chemical food

Every Saturday, I open my email inbox to find a mail with a form that I have to fill out and send by Tuesday. The form has a list of vegetables along with their prices. I fill and email the form at my convenience, and on Wednesday, I get my order delivered at home. Not only that, but the vegetables - and other produce like rice, pickles, panner - is 100 per cent organic. This initiative of providing organic vegetables to consumers at their doorstep is a venture of the Gomukh Centre for Rural Sustainability, known also as GORUS. Located about 40 kms from Pune, Gorus is an innovative idea that marries convenience for consumers, assured market for farmers and a quest for sustainable farming.

It began as a small in-house pilot project of the Gomukh Trust that works on issues of sustainable agricultural development for marginal farmers, irrigation management with equitable distribution of water and rural development through Integrated Watershed Management approach in the Kolwan valley near Pune. They started organic cultivation of vegetables on one of their own demonstration farms and established a marketing relationship with 5-6 families. In about six months, this experiment attracted the attention of many neighbouring farmers, who expressed interest in joining it.

In operation now for more than two years, Gorus has a network of about 50 committed families as consumers and 25 farmers as suppliers, and growing steadily. The small numbers are a result of deliberate strategy, a part of the Gorus philosophy and vision. Moreover, as Ashwin Paranjpe, the Principal Coordinator of Gorus, points out, the work of Gorus is very human resource intensive.