is a learning centre for farmers children at the farm. We currently have 110 children enrolled all of whom have never been to a school before. These children hold the key to the food security of this country in the next generation.
The Beejom Store is a very small place where they sell what they grow and what some other small farmers grow but can't sell. Eat a homemade bajra muffin and Ragiladdoo says Aparna. Some lovely recycled items and crafts made by indigenous communities also will be stocked. The little shop is located in Hoshiarpur in Sector 51 Noida.
The "Beejom Jaivik Krishi Upaj Mandi" takes place every Saturday evening at the farm in Noida. It is from 4-7 pm. The Mandi is set up right in front of a beautiful cattle shed housing 9 breeds of beautiful indigenous cattle from across India.
Beejom at Other Organic Markets and Community Melas
The food we grow, sell and serve at Beejom comes with a story... "khet se pet tak". It is a lovely tale of healing the soil so that food can grow in an atmosphere of richness and diversity. Where flora and fauna are allowed to naturally proliferate and create an ambience of a forest in a farmland. It is a kind of agriculture that allows you to embrace and harness nature to grow as against fearing it. There are insects in our farm; not pests just there are companion plants, not weeds. The animals, the plants, the flowers and the bees and insects all come together to create this magic. This is probably also what organic really means and this is maybe the only kind of food we should really be growing and eating. We have a Mobile Beejom Kirana Dukaan too that travels with us from one market and Mela to another to tell the tale of growing food sustainably.
We love markets in community spaces. Fresh produce, delicious food, conversations, music, and laughter. The best ingredients for an outstanding coming together of sustainable thoughts and ideas. We tell our story at all these spaces; make relationships, and feed each other not just food but thoughts too.
Beejom has workshops on various topics to encourage urban folk in particular to take an interest in all things connected with nature. Some of the workshops have been on Beekeeping, cooking with millets, grow your own food, compassion for animals, composting, and making newspaper bags and bin liners. There is also a small high tea during the Mandi where we serve farm-made refreshments too so that people can come and spend a few relaxing hours in a farm environment close to nature.
Beejom is a small project with big ideas. It’s about community living and homesteading; kindness and compassion. It’s about making organic a way of life in thought and sustainability the keyword. It’s about inclusiveness and interactions; creating knowledge banks and sharing freely. It’s about all the many stories of the beautiful journey to sustainable living. This planet needs this now more than ever.
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