When Dan ran away from his new home in Ooty and was never found, neither my sister nor I pushed for another pet. We liked dogs when they were around. But Dad’s transfers, our studies, and Mom’s mixed feelings made it easy to let the idea sit — for decades, as it turned out.

The gap between Dan and our next pet was nearly thirty years.

How much of finally deciding to get one should be credited to social media algorithms? Probably more than I’d like to admit. The choice of a Golden Retriever was almost certainly algorithm-assisted. Once we had Leo, #ForeverGoldenRetriever stopped being a hashtag and became a motto.

Mid 2021 is when we made up our minds to move to a Tier II city. Getting a pet was a joint family decision — and an energising one. We visited a couple of pet stores in Hyderabad. I reached out to long-lost contacts for breeder referrals — that’s how I first heard of Farmers Choice.

After a few referrals and some internet digging, we found a Hyderabad-based breeder.

For novice eyes, the pups looked excellent. We didn’t know what to look for yet. The father was a show-quality stud. The mother was in post-partum care. This was early January. We were slated to bring the pup home in February 2022.

The breeder delivered him in a cardboard box on a sunny February afternoon. We were ready — bed, first toys, pee pads, the works.

What a joy. Except for the cleaning up.

We named him Leo, for the mane that Golden Retrievers grow into. Leo wasn’t a difficult pup — good with sleep, not destructive. Except for a pair of slippers, our furniture was spared. Leo in tow, we moved to our own house early April 2022.

Leo handled the 14-hour drive from Hyderabad rather well. He didn’t eat a proper meal through it, but we kept treats and liquids handy. A pet-friendly serviced apartment bridged the gap between our arrival and the housewarming.

Through a referral, we found a trainer from the Police K9 unit. Leo picked up his tricks. Leash control — as with every dog in this house — remains a work in progress. I’ve stopped holding that against any of them; it needs more repetition from our end than we’ve managed.

Leo was a darling throughout his short span. My heart grows heavy writing this.

He had his share of health scares. None of us saw how swift the end would be. One root cause, we later understood, was unethical inbreeding. The questions I keep returning to, even in 2026:

Was it the environment? Open spaces carry their share of pests.

Was it the variation in food at home?

Was it the competency of vets here?

Is this country genuinely pet-friendly?

I don’t have clean answers to any of them.

May 8th, 2024 was Leo’s last day.

Leo’s loss — at a young age, to causes that may have been preventable — shifted something. A pet is not a decoration or a status symbol. They depend entirely on what we decide for them: the breeder, the vet, the food, the time. That weight hasn’t left me. If anything, it has pushed me toward thinking about what dogs genuinely need — beyond companionship, beyond affection.

The house felt desolate after. Part of what I felt was grief. Part was something closer to anger — at ourselves, at the situation, at the unanswered questions.

Farmers Choice had been consistent with WhatsApp status updates through all of this. That nudged me toward trying again — this time with a breeder who claimed ethical practices and top-quality lineage. We discussed it as a family. The decision: not one pup. Two.

The two pups were born on May 17th, 2024 — nine days after Leo’s last day. They arrived home on July 4th, 2024.

They needed names.

I was insistent on four-letter names — Dan and Leo had set that pattern without my realising it, and three letters felt too short now.

Otis — from a web series. Ollie — shortened from Oliver.

If Leo was gentle and contained, Otis and Ollie arrived like a joint announcement of chaos. With two, the cleaning wasn’t double — it was quadruple. Chair legs became chew toys. Wallpaper was not spared. Slippers, predictably, suffered. Feeding time brought a level of ruckus that, on one of Mom’s rare visits, drove her out of the kitchen entirely.

We found a trainer — Pramod who had worked on the Kannada film 777 Charlie. The training ran for nearly fifty days. The time they were away was, honestly, a breather. The house stayed clean. As eager pet parents we made a mid-term visit to check on their progress; saw the explosive energy they were carrying.

A word on each of them, as they are in 2026:

Otis — clingy, seeks human touch through the day, eager to please. Has learnt words: wipe, car, tata. The kind of dog who follows you from room to room and considers your lap a rightful territory.

Ollie — needs his space, has a mind of his own. Less interested in approval, more interested in his own agenda. Will come to you on his terms, which somehow makes it more satisfying when he does.

Both are anxious in cars. We’re working on it.

In 2026, I still think there’s room for one or two more. A Belgian Malinois perhaps, or a German Shepherd — a nod back to Dan. Life will decide the timing.

For now, Otis and Ollie own the stairs, the garden, and a significant portion of the furniture. The house hasn’t been quiet since July 2024.

That feels exactly right.

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 — Dan, the Pet Who Found Us — is here.

When I write this in 2026, my love for pets—especially dogs, and within that Golden Retrievers—is undiminished.

People sometimes ask where this came from. I usually joke that no dog ever barks at me. The honest answer begins in Manjankarani — a small village outside Madras — and Ooty, long before smartphones, when pets were rarely photographed. Cameras and film were not fixtures in every home then.

