Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council has approved the Government of India (MoAFW and MOEFCC) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Project Identified Form (PIF) with project titled as “Green Agriculture: Transforming Indian Agriculture for Global Environmental Benefit and Conservation of Critical Agricultural and Forest Biodiversity in Different Landscape” for implementation in identified five States viz:, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand for implementation of various interventions over a period of seven years. 

The project aims to address the challenges occurring due to unsustainable agricultural practices and catalyse transformative change for India’s agricultural sector to support achievement of national and global environmental benefits, and conserve critical agricultural biodiversity and forest landscapes. These objectives will be addressed through two components.

Component 1: “Policy Transformation” will address constraints in the enabling environment by putting in place the tools required to strengthen and enhance the capacity of the agricultural sector to deliver biodiversity, sustainable land and forest management and climate change mitigation benefits. It will also help coordinate approaches including facilitating the adoption of appropriate fiscal and market incentives to promote or conserve diversity on-farm and across productive landscapes.

Component 2: ‘Management Transformation’ will demonstrate on-the-ground conservation improvements designed to drive higher-level changes. Under it, the project will work in high conservation priority landscapes to demonstrate replicable “best practices”. Interventions will be designed to show how ecosystem-based agricultural improvements can deliver social, production, and ecological benefits.

In order to discuss programmatic framework of various thrust areas and thereafter prepare a Full-scale Project Document, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoA&FW) in coordination with Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEF&CC) and FAO is organising a one-day National Inception Workshop on Thursday, 11 August 2016, New Delhi. This workshop will be inaugurated by the Hon’ble Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Radha Mohan Singh and  Chief/Principal Secretaries of the project states followed by panel discussions comprising of state Governments representatives, other concerned agencies and stakeholders including farmers of these participating five states.