There is no single trick to farming dry land. There is a sequence, and the sequence matters more than any individual step. Here is ours, in the order we had to do it.
Thorny scrub removed across the plantation area, followed by tilling and levelling. This stage alone ran over a year before the land was ready for anything. Reclamation is unglamorous, expensive and produces no revenue, which is precisely why most attempts at dry-land farming skip it and fail.
Collection: Borewells across the plantation draw what the ground yields. Rainwater harvesting structures capture monsoon runoff that would otherwise be lost within hours. In a district where annual rainfall arrives in a few concentrated bursts, catching it is not optional.
Storage: Rather than pumping direct to field, output is collected in a farm well cleaned and revived for the purpose. This buffers supply and means irrigation is not hostage to a single pump's daily output.
Delivery: Drip lines run to every tree, with raingun and sprinkler where the crop and stage call for broader coverage. The drip layout was designed first, and planting positions marked to match it. Not one drop is broadcast onto open soil.
Pumps and drip systems run on solar panels installed on the farm. In an area where grid supply is unreliable and diesel is costly, this took our most critical operation off both. Government subsidy schemes supported the drip, raingun, sprinkler, solar pumpset, sprayer and power tiller investments — support available to any farmer here who applies for it. We are glad to explain the process to anyone who asks.
Drip fertigation: nutrients delivered dissolved through the same drip lines that carry water, straight to the root zone. Nothing is broadcast across open soil to be lost to evaporation or run-off. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University's Dean of Horticulture specifically recorded the drip fertigation system when he inspected the orchard.
The farm runs a small dairy unit, and the primary purpose is not milk — it is manure. Around 30 kg of cow dung goes into every tree each year. Vermicompost supplements it. A bio-gas unit processes farm waste. Chemical inputs are kept to the minimum the crop will tolerate. One four-acre mango block is maintained entirely chemical-free. Nothing we sell is ripened with carbide or artificially coloured.
Every crop on this farm earned its place by trial. New varieties are introduced in small batches of ten to fifteen saplings and observed across seasons before any commitment to scale. It is slower than planting what the nursery recommends. It is also why our survival rates are what they are.
Trees are set at closer spacing than conventional orchard practice. More canopy per acre means more yield, more shade holding soil moisture, and less bare ground losing water to the sun. Every horticulture officer who has inspected this farm has recorded close planting as one of its defining techniques.
Brinjal, tomato and chillies are grown as annual crops alongside the perennial orchards. Young orchards take years to yield; annual crops generate income in the meantime and keep the soil worked and covered. Ramanathapuram is chilli country — the district's Mundu chilli carries a GI tag — so the crop suits both the land and the local market.
“…adopting new technologies, like drip irrigation, close planting of Mango, Guava, Amla and Acid lime, with rain water harvesting, and introducing organic farming techniques…”
— Deputy Director of Horticulture, Ramanathapuram, 2019
A mature tree eventually slows in how much carbon it takes in. Growth plateaus, and so does absorption.
Our orchards are managed to prevent that. Trees are pruned annually to a set height, and everything above it is harvested. The tree responds by producing new wood — and new wood means active carbon absorption, indefinitely.
The result is an orchard that keeps sequestering carbon year after year rather than tapering off, while continuing to produce food and income from the same acre. Across 171.5 acres at 2.5 tonnes per acre per year, that is roughly 428 tonnes of CO₂ absorbed annually.
Not all arid land can be converted to forest — doing so at scale would trade carbon gains against food supply, and forests need continuous funding to maintain. A productive orchard funds itself.
| Metric | Forest | Managed Orchard |
|---|---|---|
| CO₂ per acre | 2.5 | 2.5 |
| Continues indefinitely | No | Yes |
| Local employment | No | Yes |
| Community income | No | Yes |
| Self-sustaining | No | Yes |
Primary: SDG 13: Climate Action · SDG 15: Life on Land
Also supports: Poverty reduction, Hunger and food production, Health, Decent work, Reduced inequality, Reduced distress migration
Farmers come to Vallandai to see how this was done. Groups have travelled from as far as Dindigul to study our orchard layout, water management and crop selection, and the district administration has invited us to speak to local farmers and officials.\n\nIf you farm dry land and want to see the system working, come and look at it. There is no charge for this.
If you farm dry land, we'll walk you through water storage, drip layout, crop selection and inter-cropping — free of charge.