Dad was a vet by education, a specialist in bovine gynecology and artificial insemination. Pets weren’t a problem from his side. Mom grew up surrounded by animals too. She doesn’t exactly like them, but she never shunned them either. Apparently my grandfather even kept deer at home; I remember seeing a pair of stag horns in Manjankarani.

I can’t call the village strays our first pets, but there were a bunch of indies my cousin and I played with and fed. We were a pampered lot there. Once, he even captured a parrot and left it with my grandmother to care for. Monday to Friday, we were back at school in Madras. By the time we returned, the parrot hadn’t survived the cage. That was one of my earliest lessons in how badly good intentions can go with animals.

My uncle did not want dogs around until much later, when they’d be useful as guard dogs. My cousin and I had to hide our dog-time from him. We used to beg, or just quietly take, milk from grandma to feed them — the farm’s cows and buffaloes made that easy.

Our first unplanned pet arrived in Ooty.

His name was Dan, chosen from the horse-racing section of the newspaper. There was a horse called Double Dan, and somehow “Dan” stuck. He was a German Shepherd, a crossbreed from what I heard, though I never knew with what. Maybe because of the Ooty weather, he was much furrier than the shepherds you usually see—almost like a Pomeranian in a GSD’s body. He was meant for one of Dad’s colleagues, but the colleague never took him.

I still remember the day my sister and I came home from school and saw a small pup tentatively sneak out from under the sofa and softly bite my shoe and socks. Both of us were overjoyed. Mom kept reminding us he would go to his “real” home soon.

He never left.

Dan was a high-drive dog. Because of the Ooty weather and our school routines, he never had a formal walk schedule. His first neck belt was one of my outgrown belts, the kind with some elastic in it. Dan quickly figured out how to slip out of it when excited. He never bit or hurt anyone, but the speed at which he sprinted and chased people scared them senseless.

We were lucky to be living on a large farm, so space wasn’t an issue. He had room to drain his energy. The way he would recognize our car long before it reached the gate was pure cliché: the dog as man’s best friend. In my case, as a boy’s best friend. We truly grew up together. I had no idea then about daily walks, deworming schedules, vaccinations—he was just my dog.

Bath days were a spectacle. With his fur and energy, it was something to watch from a safe distance. I don’t remember him having ticks; maybe the disinfectant shampoos did their job.

Dan stayed with us until Dad was transferred to Tanjavur. The vet in Dad worried that a dog who’d spent his whole life in Ooty might not survive the plains heat. Dan found a home within the farm. At that age, all I knew was that we were the ones going away.

We parted not by choice but by circumstance. I was in the middle of my 10th grade when Dad’s transfer came through. There was no time for a proper goodbye. We were children, and these were not our decisions to make.

I visited Ooty a few years later with my friends. By then Dan had run away from his new home and was never found.

Neither my sister nor I pestered our parents for a new pet after that. We liked dogs when they were around, but Dad’s transfers, our studies, and Mom’s mixed feelings meant it never felt like the right time. I had to wait all the way till 2022 to bring another dog home.

Maybe that long gap is why Leo, and now Otis and Ollie, occupy so much space in my heart. They’re not just pets—they’re a continuation of something that began with indies in Manjankarani and a furry German Shepherd who snuck out from under a sofa in Ooty and claimed us as his own.

---

Note: Dan belonged to a pre-smartphone time. I don’t have a single photo of him—all I have is memory. If a picture ever surfaces from family albums, I’ll add it here.

Part 1 of 2. Part 2 — Leo, Otis & Ollie — coming next week.

March was high on learning, laying a foundation for the months ahead.

Navaramba by GKVK (3rd–13th)

March started with a startup pre-incubation programme — GKVK’s Navaramba — running from 3rd to 13th. The kind of event that doesn’t give you one clean takeaway but leaves you with a lot to sit with. The talk that stayed with me stemmed from one session in particular: how Indian agriculture is today, and how small cohorts of agripreneurs will meaningfully address that, if at all. A decade down, are we quietly moving towards corporate farming? There is enough economics literature advocating for farmers to exit marginal farming and move towards higher-value economic activity. I don’t have a counter to that. What I keep asking myself is: will that transition happen at the pace and scale economists envision? And at what cost to the consumer, or to state capacity that still leans on subsidies and freebies?

The other thread that stayed with me: there is funding flowing towards agri start-ups, but procedural hurdles are many. For a farmer navigating nature’s vagaries, fluctuating prices, and sometimes zero earnings, being asked to pivot to high-value crops and tech — with all the compliance and insurance complexity — is a tall ask.

What Navaramba clarified for FarmSay: Do I go mile wide and inch deep, or the other way around? That question is still open, but at least it is now more sharply framed. The point I am trying to find is where spreadsheets and PPTs meet farmer realities and farm systems. Educated folks, maybe those displaced by AI, may move into agri with the same “can do” attitude they were incentivized to have in the corporate world. FarmSay’s innings, I think, is locked somewhere at that point of confluence.

