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Bhaskar Save
Bhaskar Hiraji Save (27 January 1922 – 24 October 2015), was an Indian farmer, educator and environmental activist known for his work in organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Often referred to as the "Guru of Sustainable Agriculture," he advocated traditional farming methods.
Bhaskar Save was born in the coastal village of Dehri, India, on the Arabian Sea into a family belonging to the Wadval community of farm tenders. His early years were spent in Dehri, at that time a small town in Valsad district in the state of Gujarat. His formal education was till class 7th in school of the old system (equivalent to the class 10th of today's school), followed by two years of work towards the Primary Training Certificate. This qualified him to teach in a secondary school in a neighboring village, which he did for ten years. On 2 February 1951, Bhaskar married Malatibai.
Like most other local farmers, Bhaskar's family used to grow mainly rice, pulses, and some vegetables. People often worked together on each other's fields when extra hands were needed to transplant or harvest a paddy field.Often, he accompanied his father on bullock cart trips through forests to neighboring areas. After encountering the Warli tribe, he was fascinated by their way of life and culture, and particularly awed by their belief that God lived in green trees. Among the Warli, trees were never cut down till they dried and shed all trace of green from their body. It was an idea that struck a chord and was to be applied in his own farming career, since the planting of tree crops was not a part of his family's traditional agricultural practices.
As soon as he married, Bhaskar's family began digging their well. By 1952, the well was completed and a waterwheel was constructed. After harvesting their monsoon rice, the family grew irrigated winter vegetables. And for the first time in his life, Bhaskar Save used chemical fertilizer, together with manure – for his vegetable plants. And, in 1953, he used chemicals for his rain-fed rice paddy as well.
The harvest he reaped attracted attention from a director of the Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation who offered Save an agency contract for marketing their chemical fertilizer. His job included instructing farmers in its use, for which he was promised a commission of Rs 5 on every bag of the chemicals he sold. Soon, Save was recognized as a "model farmer" for his use of the new technology. Several agricultural scientists from Pune and elsewhere drew on his experience for conducting their field trials.
By 1954–55, he had already earned enough money to buy one hectare of land suitable for growing rice to begin his own family farm. This was the first of the plots purchased on which today stands the Save family's Kalpavruksha farm, now a 6 hectare orchard, in Umbergaon region, a coastal zone of South Gujarat.
By 1956, he reverted to his father's traditional farming methods. However, inspired by both the writings of Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave, particularly an article by Vinoba on farming practices of certain adivasis, he decided to revert to an organic system on one paddy for experimentation. This called for changing the impounded water several times in one plot (during pauses in the monsoon rains), without using any chemicals. This, too, was successful.
Though his yield declined the first year, so did his expenses and gradually he converted more acreage, which he reserved entirely for organic experimentation. Organic methods of crop rotation, the planting of un-irrigated pulse legumes, like beans, Bengal gram, moong, and so on after harvesting his organic rice were implemented. He found that winter pulses, which supplied an abundance of atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, grew entirely on the sub-soil moisture still present from the recent monsoon. When the pulses were harvested, cattle were allowed to browse the crop residue in the field, thereby recycling their manure to condition the soil as well.
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Bhaskar Save
Bhaskar Hiraji Save (27 January 1922 – 24 October 2015), was an Indian farmer, educator and environmental activist known for his work in organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Often referred to as the "Guru of Sustainable Agriculture," he advocated traditional farming methods.
Bhaskar Save was born in the coastal village of Dehri, India, on the Arabian Sea into a family belonging to the Wadval community of farm tenders. His early years were spent in Dehri, at that time a small town in Valsad district in the state of Gujarat. His formal education was till class 7th in school of the old system (equivalent to the class 10th of today's school), followed by two years of work towards the Primary Training Certificate. This qualified him to teach in a secondary school in a neighboring village, which he did for ten years. On 2 February 1951, Bhaskar married Malatibai.
Like most other local farmers, Bhaskar's family used to grow mainly rice, pulses, and some vegetables. People often worked together on each other's fields when extra hands were needed to transplant or harvest a paddy field.Often, he accompanied his father on bullock cart trips through forests to neighboring areas. After encountering the Warli tribe, he was fascinated by their way of life and culture, and particularly awed by their belief that God lived in green trees. Among the Warli, trees were never cut down till they dried and shed all trace of green from their body. It was an idea that struck a chord and was to be applied in his own farming career, since the planting of tree crops was not a part of his family's traditional agricultural practices.
As soon as he married, Bhaskar's family began digging their well. By 1952, the well was completed and a waterwheel was constructed. After harvesting their monsoon rice, the family grew irrigated winter vegetables. And for the first time in his life, Bhaskar Save used chemical fertilizer, together with manure – for his vegetable plants. And, in 1953, he used chemicals for his rain-fed rice paddy as well.
The harvest he reaped attracted attention from a director of the Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation who offered Save an agency contract for marketing their chemical fertilizer. His job included instructing farmers in its use, for which he was promised a commission of Rs 5 on every bag of the chemicals he sold. Soon, Save was recognized as a "model farmer" for his use of the new technology. Several agricultural scientists from Pune and elsewhere drew on his experience for conducting their field trials.
By 1954–55, he had already earned enough money to buy one hectare of land suitable for growing rice to begin his own family farm. This was the first of the plots purchased on which today stands the Save family's Kalpavruksha farm, now a 6 hectare orchard, in Umbergaon region, a coastal zone of South Gujarat.
By 1956, he reverted to his father's traditional farming methods. However, inspired by both the writings of Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave, particularly an article by Vinoba on farming practices of certain adivasis, he decided to revert to an organic system on one paddy for experimentation. This called for changing the impounded water several times in one plot (during pauses in the monsoon rains), without using any chemicals. This, too, was successful.
Though his yield declined the first year, so did his expenses and gradually he converted more acreage, which he reserved entirely for organic experimentation. Organic methods of crop rotation, the planting of un-irrigated pulse legumes, like beans, Bengal gram, moong, and so on after harvesting his organic rice were implemented. He found that winter pulses, which supplied an abundance of atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, grew entirely on the sub-soil moisture still present from the recent monsoon. When the pulses were harvested, cattle were allowed to browse the crop residue in the field, thereby recycling their manure to condition the soil as well.