On the farm
Whatever the season demands — transplanting, weeding, harvesting, seed selection, composting. You work alongside the household, not beside a demonstration plot.
Come and stay
The Farm & Field Retreat
Ten or twelve days living and working on a Himalayan farm that has been in one family for two hundred years — with the ecologist who has spent thirty-two years studying it.
What this is
Not a course, and not a holiday
The Field School is built for university cohorts and takes a month. A great many people who want to understand this landscape do not have a month, are not enrolled anywhere, and do not need credit. This is for them.
You stay in a registered village homestay in Bering, eat what the household eats, and spend your days in the fields, the forest and the springs with Dr. Ghanashyam Sharma — a Himalayan ecologist with 27 international peer-reviewed papers, and a working farmer of forty-eight years from an indigenous farming family.
There is no curriculum to complete and no assessment. There is a working farm, a village with a documented biodiversity register, and someone who can explain exactly what you are looking at.
How the days are shaped
Mornings in the field, afternoons slower. Nothing is compulsory. The rhythm follows the farming season, so no two cohorts see the same work.
Seed and landrace
The traditional cereals, pulses and underutilised crops of the Sikkim Himalaya, and the community seed bank system built to hold them. Including a Krishnabhog paddy line conserved in these fields for about 150 years.
Water
Walking the springs and recharge zones, and how aquifer-centric revival brought back springs across this landscape. The methods are the same ones published in Nature-Based Solutions.
Forest and ridge
A transect from valley floor to ridge line, reading land use, succession and the alder–cardamom agroforestry systems that were the subject of Dr. Sharma’s doctorate.
Birds and butterflies
Bering has survey data going back years. Early mornings out with it, adding to a record rather than ticking a list.
Evenings
Conversation, mostly. Occasionally a talk if people want one — on organic transition, on traditional knowledge and biopiracy, on what four decades of this work has and has not achieved.
Fees
What it costs
| Programme | International | Indian & SAARC nationals |
|---|---|---|
| Ten days | USD 1,350 | ₹52,000 |
| Twelve days | USD 1,550 | ₹59,000 |
| To reserve a place | USD 300 deposit | ₹10,000 deposit |
Included
- Full board and lodging in a registered village homestay
- Return road transfer from Bagdogra airport
- All field activity, walks and local transport
- Teaching and guiding by Dr. Sharma throughout
- The community contribution to the Bering BMC
- Help preparing your Restricted Area Permit
Not included
- Flights and your Indian visa
- Travel and medical insurance — mandatory
- Personal expenses
- Optional excursions needing a Protected Area Permit, such as Tsomgo Lake
Group size is capped at six so that the household is not overwhelmed and the conversation stays possible.
Who this suits
People who want to understand a farming landscape from the inside, and are content to be useful rather than entertained.
Gardeners, growers and smallholders. Agroecology and development students between terms. Researchers scoping a site. Writers and photographers. Retired scientists. People considering the four-week field school who want to see the place first. You do not need a background in ecology — you need to be willing to get up early and get muddy.
If you want the teaching without the travel, Dr. Sharma also gives online lectures and seminars to universities and institutes worldwide.
What it is not: a wellness retreat, a trek, or a wildlife tour. There is no spa, the walking is on working paths, and the nearest thing to luxury is a very good plate of food.
Practical details
Getting here
Fly to Bagdogra (IXB) or take the train to New Jalpaiguri, and we drive you in — roughly five to six hours through the Terai and up into the mid-hills. Pakyong airport, twenty minutes from Bering, has not operated since 2019, and the railway to Rangpo is not expected before December 2027.
Permits
Foreign nationals need a Restricted Area Permit to enter Sikkim. It is free, valid for thirty days, and issued online through the e-FRRO portal. Solo travellers are fine — you do not need to be in a group, and Bering sits inside the corridor that is open to foreign visitors. We help you prepare the application before you fly.
Conditions
Bering is at 1,246 metres — subtropical mid-hill, so there is no altitude problem and no acclimatisation needed. Days are warm, evenings cool. Accommodation is a village home: clean, simple, family-run, and registered with the Sikkim Tourism Department.
Honestly
This is a working village in mountain terrain. Roads close in heavy monsoon rain and this landscape has a landslide history. Electricity and connectivity are usually fine and occasionally are not. We will send you a frank note on conditions and risk before you pay anything.