Takshashila GCPP Weekend (27th–29th)

The weekend workshop with the Takshashila Institution’s GCPP programme landed in an already hectic month. Day job was demanding, family time was squeezed (new academic year for the twins, which helped a little), and fitting in policy homework made it feel like a lot. But something clicked during the GMO research.

While working on policy alternatives, our team found that soil-less or CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture) was the second strongest area of alignment. Four other teams were focused on GM mustard and other crops still navigating India’s regulatory and legal landscape. Livestock feed via CEA felt different: a lower-resistance path, a broader conversation, and closer to what I think FarmSay’s eventual thesis is. Not the glamorous export-ready fruits and vegetables, but serving the complementary, closer demographic of livestock farmers.

If I had to frame a realistic win from this line of thinking: a pilot growing soil-less feed for a stall-fed operation or a farm closer to home. That’s the direction April points.

Home Systems: NFT, Dutch Bucket, Aeroponics, Microgreens

March was a debugging month on the terrace.

The Ayozari NFT has been the most stable: a steady stream of spinach, short learning curve, proving its reliability. Dutch Bucket seedlings are showing robust early growth, but I’m still observing.

Aeroponics is where things got interesting. Seeds germinated well, early growth looked promising — then yellowing leaves showed up in the last week. Likely a nutrient imbalance; the fix is to pump out the tank and refill. Still working through it. The hardware itself feels fairly polished, but the interlocking pieces don’t snap into place like a Swiss lock, which may be causing uneven irrigation. I’m also figuring out root exposure when transferring cocopeat pellets to net cups.

A new aeroponics tower from Homeponics arrived this month and is still in the box. Longevity and spare availability are questions I’ll watch as both systems settle in.

One honest admission: I haven’t been measuring EC and pH as regularly as I should. NFT has been forgiving; aeroponics and Dutch bucket less so. The bigger learning I am still working towards is finding the delta between seed vigor and the environmental factors that are actually in my control. No pests though, which is something.

In one line: NFT is in proving-stability mode; aeroponics and Dutch bucket are in debugging mode; microgreens are about building muscle.

Microgreens deserve a separate mention. This is where the journey started — and I getting trained back in December ‘25. Many failed batches since. Started 4 trays each on March 30th and 31st. The goal for April isn’t yield, it’s consistency.

Bees

Two bee boxes came home on the 12th. This has been on my wishlist since December 2025, and the honest reason for starting now is to validate my own consistency. Can I manage them reasonably well over 12 months? What are the pitfalls I encounter as an individual?

March was largely about letting them settle. I have not obsessively opened the hives or kept close tabs. I don’t even have a photograph of the hive yet. My relationship with them in March, if I had to use one word: calm.

The practical change to my routine has been minor: checking that our pets don’t disturb them, and making sure their water bowl is filled. That’s about it for now.

I have also been learning about equipment and suppliers, mostly to understand what a more serious setup could look like down the line. Two worth bookmarking: Futuristic Beehive and Farmmily. More on these as I explore.

If measured by visible outcomes, March looks modest. But the foundation being laid, across policy thinking, home systems, and the bees, feels like the kind of work that compounds quietly. Momentum, I am realizing, is less about dramatic progress and more about not stopping.

April has a clear agenda: microgreens consistency, a deeper dive into CEA for livestock feed, and letting the aeroponics debugging play out.

If there is something from this month you want me to dig into, drop a comment or hit reply.

Catch up on previous lookbacks:

FarmSay this Feb: Making It Real

FarmSay this Jan: First Roots

FarmSay this Dec: Field Notes

As always: ideas, experiments, and opinions are mine. AI helped with the edit.

What surprised me was how closely his framing of an “agriculture-centred economy” mapped to what I’m attempting through FarmSay. He argues that if we want a stable economy and meaningful work for most people, we have to move towards a வேளாண்மை சார்ந்த சமூகம்—a society where land, water, food, and livestock sit at the center of economic life, not at the margins. Food self-reliance (தற்சார்பு) becomes a basic condition of national health, not an afterthought once GDP targets are met.

He talks about villages as clusters of small farms and local processing units—milk, oil, eggs, honey, fruits, vegetables—so that people can live and work without being forced into city migration. Taken together, it’s a vision where agriculture is not nostalgia, but infrastructure.

FarmSay lives at a different scale—balcony microgreens, a 60-pot hydroponic system, new beehives on a terrace—but the underlying question feels similar. What does an agriculture-centred life look like when you’re in a city apartment or a small plot, not a 20-acre farm? Can neighborhoods become clusters of micro-farms in the same way he imagines villages as clusters of small farms?

There’s also his critique of “freebie politics” (இலவசம்): support that creates dependency instead of capability. FarmSay’s instinct is almost the opposite model of support—less about giving things away, more about open documentation, shared learning, and skill-building so people can grow a meaningful fraction of their own food, and maybe create small surplus streams.

I’m not writing this as a voter or a supporter—I’m too far away, literally and politically. I’m writing it because it’s interesting to hear a politician in a neighboring state give national-scale language to a question that most people treat as personal or local.

