Balalmbika Sanctuary for Indigenous Cattle and Seeds

  NEWSLETTER #02 | December 2025 ------------------------------------------------- Greetings from the Pennaar Valley! Balambika Sanctuary and The Vilvam Foundation would like to thank you all for your generous contributions towards our efforts to protect and promote native seeds and cattle.  This year the rains were spread more evenly over the South-West and North-East monsoons and our well remained reasonably full through the year unlike last year when we went totally dry in the summer and then had floods in the winter. This year, we got the paddy cycle started in the month of Aipassi (late October). The fields are flooded and the nitrogen fixing green manure plants, that were planted a couple of months earlier, are ploughed back into the soil. Padmanabhan, our bull is refusing to plough, and you can see him standing on the side watching his harem doing all the hard work. This year, we have sown eleven traditional varieties of rice - Pisini, Karuppu Kavuni, Sempalai, Salem S...