Two Mumbaikars share important lessons about farming in this new book

Arti Dwarkadas and Suzann Homan at the farm

1 Community is everything

Lawyers for drawing sound deeds, local help for fixing water and electricity problems, agricultural consultants like Grim Sanjay for farm expertise, and trustworthy employees like Maruti and Vandana proved that a community builds farmland. Together, they dug, planted, and sowed with abandon, while dealing collectively with everyday hurdles. At the same time, knowing their neighbours gave Dwarkadas and her farming partner Suzann Homan an understanding of how they too were part of the larger village community.

2 Facing the big kahuna, the Satbara document

If you're looking at owning a piece of farmland in the district of Raigad in rural Maharashtra, you will learn that satbara utara (or the 7/12 form) is the ultimate authority in such land records as it contains everything about a piece of land: its ownership history, tenancy claims, government restrictions, legal disputes. Getting one's names entered into the 7/12 records can be a long process. It involves navigating rural bureaucracy; beware of farm fiends.

3 Never underestimate the value of a toolshed

A toolshed with an attached bathroom became a necessity

Farming is all about using the right tools - wheelbarrows, cutters, shovels, pipes - to grow the right crops. Because of their weight, it can be difficult to carry the tools back and forth every day between the farm and a safe place. Having a toolshed at the farm makes it easier to store them close by, and avoid the burden of moving the growing arsenal daily.

4 Mushrooms and rats are best friends

Local residents from the community helped the duo set up the farm

Dwarkadas's farm partner Homan dreamed of an oyster mushroom empire. However, growing them taught her that when mushrooms are ready, they have to be harvested instantly and taken to a cool place to be consumed super-quick. Moreover, with the arrival of monsoon, bags of mushrooms can turn into breeding grounds for big, fat rats. Mushrooms need permanent rodent proof-structures to protect them, not hay thatched roofs.

5 Google Lens is wildlife version of Sherlock Holmes

Google Lens helps accurately identify ‘monsoon rubbish' as wild turmeric flowers hiding medicinal turmeric rhizomes and seemingly dangerous blue scorpions as only mildly venomous ones. The app behaves like Sherlock Holmes to locate wild creatures and unfamiliar crops. Additionally, when one forgets or dismisses what one had planted, it saves time by recognising the crops, and sometimes, even catching and diagnosing problems in them early.

Available: Leading bookstores & e-stores
Cost: Rs 499