I can’t read or write Tamil, so I used an LLM to interpret the Tamil portions of the interview — the connections to FarmSay are entirely my own.

If you’re curious about how he articulates this vision in full, the interview is worth a listen; FarmSay is just one small attempt to test parts of that agriculture-centered idea in everyday life.

Over the last few months, my schedule has looked more like a student’s than a mid‑career professional’s. There was a UAS incubation program in early March, a 10‑day Navarambha pre‑incubation course at the Agri Innovation Centre in GKVK, and my public policy classes at Takshashila moving toward term‑end. Navarambha is probably the best a government‑backed program can offer right now: structured sessions on markets, business models, value chains and pitching, delivered by people who care about agri‑startups.

But walking out of those classrooms and back into real fields—literal and metaphorical—I’m left with two worries. First, that the incentive to continue farming is eroding in a country that has broadly achieved food security and grown comfortable importing what we want beyond necessity. A fellow participant put it bluntly over coffee: the sale value of agricultural land often exceeds any realistic income from cultivating it over many years. That sentence has stayed with me.

The second worry is about how we talk solutions. In most startup and incubation spaces, the air is full of “market linkages”, “tech enablement” and “scale”. Some of this is clearly useful. But the underlying logic often drifts toward “big is good”: big FPOs, large polyhouses, large platforms. If hydroponics or protected cultivation only seem to “make sense” at a certain industrial scale, what story are we telling smaller, mixed farms that don’t fit that frame.

Half a world away, economist E.F. Schumacher argued that modern economies over‑value what is big, centralized and capital‑heavy, and under‑value what is small, local and people‑centered. In Small Is Beautiful, he wrote in favour of village‑scale, ecologically grounded production systems—arguments that sound close to India’s own debates on rural livelihoods and local food systems. Much earlier, Gandhi’s idea of Gram Swaraj imagined each village as a “complete republic”: largely self‑sufficient for basic needs and relating to the outside world from a place of dignity rather than dependence.

The complication is that we are trying to revive some of these instincts in a fully networked world. The village square is now also the WhatsApp group. Market discovery happens as much on apps as at the mandi. That raises new questions I don’t yet have answers to: if community linkages run on digital rails, who owns and sees the data about what a village grows, consumes and demands.

I come to agriculture with privileges most farmers do not have. So I’m careful not to treat my terrace or my coursework as a grand “experiment with truth”, just as a small attempt to see whether the languages of startups, public policy and self‑reliant communities can do more good than harm when they meet real farmers’ lives.

If you are working on or living inside an example where “small and local” and “tech and markets” are pulling in the same direction for farmers. I’d love to hear about it in the comments - or tell me I’m wrong.

February felt different from the months before. November was about laying groundwork. December was field notes — events, trainings, and one very expensive six-minute slot that vanished at IIHR. January brought first roots: the hydroponic system working, microgreens still refusing to cooperate. Ideas were either going to become real decisions this month, or stay stuck in the 'thinking about it' column.

Hydroponics

The month began with a conversation I had been looking forward to since December — HortiRoad2India. I had been trying to understand their Dutch knowledge-sharing framework for a few months now. Talking with them in February finally gave me a clearer picture of what subject-matter support actually looks like in practice, and how their go-to-market playbooks are adapted rather than just handed over.

That conversation made the homework feel more concrete:

• What does it actually cost to lease agricultural land at a scale that makes sense?

• How close to Bengaluru does it need to be to make logistics and margins work? (Right now my thinking is closer to Bengaluru, given the market size, unless ongoing conversations point to a better balance.)

• Can purchase or volume commitments from hotels or cafés be secured early enough to de-risk the early stage?

The CapEx I am looking at is in the 10–12 crore INR range, which is not a number that allows vague thinking. First instinct is B2B — hotels and cafés, where quality matters more than packaging. Once there's predictability of produce, direct-to-customer or farm-gate becomes the next question. But that needs data, not just direction.

A separate thread: a detailed conversation with Dr. Sudhir Sharan, Head of Department at GKVK, on the viability of strawberries specifically. He made a strong case for value-added products over fresh fruit — the shelf life problem is real. We went through OpEx and CapEx together. We are going to keep meeting through March. That feels like a good use of time.

Towards end of the month — positive movement on the VVCE Mysuru / IIT Ropar MoU, and an encouraging response from VVCE to my outreach. More structured conversations are planned for March. I want to see if FarmSay can plug into that kind of ecosystem in some useful way.

On the hands-on side, I ordered a Dutch bucket setup and a 60-planter aeroponics tower from Pindfresh. Seeds are already in. As I write this, they are germinating quietly.

To pull all these threads into a more coherent frame, I signed up for Navarambha, the agri startup incubation program at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru. Webinars run March 3–12, with an in-person session on March 13. This feels like the right moment to figure out if any of this actually hangs together as a real venture, not just a list of experiments.

Microgreens

Still very much a “work in progress” month. I ran limited batches of onion, methi, and red radish. The onion batch did the best, which I didn’t expect.

