The women who participated in self-help groups established by the Treaty Benefit-sharing Fund Project in Kerala, India, have improved their family nutrition and food security through producing high-yielding and drought-resistant local varieties of cassava identified by the project. But that is just part of the story. The selfhelp group members have quadrupled their incomes through developing new products for the market such as cassava bread and cakes, and they have shared planting materials with other farmers, thus contributing to conserving their agricultural heritage. Two groups of crops were included in the project: • food crops such as cassava, yam and ash gourd, which are important for nutrition and food security, • spices such as pepper, cardamom and nutmeg, which are important for economic development. The women as well as other local farmers had the benefit of project activities that ranged from identifying isolated farms that still cultivated local crops, to training in cultivation and propagation techniques and support in distributing planting materials of locally adapted varieties.