The GREEN Foundation began its work in 1997 with a handful of women in the small village of Thalli, South India, driven by the aim of helping small scale and marginal farmers of the country.
With over 50% of India’s workforce finding employment in the agricultural sector, the country’s poverty issues cannot be addressed without considering the plight of the Indian farmer. We work to strengthen the food and economic security of these farmers through a multi-pronged approach.
Empower communities
We provide extensive training and capacity building in sustainable agricultural practices to decrease farmers’ dependence on expensive inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. This includes teaching them about seed and crop improvement, vermicompost, natural pest management, and other organic farming practices. We facilitate organic farming certification through the Participatory Guarantee System so that farmers may fetch higher market prices for their produce. GREEN also initiated the formation of Janadhanya, a society that empowers farming community members by developing entrepreneurial skills and improving market linkage for their produce.
Preserve the ecology
At the root of our work is agrobiodiversity conservation. We enable the setting up of community seed banks and networks which act as seed repositories that provide farmers free access to indigenous seeds. We facilitate in-situ conservation through kitchen and community gardens as well as on-farm rare variety demonstrations. We conserve seeds ex-situ in a gene bank that contains hundreds of indigenous seed varieties.
Empower women in agriculture
by helping establish structures such as village development committees and Self Help Groups, we hope to provide women with platforms where they can voice their concerns.
Lobby for political change
GREEN works in collaboration with farming communities and other non-profits in the agricultural sector to bring about policy changes that will protect the rights of small scale and marginal farmers. We also spread the message of sustainable agriculture through various publications and media outlets and sensitize farmers on the direct impact that policy changes have on their lives.
Preserve indigenous knowledge
We revive forgotten traditional mediums of information exchange such as seed yantras and seed fares which traditionally formed essential platforms for information exchange. Farmers are also taken on exposure visits as a cross-learning experience.