The goal here is not scale. A good week simply means microgreens are on the table — in a salad, a smoothie, or alongside whatever we are cooking. To get more consistent at that, I ordered a new tray and broadcast seeds on March 1. The focus now is rhythm, not output.

Beekeeping

This is the thread that feels most tangible right now. Our first two hives should arrive in the first week of March, and they will start on the home terrace. The plan is to learn at home first. Get the basics right. Then look at expanding — through farmers I know, or through Samrudhi Agri Farms if that conversation develops.

In February, and I attended an in-person workshop with Apoorva B V (Beeman_India). The clearest takeaway: you cannot understand a hive without managing one — steadily, sincerely, over time.

Over the longer term, honey is only part of what interests me. Value-added products — beeswax, royal jelly — are on the horizon, but only once hive management is genuinely under control. When the hydroponic systems are running, having bees nearby for pollination is a natural next step.

Bee9 Training Institute is right here in Mysuru — proper training facility, post-harvest equipment, a lab. All under one roof. Should have found this earlier. Met the founder, MACK Prasad. He cleared up a few things I had been getting wrong. They are working toward international standards in Indian beekeeping — didn't expect to find that in Mysuru.

On the community side, I opened a conversation with our Residents Welfare Association about making the neighborhood more pollinator-friendly. Small step, but worth following through on.

And then the algorithm delivered: a product called “Futuristic Beehive” appeared on my feed. Good design, premium price, free worldwide shipping at the time. Homework now: understand the customs angle — and whether someone in India could build something along similar lines.

Sheep, Goats, and the Mushroom Pause

Samrudhi Agri Farms ran two sheep-and-goat workshops in February, with the next one planned for late March after exam season. A conversation with the founder stretched beyond livestock into hydroponics too — which is exactly the kind of cross-linking I want to see more of.

Mushrooms stayed in the “no movement” column. No cultivation progress, and the IIHR refund is still unresolved. I haven't written mushrooms off. First question: is a home terrace setup even feasible here in Mysuru? If yes, then — does it fit the rest of the FarmSay stack, or not? I'd rather know it doesn't work because I tried it, not because I got stuck on a refund.

Wrapping Up February

The month’s scorecard reads mixed. But as a learning journal entry, it feels more like a portfolio taking shape. Two hives on order. Hydroponic systems germinating on the terrace. Microgreens inching toward a weekly rhythm. Navarambha on the calendar.

Progress is still rarely linear here — which, if December taught me anything, is exactly how it goes.

If there is something specific from this month you want me to dig into — the economics, the gear, the people, or the decisions — drop a comment or hit reply. If something here is close to what you're thinking about too, hit reply.

Subscribe to get FarmSay Field Notes in your inbox: short, honest breakdowns of real farm experiments, mistakes, and small wins from our corner of Mysuru.

Catch up on previous lookbacks:

January was high on experiments: good results from the Ayozari hydroponics system, and mixed, often frustrating, microgreen batches.

Hydroponics

On January 7, we transplanted seedlings from grow trays to net cups and officially started a batch of lettuce and spinach. It needed delicate hands because the seedling roots were just developing, and the ‘shock’ of the new NFT environment can easily slow their growth.

Thanks to the steady hands of and one of our 17‑year‑old volunteers, we’re at about 96% success: 21 days after transplanting, the first batch is ready for harvest.

On the second row of the Ayozari system, we also tried sowing seeds directly in the net cups.

Microgreens

It has been a ‘testing’ month, to say the least.

At best, we had mixed results from two batches of alfalfa—and none of them reached our fork.

• Uneven germination and tender stems that couldn’t support further growth.

• Otherwise healthy cotyledons wilted, even though we misted the trays a couple of times during the day.

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s microgreens kit is yet to show signs of germination. It’s been 10 days since sowing. This leads me to two possibilities:

1) The seeds were in the pack too long. So, priming prior to sowing might have helped.

2) Too much moisture from bottom tray. So will be patient for few more days.

On a side note, maybe the kits were closer to their “best by” date, hence the deep discount on quick commerce site.

Beekeeping

Our efforts to learn more, network, and get an actual bee box got a shot in the arm from a recent article in The Hindu.

Stay tuned for more on this in February.

Sheep and goat rearing

Our involvement here is still indirect for now. Stallfed/Samruddhi Agri has restarted their in-person one day training from January 2026. The first February batch is scheduled for the 8th.

Mushrooms

We’re still awaiting a refund from IIHR for the training fee paid for an unsuccessful registration. I’m not very hopeful of a positive response, but I’ll keep you posted on how it plays out.

On the community front, there was talk of an agripreneur meetup in Bengaluru on January 26—details are still emerging, but I’m keen to see if it turns into a regular circle. A discussion with HortiRoad2India is also lined up for early February. A health setback for one of our sons meant fewer microgreen experiments and new connections than planned in January, so both are high on the list for February.

Subscribe to get FarmSay Field Notes in your inbox: short, honest breakdowns of real farm experiments, mistakes, and small wins from our corner of Mysuru.

