Planting by hand: the campaign's first monsoons

The first saplings of the Vriksh Mitra–Gram Mitra Abhiyan went into the ground on 3 July 2011, in the fields and courtyards of villages near Bareilly. There was no stage and no tent. Volunteers carried the saplings in, dug the pits with the farmers and showed them how deep to plant and how often to water. On 28 August 2011 they were back in the villages again, and by the end of that first monsoon 5,000 fruit trees had been planted.

The next year the campaign found its shape. On 22 July 2012 a Vriksharopan Abhiyan programme was held at a village school, with the saplings laid out at the front of the hall, and on 2 September 2012 the villagers of another school took home their saplings after a short programme on how a fruit tree repays its care. The pattern of a village meeting before, a programme on the day and a visit afterwards was set here.

By the monsoon of 2014 the campaign had put 28,000 fruit trees in more than 40 villages of the Bareilly region, still with no funding beyond the Foundation's own supporters. On 13 and 20 July 2014 the planting continued in the same way, hand to hand, and the oldest trees were already bearing fruit.