Nowadays people tend to choose a sustainable way of living life. Nature might not have the technical aspects of development to offer but it definitely guarantees a healthy life to lead, which is a rare novelty in today’s time. Following this wisdom, an optimistic IIT graduate quits his job to grow over 400 acres of community forest.
Sunith Reddy, an entrepreneur from Hyderabad and an ex IIT-Madras graduate, chose to have a sustainable lifestyle over the urban settlement. He became tired of the exhausting city life and decided to move to a remote location and take up farming to connect with nature.
Initially, he started organic farming on a small patch of land near Bengaluru in the year 2015-16 but sooner he realized the economic challenges of small-scale farming. In 2017, Sunith decided to quit his job in order to peruse a community forest project, ‘BeForest’ for compatible people sharing similar principles.
Image: The Better India
At the beginning of the project, only some members including Reddy’s friend Shaurya Chandra joined in. They started by identifying 10 acres of abandoned land in Hyderabad; their aim was not to focus on farming but to restore the land. Because of the early success, they later on perused farming and as a result, more people joined them.
Sunith further said;
We created and managed a sustainable food forest and collectively owned living spaces based on regenerative farming methods leading to food, water and power security.
BeForest enables the setup and facilitates the procedure during the early years at a price akin to a small house in the city for a part of revenue shared during a specified period.
With time, the concept developed into a startup that facilitates the same idea for others. The venture supports people by allowing them to turn a space into a self-sustaining forest. The houses are equipped with modern facilities made from locally sourced materials with a varied range of plants, crops and trees and the collectives are designed on the principles of permaculture.
As of now, Sunith has grown over 400 acres of community forest with able help from 160 farmers. He said that there are two more collectives planned near Mumbai and Chikmagalur that will extend the land area to 1000 acres. This startup is definitely one of a kind and it highlights the importance of sustainability.
Via: The Better India