Publishing this a couple of days into January, while the December details are still fresh. This is a quick look back at what the month actually looked like on the ground.

• Krishi Mela – The month really started there, walking through stalls, listening to farmers, and collecting ideas that shaped many of December’s next steps.

• Microgreens training – A focused session that sharpened the way FarmSay thinks about household‑level nutrition and small, controllable growing systems.

• IIHR mushroom training attempt – The mushroom farming slots vanished in about six minutes, and the fee now sits in refund limbo—a small reminder of how high the demand for structured agri‑learning has become.

• Keystone beekeeping at Masinagudi – A day with hives and trainers that made bee behavior and landscape feel very real, and anchored how the beekeeping journey should begin around Mysuru.

• The Nilgiris Earth Festival – A different kind of learning space: conversations, community, and sensing how people respond to slow, grounded ecological narratives.

• Seedling setback and Batch 2 revival (Dec 23–24) – The first batch of seedlings did not make it, and that failure forced a reset in method and timing. Batch 2, started around December 23–24, carries those corrections and a quieter kind of confidence.

• NYE outreach – Closing the month (and year) by reaching out to ApiNZ, HortiRoad2India, and the Mysuru Horticulture Department to see how FarmSay’s small beekeeping and horticulture efforts might sit inside larger NZ–India and Indo–Dutch productivity plans.

Indo American and All That Grows seed orders were also placed at the end of the month, setting up the next round of experiments.

One thing December underlined is that progress is rarely linear: public events, formal trainings, failed seedlings, revived batches, and international emails all sit in the same month and still point in one direction.

In January, the focus shifts to how the new seeds behave, and how to turn all of this into a more concrete plan for FarmSay’s 2026.

A day in Kotagiri for The Habba, part of The Nilgiris Earth Festival, felt like stepping into a living classroom on food, culture and ecology.

The day began under clear blue skies and tea-covered slopes, a reminder of how much history and livelihood are packed into these hills.

Inside, The Habba brought growers, cooks, organizers and visitors into one room. Conversations moved easily from seeds and millets to recipes and memories.

The screening of the stunning Wild Tamil Nadu by Kalyan Varma left us re-looking at the familiar with fresh eyes – landscapes, animals and even the roads we had just driven on.

Beesalu added a quiet reminder of how much the forest and indigenous communities still have to teach. The idea that young bees – and young people – learn by being carefully guided into the world felt very close to what FarmSay is trying to do with food systems.

Days like this make the Nilgiris feel less like a getaway and more like a set of teachers we are only just beginning to listen to.

Thanks, Nilgiris. Back to FarmSay—clearer eyes ahead.

Vazhaithottam, a small village on the edge of the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve, set the stage for our beekeeping training. We found ourselves in awe of two things at once: the self-organizing genius of the bees, and the mountain landscape that holds them.

Bees fit into FarmSay’s arc as quiet infrastructure for the food system we care about. Beekeeping forces a wider view: how flowers, trees, seasons, and tiny pollinators all combine to decide whether a harvest succeeds. Learning to keep bees now is a way of committing to that systems view early, while the venture itself is still taking shape.

Obvious fact out of the way: bees are of utmost importance to this planet.

We were fortunate to have exclusive access to trainer Justinraj T. from Keystone Foundation. With over 32 years of experience in this field, we could not have asked for more. To top it, he was very patient with absolute beginners; he neither overwhelmed us with jargon nor left any query unanswered.

Midway through the training, we even witnessed a bee colony rescue and resettlement. This was not part of the curriculum, but the expert eyes of the co-trainer, even during his lunch break, spotted this colony and moved into action.

Without diving too much into the training content, the bee “dance language” alone is a solid topic to rabbit-hole into. It is equal parts choreography, navigation system, and information-sharing protocol.

A key moment of truth for us was realizing that we are in the right season for hive growth. That shifts beekeeping from an abstract “someday” into a very real “start now and manage well.”

A few management aspects that stood out:

• Beekeeping is not a major financial strain in terms of initial investment and equipment requirements.

• Daily effort is low; most of it is simple monitoring for issues such as ants, wasps, or other disturbances.

• Market demand is on a steady growth path, especially for more artisanal and traceable varieties of honey.

• There is government support through the National Bee Board and state-level efforts such as the Jhenkara brand in Karnataka.

• For coconut farmers, managing a few bee boxes can significantly enhance yields through better pollination.

A few watchouts we are carrying back with us:

• Placement matters. Sunlight is crucial, but hives must also be shielded from direct heat and rain; there is no need for artificial light.

• Bees are prone to a few pests, so a regular, calm eye on the hive goes a long way.

• Bees will quietly go about their work 24/7, but human mischief can still disrupt them; intentional disturbance can lead to the odd stray sting, so neighbor engagement and expectations need managing.

• In farms, neighboring fields’ pesticide use can harm colonies, especially because bees can forage up to 1–1.5 km from their hive.

• Queen bee presence is non-negotiable. A hive is at its best when she is healthy and active, and there is a clear protocol to follow in case of queen loss.

