Kerala, meaning "land of coconuts" is a long, narrow strip of land which lays in India's southern tip nestled between the Western Ghat mountains and the Arabian Sea. It is the most densely populated state in India, much of the land is not of quality grade and is infertile, acid and has poor drainage. Large areas of the coastline are far from picture perfect with marshy swamps, subject to periodical flooding and tidal waves. At this point we would expect it to end there, another mismanaged, poorly treated land left to the wayside. We would be wrong, amazingly the Keralese families have transformed these disadvantages and have flourished spectacularly. There are three and a half million forest gardens in Kerala, the residents have found success in owning small family forest gardens where they have grown a wide diversity of plants and livestock, with strong connections with local industry.

This includes rubber-tapping, match-making, cashew-nut processing, pineapple canning, furniture making, the building of bullock-carts and catamarans, the manufacturing of pandanus mats, oil distillation, basket making, and the processing of cocoa and of coir-fibres from coconuts.

Many families have developed and achieved self-sufficiency in energy by building biogas plants which run off household waste as well as plant, animal and vegetable waste. The slurry from this then goes on to be used as grade A fertiliser.

"As an example of the extraordinary intensivity of cultivation of some forest gardens, one plot of only 0.12 hectare was found by a study group to have twenty-three young coconut palms twelve cloves, fifty-six bananas and forty-nine pineapples, with thirty pepper vines trained up its trees. In addition, the smallholder grew fodder for his house-cow." Robert Hart

Those living along the coast make full use of the abundant, incredible qualities of the mangrove trees, named 'forests of the sea'. These trees thrive where no other plants would tolerate or survive, in constantly immersed salt-water and waterlogged mud. Mangrove wood is extremely heavy and makes the most highly prized firewood.

In the 1930's under the influence of Gandhi, an equitable land distribution system was inaugurated, most Keralese families were able to acquire a small parcel of land of their own. About half those families have converted their tiny plot into a forest garden, because of this most families in Kerala are to some extent self-sufficient in the basic necessities, above all food. Although they may be 'poor' in fiat standards, they are 'rich' in health, community, independence, skills, delicious fresh high quality food! Most Indians never see their national fruit, the mango, vast quantities of which are exported, fresh or in the form of chutney.

However, as Robert Hart puts it, "The Keralese grow their own mangoes in their own forest gardens, together with some sixty other nourishing food and fodder plants, medicinal herbs and spices...There is very little need for money; the Keralese work, not primarily for cash, but for the all-round self-fulfilment of themselves and their families. This is true freedom." 

In his book 'Forest Gardening, Re-discovering Nature and Community in a post-Industrial Age' he writes, "The family forest garden is the basic unit of society; it provides practical education for the children and happy living, largely free from bureaucratic, political or economic constraints."

In stark contrast a war wages between the people and places like Coconutland and major corporations and their global bid to take over, as Navdanya website puts it;

"Corporations like Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, all have their roots in warfare and through free trade neoliberal polices and deregulation of commerce, they enlarge their empire with mega buyouts. Such is the case with the most recent bid by Bayer to buy Monsanto for 62 billion euros facilitated by the European Central Bank...

In just 2 decades these war criminals have fabricated ‘free’ trade agreements that are destroying the earth and pushing small farmers, the real producers of food, off the land. They have enlarged their control over our seed, robbing us of our food freedom, our human rights and our democracy. Through patents and intellectual property rights (IPRs), they have established monopolies, threatening farmers’ rights to seed, people’s rights to affordable medicine and people’s rights to healthy, nutritious food."

We would do well to check ourselves, our beliefs, our conditioning and start to ask questions and make choices that bring prosperity and security to ourselves and not hand them over unwittingly to the 1% while in return finding ourselves enslaved and impoverished, isolated from community and family.