Hosachiguru- Managed Farmlands

Drylands typically face severe water scarcity and commonly have scanty and dry vegetation. They cover 41% of the earth’s land surface and house an estimated 2 billion people (FAO, 2019). While drylands are adaptable to climatic variability and water stress, they are also vulnerable to degradation by anthropogenic activities such as deforestation, urbanization, and unsustainable agricultural practices (tilling, intensive farming, fertilizer & pesticide abuse, etc). These practices disrupt the nutrient cycles, increase soil salinity, and destroy important soil microfauna (bacteria). 

India is an agricultural powerhouse with 60% of its land under cultivation (The World Bank, 2016). Despite India’s status as a global powerhouse, agriculture is a highly resource intensive industry. In the last decade, unsustainable irrigation methods, fertilizer and pesticidal abuse, poor soil fertility and over-tillage, have perhaps been the most damaging factors to soil health and agricultural yield. As a result of declining crop yields, food prices have shot up. The Covid-19 Pandemic has placed immense pressure on the agricultural industry. As an essential service industry, it is therefore important to elevate efficiency in agriculture.

Agroforestry  is a low-cost method of integrated land management where trees are cultivated along with cash crops. Cultivating trees in combination with crops and cattle is an ancient traditional practice across South-east Asia. In India, the practice of growing sacred trees scattered across farms is an age-old practice. Most efforts in agroforestry have been focused on the biophysical benefits of enhancing the environment.  Hosachiguru farms  revive agroforestry by spotlighting both its biophysical and socio-economic benefits to the community. 

One might wonder. How does tree start production of heartwood? What happens in tree that triggers formation of heartwood? Let’s understand the process of  heartwood  formation from the metabolic perspective of plant. All of us know that tree is a living entity with trillions of living cells. Each cell in a tree carries out all metabolic activities like growth, elongation, multiplication, respiration and excretion. Each of these activities involves spending energy in form of energy currency of plant called as Adenosine Tri-Phosphate (ATP). ATP is produced by plant through the process of photosynthesis which produces glucose which is subsequently converted into energy currency.

Wood has been a companion of humans since prehistoric times and has been through the passage of civilisations. In today’s context of ‘Global warming’ an alarming emergency, wood is the most carbon neutral material available. Heartwood is the most important natural and endlessly renewable source of energy and therefore has a major role as an environmentally cost-effective natural resource.