Call it convenient or good timing, but the book on the table right now is Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. It feels like the right companion as we get things off the ground in the coming weeks and months, translating training notes into checklists and routines around live colonies.

Ending with another book: Beesalu (Malayalam title), authored by indigenous communities of the Western Ghats, from Neelambur to be exact. It documents traditional honey collection practices and the communities around them, and one of the authors was present at The Habba on 21 December 2025 as part of The Nilgiris Earth Festival.

From here, the focus shifts to Mysuru: one hive to begin with, set up carefully and observed often. Those early days will shape how FarmSay works with bees, and the notes from that journey will continue to live here for anyone curious to follow along.

Witty University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru (UAS, B) National Seeds Project Director Dr. Sharat Sharan urged over 40 diverse participants—though only 35 were planned—to own the process of bridging nutrition deficiencies. He and his team laid out key areas effectively during the one-day training program at UAS Bengaluru on December 13, 2025, underscoring the hunger for such expert-led sessions.
Firstly, I recommend this program to anyone dabbling in microgreens as a hobby or scaling bigger.

Microgreens:

I have to admit without my spouse educating me, I would have lived under the assumption that microgreens and sprouts are the same! Table below helps bring out the nuance.

Without summarizing or trying to review the training, jotting down points that resonates.

• Recommendation of up to 40 grams per day of microgreens for adults. About half of it to kids below 18 and elders above 60. Best to take your doctors advise to adjust portion size.

• Not all fruits, veggies are suitable as microgreens. E.g. eggplant, potato is NOT suitable.

• Microgreens are for all ages to address nutrient deficiency. It’s not a supplement to proteins or carbs.

• Microgreens are not necessarily medicinal i.e. it might not cure an ailment that we already carry.

• Budget to set-up is not high. If intention is to scale, then go-to-market and building a subscription model is important.

• Tending to microgreens is not a steep hill with regards to skills. Nuances of handling seeds and growing medium can be the secret sauce.

Growing Medium:

Handout from the UAS Bengaluru microgreens workshop outlining different growing media options—from cocopeat and tissue paper to jute mats, hydroponic pads, and vermicompost mixes—and their suitability for various crop durations and setups.

Seeds:

To state the obvious, seed selection is of utmost importance. Two factors that Dr Sowmya emphasized are: seed vigor and vitality.

Learnt about the importance of reading the seeds packaging label to grok aspects like germination rates, chemical treatment, if any.

Seed Priming is another important factor that Dr Sowmya spent time to clarify to the participants.

Morning’s session was capped by Dr Manjunath speaking on Fungi and their impact on seeds and growing medium. This session and seeds priming session are best to be absorbed as in-person session. Rather than me trying to extract a summary. Just would like to add, that both their sessions were not too geeky or nerdy.

Post lunch sessions were shared between Dr Bhuvana Sharma, Dr Sharat Sharan and Rajender Satyanarayana, Founder of Agrowvitz. Ahead of the hands-on session by Dr Vishwanath, the UAS team managed to handover certificates to all participants.

Hands-on Training in Microgreens Production certificate from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, marking completion of the GKVK program on 13 December 2025.

Training wrapped with a walk around of the massive hydroponics facility and some networking.

Overall, we felt it was a day well spent. The content and experts who delivered them came across very approachable. Even being open to consultation over WhatsApp as we progress in our endeavors. Not to forget, each participant carried home their own grow tray with the cocopeat and seed broadcasting done under the watchful eyes of Dr Vishwanath. Only wish, that there was a microgreens/hydroponics reads seeds that we could purchase!

Keen to start? Comment for program details—UAS experts are WhatsApp-ready.

Incidentally, Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy was on stage while I was there, speaking in a very relatable, earthy style.

Got a close look at mushroom cultivation and beekeeping, along with some of the value‑added products around them.

I didn’t quite expect the scale of the turnout, and have to commend the volunteers for keeping parking and traffic as smooth as they could.

Days like this remind me of the ‘miles to go’ line from Robert Frost.

Build Log:

These notes are my way of tracking what it takes to build FarmSay from idea to working agri-economy experiments.

• Registered the farmsay.pro domain and, after testing options, chose Substack as the CMS. Connected the domain so visitors now land here—‘The FarmSay Chronicles.’

• Focused on standardizing branding by shifting my personal Substack to FarmSay.

• Created Instagram presence with @farmsay_pro; it will be a quiet launch pad for future stories and progress updates.

Outreach:

• Revisited mushroom lab in Mysuru and registered for their next batch (missed their October call!). Met another aspiring rooftop farmer frustrated with official responses, who pointed me to AG Mushrooms Farm on the city outskirts; visited, but the owner was unavailable.

• Heard back quickly from IIHR, Bengaluru, about mushroom training planned for Feb 2026; registrations open on Dec 8.

• Emailed a few FPOs around Mysuru; as expected, nothing immediate, and no replies yet after two weeks.

• Ordered a home hydroponics kit from PindFresh; delivery was smooth, assembly was straightforward, and seeds went in on Nov 29.

