People are surprised that a five‑kanal plot can grow its own wheat and rice. It cannot grow enough to sell. It can grow enough to eat, and that turns out to be the point.
The patch
Set aside about 5,000 square feet at the edge of the plot. In November it is sown with wheat, which grows through the winter and is cut in April. In June the same ground is flooded from the household tank and planted with rice, or, in a dry year, with maize. By October the rice is in and the cycle begins again.
Yield
A well‑kept patch of that size gives a family several months of flour and rice. Combined with the kitchen garden, the orchard, the hens and the goats, it takes a household most of the way to feeding itself.
Not a farm. A pantry with roots.
Learning it
Nobody arrives knowing how to grow wheat. The learning centre runs the sowing and harvest as valley events, lends the tools, and pairs new families with neighbours who have done it before.
