By Dhyana Balasubramanian, GIS Analyst, Conscious Planet - Save Soil.

Beginnings of a Simple Interest

Shyamala is from the town of Mettur in Salem district, Tamil Nadu. As a homemaker looking to grow food for her family and planning to sell the surplus, she started cultivating vegetables on a small scale. To experiment, she began cultivating brinjal (eggplant) on an acre, following conventional, chemical-based methods like other farmers in her region. After one or two harvests, she realized that whatever little profit she earned was being spent entirely on repaying the cost of inputs. On top of that, exposure to chemical inputs began to affect her health, causing physical discomfort that became hard to ignore. She said her eight-year-old son often told her, “Amma (Mom), you’re killing the insects and hurting yourself— isn’t there another way to do this?” His words stayed with her and prompted her to look for a better path.

A simple interest turned into true passion

Her search led her to the Isha Agro Movement, now the Save Soil Regenerative Revolution - SSRR. She came across an article in a magazine about SSRR’s farmer trainings on natural farming and attended several trainings where the sessions facilitated direct knowledge transfer from model farmers to the attendees. She learned how to prepare natural inputs, develop pest repellents from locally available ingredients, and adopt effective marketing strategies.

Looking at the potential of natural farming practices , she committed fully to them in her second year of farming and began cultivating traditional rice varieties using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), relying entirely on natural inputs across 10 acres of land. “After the training, I sold my exotic breeds of cows and bought native Indian breeds because I learned that a healthy native cow produces 2–8 liters of milk daily, along with 10–15 kg of dung and 6–8 liters of urine. From a natural farming perspective, the manure and urine are often more valuable than the milk itself. Indigenous cow dung is rich in diverse beneficial microbes, making it ideal for preparing jeevamrutha, panchagavya, and other bio-fertilizers. This directly enhances soil fertility without synthetic chemicals, eliminating the need for costly external inputs. It’s a one-time, invaluable investment,” she says.

Working Through Barriers

In the early years, Shyamala faced several challenges. Coming from a non-farming background, she had no prior experience in areas like farm management, labor handling, and market access. Initial profits were low, and progress was slow. But she was aware of this common transition period shifting from conventional to natural farming, as the  land needs time to heal. Eventually, she overcame these barriers by learning from experienced natural farmers, visiting their farms, and adapting their practices to her own soil and climatic conditions. After two to three years, the soil condition improved and slowly started to become more productive. Today, she recalls that her land was once rough and lifeless, but after nearly eight to nine years of natural farming, it is now soft and sponge-like.

Two years ago, in addition to paddy cultivation, Shyamala introduced multilayer cropping on more than two acres of land. This integrated model includes banana, coconut, mango, guava, turmeric, yam and other crops, enriching biodiversity and boosting income. She gradually built direct customer relationships from the initial days, and today, she sells nearly 60 value-added products—including soaps, herbal hair wash powders, protein powder mixes, various rice varieties, and more—directly to customers.

Finding Her True Asset

Today, Shyamala maintains a seed bank with over 100 traditional seed varieties, many of which she personally collected from tribal regions and other states. What’s more surprising -  she does not own the land she farms—it is leased. When asked if it is profitable to do farming on leased land, Shyamala replied, “I started this in my thirties with nothing. I was a homemaker with no farming background, but now I am a successful regenerative farmer, seed conservator, and entrepreneur. More than profit, I see this as an expansion of my experience, my knowledge, and myself. That is the real asset in my life.”

For Shyamala, farming may be profitable, but more than that, farming was a path of personal growth through which  she has found peace in working with nature.