• Tried to enroll for the November schedule at JSS KVK–Sutturu but couldn’t reach the right point of contact in time.

• Discovered Keystone Foundation’s beekeeping program, with training scheduled for Dec 18–19.

• Spoke with a handful of hydroponics practitioners found via The Hindu, LinkedIn, and Instagram; early phone conversations sounded promising, but follow-up has been slow or absent so far.

• Read about the Nilgiris Earth Festival in 2024 and am looking forward to learning from their community engagement.

The real win this month was turning vague interest into concrete next steps and dates on the calendar. Plenty didn’t go as planned, which feels about right for month one.

Introduction: The Why Behind FarmSay

Why FarmSay? I’m putting my thoughts out into the open to see, on the spectrum of insane and brilliant, where this journey could lead – in both life and career. In corporate life, we are coached and coaxed onto “plans” if we don’t take ownership of our trajectories. Farming demands the opposite mindset: the first lesson is letting go of the need to owning everything or the ability to control anything. Dealing with nature means; it is in a way, a surrender to being nurtured by nature and its rhythms.

Speaking of rhythm, I’ve read that one of the drawbacks of not having a work schedule is that we become lazy and chase dopamine hits. What better way to get into a meaningful rhythm than to be guided by nature? At the risk of romanticizing it, following the schedule dictated by seeding, watering, and other natural cues often produces mixed results at best. Mainly because of the vagaries of nature and human error. Even though terms like precision agriculture maybe a buzzword now, but in a country as diverse as ours, can it even be scaled reliably?

Reflection on Corporate Life and Productivity

Yes, it’s not assembly line work or booking the next business trip. As humans, is our productivity bonded to brand names and job titles? Even “corporate warlords” are encouraged to explore vocations outside work, supposedly to sharpen them upon returning to the cubicle. In reality, much of office life is about optimizing for a Monday-to-Friday routine and crafting cheeky introduction slides.

I am also getting to realize – productivity is not measured by the number of hours hooked on to the headset or the number of lines of code written. Even as part of Life Lessons heard this: while we were hunter gatherers, we are designed for short bursts of activity between self-energy conservation and other pursuits. Not for extended periods at factories or desk work. Or the contrary point, did we condition ourself that way? That corporates are trying to re-wire us for the good. (Note to self: I’ll read more on that.)

Purpose: Balancing Mission with Business

To flesh out purpose: I am starting with building a proof of concept for our family. To improve nutritional richness starting from our own plates.

Areas I am trying to address:

· Bridge my knowledge & skill gap – starting small with an NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) system. A 54 planter two tier system.

o Have to figure-out ongoing supply of seeds. Purchase Vs saving from produce

o Have to establish output. Is it repeatable? What worked well, what didn’t? why? Where is the input Vs output going to be tracked?

o Seasonality – which season produces the best and how much.

o Determine what’s success Vs prolonged trials phase

· Building market linkages – from above POC will get realistic forecast on excess produce. Initially any additional will be distributed to immediate family. Over and above, to premium clients at the salons.

o Will this trigger a demand? Will I be able to cater to the demand? Will the demand be skewed to particular items? Catering to demand Vs chase a niche.

o Pricing – how long after initial phase of trials should we determine price?

Motive /Emotive:

Beyond the day-to-day experiments and business logistics, it’s often the underlying motivations and emotions that influence how I navigate challenges and define success. I am a novice and nervous to speak of systems like Socialism Vs Capitalism etc. I have oft heard an anecdote that at one point PM Nehru saying “Never talk to me about the word profit; it is a dirty word.”

Profit motive is a difficult topic to breakthrough when it comes to sustainability. Farming and food production are looked at primarily for subsistence or passion, not as a profit-making business. Can it be scaled? Yes, but not in the traditional ways of business. Realistically, the labor and sheer number of households required to build a solid Agri economy is massive.

The emotive side tends to peek thru; considering the number of emotions there are. If I ask myself, if this is an emotional decision. Emotions were definitely part of the process, but not ones like envy, anger or shame. I have to keep reminding myself not to let them have a major say in the future too.

Next Steps: Ownership and Action

Ultimately, it’s action that matters. By owning the process and outcomes, committing to learn, and seeking genuine collaboration, I hope these experiments spark a ripple—starting at home, growing outward, and challenging how we think about food, work, and meaning. I’ll keep exploring new ways to connect supply and demand. I invite others to join, question, and build alongside me.

My name’s Abhishek. I started FarmSay out of a fascination for sustainable practices, fresh ideas, and the power of community effort. From raising goats and keeping bees to experimenting with mushrooms and hydroponics, I believe these approaches can transform lives.

FarmSay’s mission is simple: bring together like-minded growers, agri-entrepreneurs, and food lovers to learn from each other and share honest advice. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting short Notes, detailed articles, project updates, and polls on topics like goat and sheep rearing, apiculture, and hydroponics.

Collaborators and contributors are always welcome! I’d love to know what you’re working on or curious about—comment below or reply directly, and let’s start this journey together.

— Abhishek

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