Can Farm Life Teach You Sustainability? Real Lessons from Aranyavas
The word sustainability is used quite loosely these days—you’ll find it on product packets, in advertisements, and attached to every passing trend. But when you actually spend time on a working farm, even for just a few days, sustainability stops being just a fancy word.
It becomes real—something you can see with your own eyes, touch with your hands, and taste in your food. At Aranyavas Nature Retreat in Ghatwada, Jaipur, our guests realise that the real lessons of sustainable living aren’t complicated theories. They’re simply part of everyday farm life, waiting to be experienced and understood.
Using Only What We Need
Life on a farm follows a simple rule that city people rarely think about: use what you have wisely, because nothing should go to waste. Here at Aranyavas, every drop of water, every bit of soil, and every scrap of organic matter is treated with care.
You’ll see our farmers watering the fields early in the morning or late in the evening—this way, the water actually reaches the roots instead of evaporating in the hot Rajasthan sun.
Our composting is another beautiful example. The cow dung from our cattle, leftover vegetable peels from the kitchen, dried leaves from the trees—nothing gets thrown away. Instead, everything is carefully collected, layered together, and turned regularly over several weeks. Slowly, it all transforms into rich, dark compost that makes our soil healthy and fertile.
Many guests stop to watch this process, amazed at how things that cities treat as rubbish become the foundation of good farming here. It makes you think differently about the throw-away lifestyle we’ve become so used to, where we buy, use, and discard without a second thought.
Every single action on the farm is done with purpose. There’s no wastage because we simply can’t afford to waste. And this isn’t about living with less—it’s about living more thoughtfully, the way our grandparents and their grandparents did.
Food That Comes Full Circle
At Aranyavas, the journey of your food from the field to your plate is wonderfully simple and honest. Take a walk around our farm and you’ll see vegetables growing in different areas—some in raised beds, some in flat beds, and others in traditionally ploughed fields.
Each crop is planted where it grows best. These plants are fed with the compost we make right here, along with other natural fertilisers. No harmful chemicals, no shortcuts—just patient, careful farming.
When it’s time for meals, our kitchen fills with the lovely smells of home cooking. The same vegetables you saw growing in the morning might be part of your lunch thali by afternoon.
We cook with wholesome ingredients—organic gud for sweetness, traditional sendha namak, and cold-pressed oils that keep all their goodness intact. There are no fancy names you can’t pronounce, no mysterious ingredients—just simple, nutritious food cooked the old-fashioned way.
The taste surprises many of our guests. There’s a freshness and flavour that you simply don’t get from vegetables that have travelled hundreds of kilometres in cold storage. But more than the taste, eating this way teaches you something important: sustainable food isn’t really about expensive organic labels or trendy supermarkets.
It’s about eating what grows near you, knowing where your food comes from, and respecting the hard work that goes into growing it.
Simple Comforts Over Luxury
Our Family Suites at Kesaria Kothi follow the same honest approach. The rooms are comfortable and well-maintained, with each suite having its own separate entrance, good beds, and all the basic facilities you need. But here’s what’s interesting—what guests talk about most isn’t the room itself.
They remember the wide-open lawns where their children ran around freely, getting their feet dirty and their faces sunburnt. They remember the incredible silence of the Aravalli hills in the evening, with only birds chirping and the occasional sound of our cows.
They remember playing traditional games like chaupad or gilli-danda under the shade of old trees, games their own grandparents probably played. They remember sitting on a simple charpoy at night, looking up at more stars than they’ve seen in years, perhaps their entire lives.
This is where you understand something beautiful about sustainability: living simply doesn’t mean living sadly or giving up on comfort. Actually, it opens up different kinds of joy—pleasures that don’t need fancy gadgets or heavy electricity bills.
The happiness of unrushed time, the luxury of clean air you can actually breathe deeply, the fun that comes from talking and playing with people instead of staring at screens. These experiences are light on the earth but somehow feel so much more fulfilling.
Respecting What Nature Offers
Perhaps the biggest lesson farm life teaches is patience—something we’ve all forgotten in our fast-paced city lives where everything is available instantly. At Aranyavas, you’ll see that crops grow at their own pace, not ours.
The monsoon rains come when they come, sometimes late, sometimes more than we expected. Our cattle need to be fed and cared for every single day—there are no holidays or shortcuts in animal care.
Guests who spend time with our farm workers, whether it’s helping to feed the cows, watching the harvest, or just chatting and asking questions, often tell us how it changed their thinking. They begin to understand that sustainable living isn’t about forcing nature to follow our plans or trying to control everything perfectly.
Instead, it’s about watching nature’s patterns, adjusting to the seasons, and working together with the land rather than fighting against it.
There’s a kind of humble respect that grows from this understanding, and honestly, it might be the most valuable thing you take away from your visit.
Taking the Lessons Home
The real success of a stay at Aranyavas shows up not during your visit, but in the weeks and months after you’ve gone back to your regular life. We’ve heard wonderful stories from our guests about the small changes they’ve made: starting a little kitchen garden on their balcony or terrace, being more careful about not wasting food, buying vegetables from the local sabzi-wallah instead of imported supermarket produce, or simply slowing down their rushed daily routine.
These might seem like small things, but they add up. The lessons you learn here don’t stay behind when you leave our gate. They travel back with you to your city, your home, your daily life. They quietly change the choices you make, remind you of a different, gentler way of living—one that’s better for the earth and more peaceful for your own mind and heart.
At Aranyavas Nature Retreat, sustainability isn’t something we do for marketing or to sound good. It’s just how we live every day. And when you experience it with us, even for a short while, you might discover it’s how you’d like to live too.
TL;DR
At Aranyavas, sustainability isn’t just talk—it’s everyday life. From making compost out of farm waste to cooking fresh vegetables straight from our fields, guests see how mindful living actually works. The lesson? Living sustainably doesn’t mean giving up comfort. It means finding joy in simpler things and taking those small, meaningful habits back home with you.
