Besides yield, nutrition and income, a family farmer harvests several other benefits from an agroecologically designed farm. So, we need to have a different set of parameters to capture impact of an agro-ecological system. Measuring the impacts of agro ecology over several parameters of different kind has encouraged farmers in...

National Workshop on Small-scale Fisheries, Cyclone Ockhi and Disaster Risk Management was held on 28 to 29 May, 2018 at Thiruvananthapuram. The workshop was organised by the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) Trust with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The...

Between 29 November and 3 December, 2017, Cyclone Ockhi devastated hundreds of lives and livelihoods of coastal fishing communities in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, India. This study assesses the impacts of the cyclone on fishing communities and the mechanisms in place at the local, national and international levels to address...

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...

In the wake of tropical cyclone Ockhi, the focus now should be on improving at-sea cyclone preparedness and search-and-rescue co-ordination to save precious lives.

“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...

A workshop on Cyclone Ockhi, which swept through parts of south India, discussed ways to make coastal fishing communities more resilient to natural disasters

Cyclone Ockhi, which hit southern India late last year, brought out the need to empower communities to manage risks through locally owned and locally appropriate approaches

The round table was organized by Saad Aangan, a Goa-based gender resource group, in collaboration with the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (Trust) and was attended by thirty-four participants, all (except one fish farmer) women. The workshop was conducted in Konkani, the language of Goa. The programme commenced with...

A few kilometres from Chirala in Andhra Pradesh, right on the sea shore, is the tiny village of Vadarevu. Usually idyllic, this village is now as tumultuous as the sea, thanks to the threat of eviction that the fisherfolk face. On Monday, the local police tried and failed to evict nearly...

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have been established to help the hundreds of smallholder farmers in India who are unable to gain cost-prohibitive certifications for organic farming. These systems allow access to a fair and transparent market system and grant farmers a direct stake holding in the supply chain of clean...

About 10 years ago, people in the small village of Gajoldoba on India’s stretch of the trans-boundary Teesta river started noticing significant changes in their environment. Their fields weren’t yielding the same number of crops. The water level in the wells was dropping. And the fish – once so abundant that...

Held for the first time in India, the 2017 ICT4D Conference: From Innovation to Impact will bring together public, private and civil society organizations from across the humanitarian and international development community to not only discuss the latest trends in digital inclusion but the wider use of data to support achievement of...

Growing crops is a challenge in the hilly terrain of Assam-India. To counter this, Sloping Agriculture and Land Technology (SALT) has been introduced as an alternative farming method to the farmers in place of jhum.  Farmers are trained on - A-frame or making the contour line by using the A-frame;...

While India was home to more than 100,000 rice varieties only 50 years ago, today more than 80% of the area dedicated to grow rice is planted with hybrid varities. Thanks to the efforts of about 1,400 farmers in the Koraput region (Odisha state), traditional varieties of "desi dhaan", as they...

Quinoa, once a staple food of only the indigenous people in the Andes, has become a darling of food aficionados around the world in recent years. So popular it has grown that even some fast food restaurant chains have now dishes and salads with it on their menus. Its exceptional...

Everyday Experts explains how knowledge built up through first-hand experience can help solve the crisis in the food system. It brings together fifty-seven activists, farmers, practitioners, researchers and community organisers from around the world in 28 original chapters to take a critical look at attempts to improve the dialogue between...

It was in 2015 that the United Nations declared the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are 17 Goals, and SDG 14 deals with marine ‘life below water’, which is is formulated with the aim to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

The Centre for Integrated Rural and Tribal Development (CIRTD), a long term partner of ActionAid India in Sundargarh district of Odisha, has implemented the project, “Enhancing income and securing the food and nutrition of Small and Marginal Farmers through Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture in Rainfed Region”. CIRTD works predominantly in...

Organic agriculture is one of the most widely known alternative production systems advocated for its benefits to soil, environment, health and economic well-being of farming communities. Rapid increase in the market demand for organic products presents a remarkable opportunity for expansion of organic agriculture. A thorough understanding of the context...