Un-Boxing Organics

How can we use design thinking to improve the ecosystem for organics in India? Yesterday, the UnBox conference gathered a group of 18 people--including farmers, designers, architects, and others from at least four countries--to tackle this question. Four of us presented what we had learned from recent visits to farms and conversations with farmers, retailers, and middlemen. 

Then we divided into groups to brainstorm and scheme. We thought about how to reach people through institutions like schools, hospitals, or temples, what celebrities would be good champions for the benefits of organic food, and what it would take to make policymakers want to mainstream organics. The excitement in the room was tangible. People were exchanging contact information and farmers were arranging to deliver produce to others in the room. 

Discussion participant with some brainstormed ideas.

Ideas ranged from the practical to the pie-in-the-sky: 
--Asking local restaurants to feature at least one item on the menu made from organic ingredients
--Giving people portable testers to monitor their own food for pesticide residues
--Connecting Indian organic farmers with retailers, restaurants, and customers through an “E-Bay” type platform
--Featuring organic food on food, parenting, and health shows and magazines

--Making a viral video like “The Story of Stuff” for food

While implementing some of the ideas will take years of work, we've decided to get started on others right away: We’ll be gathering in Lodhi Gardens next weekend for an organic potluck to start weaving a community of people interested in giving everyone access to healthy, chemical-free food. Join us and help build the movement! 

Why does the export authority control organics?

A vertical garden at the Navdanya farm.

“Organics in India fall under the domain of the export authority--and that's deeply insulting.” Dr. Bhatt’s voice was filled with emotion. “There are good reasons for harmonizing organic standards with the rest of the world, but it’s not just Westerners who have a right to eat healthy, organic food! Indians, even poor Indians, have just as much of a right to eat good food. Rather than growing organics for foreigners—which is what putting organics under the export authority implies—we should be growing organic produce to ensure India’s own nutritional security.”

Organic and sustainable farming is Dr. Bhatt’s expertise and passion. He’s worked closely with Vandana Shiva over the past decades and now helps direct Navdanya, a network of seed keepers and organic farmers in India. I was speaking with Dr. Bhatt at the Navdanya farm, a lush block of fields in which Navdanya staff and volunteers cultivate and store seeds from heirloom varieties of mustard, wheat, millet, and other traditional Indian crops. Farmers also come to Navdanya for workshops on organic farming.

Farmers attending a workshop on organic techniques.

The visit was part of an “organics fellowship” organized by an innovation firm (modeled on IDEO) based near Delhi. The other three fellows—a designer, a filmmaker, and a principal from the innovation firm—and I set out to explore organic food in India from a multidisciplinary perspective. We spoke with retailers, organic and non-organic farmers, experts, and others involved in the organics ecosystem. 

People get into organics for different reasons: The owner of a small retail store, for example, prides herself on the quality of the craft organic products she sells, and on making sure the farmers with whom she works get good, fair prices. She says she’s, “In it for the farmer, not looking to provide cheap organic food to Delhi.” 

Satish, from a much larger-scale operation with a very different mission, gave us a different perspective. He manages the North India purchasing of fresh food for Spar, the world’s largest food retail chain, which recently opened its first hypermarket in Delhi. They stock a variety of organic produce, but find that organics make up far less than 1% of sales. Although Satish sees organic as a growing market, it’s limited by the lack of a year-round supply from certified farmers, and the small base of customers currently aware of organics and willing to pay a 30-300% premium. But with a special area in the wholesale market that would facilitate streamlined connections to certified farmers, he thinks retailers could easily create demand for organic food. 

Navdanya stores seeds from these heirloom crops in a seed bank.

Right now, India has streamlined systems to send organic food abroad, not to sell it domestically. Is it a surprise that more than half the organic food produced in India is exported?

What role should organics play in India? In other emerging or developing economies? If you’re interested in exploring these questions some more, join the other fellows and me for a panel and discussion this Friday at the UnBox design festival in Delhi. 

