This project is currently being implemented in the North of India since 2018 and focuses mainly on female smallholder farmers. The scope is to strengthen resilience through biodiverse cropping and seed system and broaden the type of crop produced in this region. The project is particularly in line with the...

SEWA, AFA member and MTCP2 national implementing agency in India, conducted SRI training for women farmers in Uttar Pradesh, India. Two of the participants applied what they learned from the training despite the risks, and their efforts paid off when the yield of their paddy fields increased from their usual...

Singur, located in Hooghly district of West Bengal, came into the limelight for its peasants’ movement in 2006. The government acquired 1,253 acres (500 hectares) of multi cropping agricultural land and leased it at a highly subsidized rate to MNC Tata through the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (a state...

In October 2018, I gave a presentation on Seizing and Scaling Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for Improving Public Extension Services at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) at Jeonju in the Republic of Korea.

Innovative boat clinics bring health and hope to thousands of men, women and children, among India’s poorest, who live along the mighty Brahmaputra river. As the monsoon rages, floodwaters ravage the remote island of Lamba Sapori in Dhemaji district in the northeastern state of Assam in India. Trapped in their waterlogged...

Under Suman Singh’s leadership, women in Madhubani, India, gain greater control over their lives. Women in inland fisheries in the Madhubani district of Bihar, India, started organizing way back in the year 1999, first registering a district level fisherwomen’s cooperative, and then cooperatives at the block or sub-district level throughout Madhubani....

30th November 2017. While scientific terms for it were still being confirmed and relayed on land, hundreds of fishworkers at sea were already hit by the violent terror of a deadly cyclonic storm. More than 300 lives were lost, either battling Ockhi, or in the deathly silence after—tragic conquerors of...

Action research by the University of Sussex is bringing fishermen and scientists together to track wind, and waves and save lives. Seen from the air, Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala state in south India, looks like a magic carpet – a long strip of golden sand separating a vast green...

In small and remote villages in South Asia, our rich agricultural crop/breed diversity and associated knowledge is slowly getting wiped out and is being replaced by a handful of `high yielding’ and `improved’ crops/breeds. Rampant use of chemicals has led to the death of soil and is poisoning our food...

Taking a road less travelled is not easy. Sometimes the whole of society stands against you. But no such fear deterred Rekha K.C. of Koorkenchery, a village in the Thrissur district of Kerala, India, the first woman in the country to go fishing in the deep waters of the outer...

Women and men in fishing communities in South India work together to generate important beach related data. India’s 7,500 km coastline is a hotbed of transformation. The ‘Territorial Sea’, where fishing is allowed, provides an exclusive economic zone in the ocean, 60 per cent the size of its land area....

The Indian poet, Bhupen Hazarika’s soul-stirring composition ‘O Ganga Boicho Keno (Oh Ganges, why do you flow?),’ inspired by Paul Robeson’s “Ol’ Man River”, plays as we see footage of communities facing irrecoverable loss of their homes, lands and assets by an aggressively advancing river.Women at the Water’s Edge is...

“Grape Mundo” is a technology ecosystem that guides grape farmers to do precision and sustainable grape farming to produce high-quality grapes using minimum chemicals, thus lowering the cost. This ecosystem also helps grape farmers sell export quality and residue-free grapes across a huge PAN India market, without any involvement of...

The needs of rural and high-risk areas are diverse and location specific. As the market is limited, the private sector is not interested in developing technologies for high-risk areas, and the government sector often bypasses or ignores their needs. Identifying area-specific needs and developing specific solutions are key for sustainability....

he Seeds of Hope project improves climate change resilience, food security and sovereignty and autonomy of small farmer communities in North India. It relies on the recognition of women’s traditional knowledge. The project is led in partnership with the association Navdanya, founded by Dr Vandana Shiva. Direct beneficiaries include 745...

This research was undertaken as part of the Women Improving Nutrition through Group-based Strategies (WINGS) study, and was aimed at understanding ways to improve agricultural practices among women farmers in India. Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of...

More than twenty years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations contributed to the growing recognition of the role of pollination in agricultural production, with the publication of “The Pollination of Cultivated Plants in the Tropics”. Since that time, the appreciation of pollinators has grown, alongside the...

More than twenty years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations contributed to the growing recognition of the role of pollination in agricultural production, with the publication of “The Pollination of Cultivated Plants in the Tropics”. Since that time, the appreciation of pollinators has grown, alongside the...

New research in southern India, conducted by the Fish4Food Project, reveals that small-scale traders play an important role in ensuring access to fish by the urban poor. By providing low income consumers with small pelagic fish, in particular, small-scale traders support food security as well as contribute to the livelihoods...

Based on 25 case studies from the global comparative study ‘GENNOVATE: Enabling gender equality in agricultural and environmental innovation’, this paper explores rural young women’s and men’s occupational aspirations and trajectories in India, Mali, Malawi, Morocco, Mexico, Nigeria, and the Philippines. We draw upon qualitative data from 50 sex-segregated focus...