: At This Kerala Farm, You Can Weave Your Clothes And Grow Your Food For Free #IndiaNEWS #Handicrafts W hen you step into Farmer’s Share, Ambrose Kooliyath’s organic farm and craft centre on the

At This Kerala Farm, You Can Weave Your Clothes And Grow Your Food For Free #IndiaNEWS #Handicrafts
W hen you step into Farmer’s Share, Ambrose Kooliyath’s organic farm and craft centre on the outskirts of Shornur, you immediately feel a sense of calm. A few women are occupied with working the looms at the Khadi weaving unit, while the heady aroma of butter emanates from the kitchen and warehouse.
Here, cookies are being baked unconventional flavours like curry leaf and moringa leaf, which taste heavenly.

The centre’s pottery unit’s talents are displayed via terracotta pots with different kinds of hanging and flowering plants. Hibiscus bushes surround the area, with carpets of red flowers laid out in the sun to dry. A worker gathers a batch of colourful sun-dried leaves and flowers, which will be used to make dye. Adorable indie dogs run around their occasional barking and the splashing of fish in the irrigation pond are the only sounds that break the silence in this part of the farm. Walk further, and you enter the woods, and finally the Nila River.
Ambrose’s wife Mini Elizabeth, their two sons Amal and Akhil, and a few teenagers staying on the farm to learn and help, go about their duties quietly. Twenty-year-old Amal designs the orders at the handweaving unit with his friend Rashid, while 18-year-old Akhil designs the terracotta cookware and planters.
On his philosophy in life, Ambrose says, “The essence of it all is the Gandhian concept of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. His idea of a just society is one where the basic needs of a person food, clothing and shelter are met with products sourced from within one’s locality, and not imported from outside. The farm is an attempt at that. ???
“There was a time when families survived on the produce from their compound and made houses using locally available material. Now, for every morsel of food, every household item or piece of clothing, we’re dependent completely on the market and international brands. Kerala currently imports more than 80 per cent of the rice it needs from other states,??? he adds.
Farmer’s Share is also a centre for learning, where children and adults can learn practical life skills like farming, weaving, construction, pottery and associated crafts.
There is no school or that teaches children such farm skills.
One may wonder why the youngsters on the farm are not in school on a weekday morning. However, Ambrose’s two sons have never attended school, or been homeschooled. “We might be 100 per cent literate in Kerala, but how many know how to grow their own food or build a house for themselves? There is no school or education system that teaches children such basic life skills either,??? Ambrose says.

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