Towards farmer's market

A Market That Belongs to the Village 

An upcoming initiative at Kaaya Learning Centre

There is a quiet problem that most villages live with and rarely name. Every week, money leaves. A household walks to the town market, buys tomatoes, dal, dairy, a packet of seeds — and the cash that could have stayed in the neighbourhood disappears into a distant supply chain. The village grows food, but somehow still pays an outsider for it.

At Kaaya, we've been sitting with this question for a while. And this year, we're ready to try something about it.

The Sunday Farmer's Market

Starting soon, we'll be hosting a weekly Farmer's Market every Sunday — a simple, open platform where local farmers and kitchen gardeners can bring their surplus produce and sell it directly to their neighbours.

No middlemen. No transport markups. No long chains between grower and table.

The pricing will match standard retail rates from external markets — so if tomatoes are going for ₹60 per kg in town, that's exactly what they'll cost here too. Buyers pay no more than they would elsewhere. But the money stays in the village, and growers keep a far larger share of it than any conventional supply chain would allow.

This isn't a boutique farmer's market for urban weekenders. It's a neighbourhood economy — villagers growing for villagers.

What Happens to Unsold Produce?

Perishables are a real concern, and we're not ignoring that. Kaaya will actively support the community in processing excess produce — through solar dehydration, pickling, and packaging — so that no harvest is wasted and revenue streams remain stable even when immediate demand dips.

Understanding Where the Money Goes

The market is the first step. But to build a genuine circular economy — one where wealth circulates locally rather than leaking out — we need to understand exactly what our community currently buys from outside, and whether any of it could realistically be made here instead.

This is why we're sending a student intern research team into the neighbourhood over the coming weeks. Their task: a detailed household consumption survey that maps exactly how much capital leaves the village, on what, and how often.

They'll be looking at fresh vegetables, specialty foods, dairy, packaging materials used by small local enterprises, and more. The findings will help Kaaya's planning team answer some hard questions — should we focus tightly on food substitution first, or expand quickly into dairy, bakery, composting, and seed production? The data from real households will guide that decision.

Why This Matters

The principle behind all of this is straightforward: what a community produces, it should also be able to consume — locally, fairly, and without sending its wealth away.

The Sunday market is one step toward that. The household survey is anoth

er. Together, they begin to sketch the outline of a village economy that can gradually close its own loops.

If you live in or near Tilwari, you may soon be visited by our intern team. We hope you'll share your time and your household patterns with them — your inputs will directly shape what Kaaya builds next for this community.

More updates soon. Watch this space.

Kaaya Learning Centre, Tilwari village, Dehradun