"Leveraging Agriculture to Improve Nutrition and Health"

For all those interested in the broader context for my research on supermarkets and fruit and vegetable markets in India, I wanted to belatedly link to materials from a conference I recently attended on "Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health." You can also check out my e-poster.

When you ask for a raspberry in India...

"Rasbhari" fruit in a round bundle.

When my Hindi teacher told me the name for this small orange fruit, a little like a sweet tomatillo, was "raspberry," I thought he must be mistaken. But no! The Hindi name for the fruit is "rasbhari," which comes from "ras" (रस), meaning "juice," and "bhari" (भरी) meaning "full."

The English name for the fruit is the cape gooseberry. They're all over Delhi's fruit and vegetable stands right now, artfully bundled in balls like a pincushions, with papery leaves stuffing the inside and the berries studding the outside like bright orange pin heads. The berries are sweet with a slight sour edge, and pop in your mouth like a cherry tomato. Perfect for a snack while walking to the metro!

Goats wearing cardigans!

Everyone's favorite topic of conversation right now in Delhi is the chilly weather. Men are donning sparkly (!) sweater vests and women are bundling layers of sweaters on top of saris and salwar kameez suits. This week I saw my favorite example of protection against the cold in Sangam Vihar--one of New Delhi's largest and oldest unauthorized neighborhoods--where I've been collecting data for my study on fruit and vegetable purchasing habits and preferences. Among dilapidated roads and smells that testify to the sewage and drinking water crisis in Sangam Vihar, I was amused to see dozens of goats looking grandmotherly in cardigans and sweaters. Almost every goat had one!

A young man walks his sweatered goat in Sangam Vihar. I tried to shoot a picture of this particular goat with his front legs up on a store counter, looking too human for comfort!

Sustainable community in the shadow of the Taj Mahal?

This Sunday, a friend and I woke up at 5 AM, fumbled into warm clothes, and drove out to some mustard fields just south of the Taj Mahal to watch six weddings take place simultaneously.

We were in a town called Dayalbagh, an "intentional" community near Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal. The six brides all shared a ceremony. They were required to wear the same simple dress and yellow headscarf. The weddings took place in the fields at dawn, the time of day when everyone in the village puts in a few hours of agricultural work. In fact, my friend and I spent about 15 minutes pulling out weeds from among the mustard plants before we joined the crowd gathering around the wedding. The weddings don't take place every day--this was a special Sunday--so I'm more interested in writing about the weeding than the weddings.

Weeding in the fields at dawn in Dayalbagh.

I first learned about Dayalbagh at the Indian Horticultural Congress two weeks before, when I saw a poster about the sustainable cultivation practices there. The two women presenting the poster described an ideal community: Community members voluntarily work in the fields every morning, dowries are outlawed and women are empowered to organize sustainable industries, and solar panels power the university. It all sounded too good to be true! They urged me to visit.

My friend and I arrived late Saturday night to a delicious meal, complete with roti made from flour farmed in Dayalbagh and yogurt from cows we would visit the next morning. Our host was incredulous that we didn't make our own yogurt. She sent us back with a bit of her culture, and we're using it to make our own back in Delhi.

I had been dubious about whether people actually volunteered in the fields as the poster described. But when we woke up before dawn the next morning and drove out the fields, they were packed. Multiple trucks packed with fifty-plus people each headed through the fog to the fields. We weeded side by side with the director of the university and doctors--everyone had professions of different ranks, but became equal in the fields every morning.

Even after a day of touring the community, I still don't quite understand how it functions. I'll return in January to learn more!

Making Thanksgiving stuffing without an oven

In case it's helpful to anyone else currently living without an oven, I just made pretty delicious stuffing on the stove! I sauteed some onions and garlic, threw them in a pan with dried bread cubes, and added two eggs beaten with milk and Italian seasoning (the only non-Indian seasoning we had). After cooking for a few minutes on the stove (flipping it to cook through), it tasted like Thanksgiving!