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Our Farms & Techniques

About Us

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We (Avika Narula and Abhi Agarwal) run Sunshine Permaculture together.

We stumbled into starting a farm in 2021. We were given an opportunity to develop a piece of permaculture property in Chiang Mai, and that is how we started our farming journey. We both grew up in Bangkok and moved to the US to study Computer Science, but after working in the US for a while, we decided to move back to Thailand.

Since then we have been learning more about regenerative agriculture, nutrient density, and about soil biology. We focus on learning about a lot of different aspects of farming from finances and profits in farming to developing microbial communities in your soils.
We also run a permaculture design and farming consulting company called Living Roots.

The ethics of permaculture are at the heart of our work. Permaculture is not just a design framework, but a framework for regenerative systems & human habitation. It encapsulates all aspects of our lives on this planet. We are guided by the three permaculture ethics and the 12 principles to navigate the complexities of running a farm.

The production of food is a small part of a larger design of a farm. The priority of the land has always been to regenerate the ecosystem around it. Our work to grow vegetables, seeds, and fruits is to support the work of stewarding the land.

Our vision is for all farmers to regenerate their land and live in abundance. Everyone should have access to nutrients and land should be a food paradise rather than slowly desertify.

Our Projects

Sunshine Permaculture Farm (35 rai)

Located in Mae Taeng, Sunshine Permaculture farm was designed by Hannah Moloney for a group of 7 friends who wanted to design a property to retire on. The farm is designed to be a homestead and be self-sustaining for the families that live on the property. We have started executing on this design since 2021 and are in the beginning stages of establishing the final design. Our first market garden was on this farm. Now we are slowly converting this entire farm to diverse fruit orchards.

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Living Roots Farm (55 rai)

Located about 5 minutes from Sunshine Permaculture Farm. Living Roots Farm was designed to be a fully commercial regenerative agriculture farm that was designed using Permaculture design principles, Keyline principles, Syntropic Agriculture and using the Regrarians framework. It is a demonstration site to trial many different techniques in Thailand. The work started at this property in 2022. The design focused on integrating tree systems with vegetable systems and animal systems. It also has an Airbnb on the site. As well as creating BioComplete compost for the vegetable growing operation.

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Our Techniques

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Permaculture Design

Permaculture Design is at the heart of our operation. It gives us a framework to design our land in a way that ties with nature. It allows us to start our design with patterns and work our way into the details.
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Syntropic Agriculture

Ernst Gotsch has developed one of the most inspiring agroforestry techniques for tropical countries. We use it in all the ways we plant trees on our properties.
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Regrarians Framework

The Regrarians Framework is vital to any regenerative agriculture project. It is an immensely comprehensive planning framework that outlines all the steps necessary to design a property.
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Soil Food Web

We learn and draw a lot of inspiration from Dr. Elaine Ingham, Nicole Masters, Dr Christine Jones, John Kempf, Dr. David Johnson, Paul Stamets, and many other soil microbiologists & mycologists. We are taking the CTP course at the Soil Food Web school.
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Market Gardening

To design and systemetize our market garden we use techniques by Neversink's Conor Crickmore and Market Garden Institute's Jean-Martin Fortier. Their processes save us a lot of mistakes and costs setting up a market garden.
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Holistic Management

Everything we do is built around our Holistic Context. Holistic Management helps us make decisions by using our Holistic Context to align our values and what we want our farm to be.
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Water Stories

Water is the most important aspect to a farm. Without proper water management either nothing grows or everything floods. Zach Weiss has created a course in order to help rebuild and inform how to maintain our water cycle.