I spent my summer vacations at my grandma's after my 6th-grade examinations. Grandma lives in a small village in Kerala in India. It was always fun to be at her place, spending my days playing, helping in the kitchen and feeding the cows. I rarely visited grandma every year as...

Where there is water, there is life. A reliable source of clean water is necessary to grow nutritious food and to lead a healthy life. But climate change is wreaking havoc on rainfall patterns and causing surface water to be lost to evaporation. Sometimes there is not enough water, and other...

This study was done in collaboration with the Chief Minister's Rajasthan Economic Transformation Advisory Council (CMRETAC) to explore the suitability of natural farming in Rajasthan and propose a strategic roadmap for a successful scale-up. A combination of mixed methods was utilised that included a review of prominent state initiatives on...

Poultry waste is rich in nitrogen and other nutrients, and is good food for beneficial microbes in the soil. Mix it with decomposed cow dung and carbon-rich materials. To speed up decomposition, sprinkle organic decomposer or Trichoderma on the waste. From rotten eggs you can make a growth promoter, by...

It was early February 2020. I was headed off with my camera crew, our field officer – Kumar and our NGO partner from Bagalkot to visit and film some Fiar Price shops. There were muttered rumors of a virus called COVID. WhatsApp messages, sounding the alarm of a pandemic, were...

It was the monsoon of 2019 when Stefan and I set forth on our agrobiodiversity hunt into the dense forest and other food production systems of Umsawwar community in Meghalaya. Kong Therisa Nongrum and Kong Angela Nongrum, who are custodian farmers from the community, volunteered to lead us on this...

Staking allows more light and better air circulation to plants. Staked tomato plants are less attacked by pests and diseases and the fruits do not easily spoil. By staking your plants, they do not fall over due to the weight of the tomato fruits. Your plants will grow healthy and...

Meeting in Mumbai, women fishworkers of the coastal districts of the Indian State of Maharashtra drew up an agenda to advocate for their rights and livelihoods. In December 2021, a dozen women from the coastal districts of the western Indian State of Maharashtra assembled in the capital, Mumbai. All experienced fishworker...

You can prepare a basic natural growth promoter with locally available ingredients, such as cow dung, ghee, milk, urine, sugar and ripe bananas. To further strengthen the growth promotor you can also add an extract made from urine and aromatic leaves so that it also helps to control pests and...

Majority of the rural women are landless. Invariably, they work as farm labourers. Sanskriti Samvardhan Mandal, an NGO has helped women of Sagroli in Maharashtra in empowering them financially by providing the needed  credit support in managing their enterprises. Sagroli, located in Biloli, in Nanded district of Maharashtra, is quite a...

Sufficient and timely availability of water is essential to irrigate crops during critical stages of crop growth. This shall ensure improved farm productivity and incomes. However, a critical prerequisite is a reliable energy-based system which enables timely extraction and distribution of water supply. Solar models have shown the way. In rural...

Dependence of mankind on the non-renewable sources of energy such as coal, oil and gases is increasing worldwide. It is time to switch over to readily available, economical, and environment-friendly renewable source of energy like cattle dung, which is plentily available.   Jammu, the city of temples in India, is flooded with...

As consciousness and awareness on use of green energy has been rising, we also do come across a lot of initiatives on the ground, either at individual level or community level. To share the ground level initiatives, we decided to present this issue focussing on “Renewable Energy”. The link between water-energy-agriculture...

When women are empowered to decide what to grow, what inputs to use, when and where to sell – key shifts happen in agriculture and livelihoods. By empowering women in Marathwada as change-makers in agriculture, the WCRF model promoted resilient livelihoods for farming households while ensuring farming to become an...

Women and their needs are still largely unaccounted for, with policies unfavorable to them. Through the formation of women’s groups and associations, women’s issues and needs were made visible in various arenas – community, market, and policy processes. The experience of Surendranagar Mahila Bal Vikas Mandal showed that the needs of women...

This paper looks at the potential of agro-ecology for farming systems in India in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive development of agriculture in the country. It situates the potential of agro-ecology within the larger structural transformation context of the rural, agricultural and smallholder Indian economy, arguing that the preponderance...

With a little support and guidance, farmers can transform their lives and become resilient to changes in weather and markets. The case of Pitar Sabar shows how a tribal farmer with the support from WOTR, changed the way he farmed and enhanced the income levels, besides becoming a resource person...

Natural farming being recognised as an important pathway for achieving sustainable development goals, a study was undertaken to understand the potential of natural farming as a sustainable agricultural model. The field assessment revealed that natural farming systems contribute highly to the environmental/ecological dimensions of sustainability of farmers while there is...

Vietnamese farmers in the Mekong Delta face worsening impacts of climate change. Environmental deterioration threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of people here. Since 2016, a World Bank project has supported more than one million farmers transition into more climate-resilient and resource-efficient ways of living. The project has also...

A community-based, bottom-up regime of fisheries management, rooted in traditional ecological knowledge, is practised in the pole-and-line tuna fishery of India’s Lakshadweep Islands. India is home to a large number of small-scale fishers (SSF) using diverse craft-gear combinations along the country’s long coastline and island systems. One standout entry is the...