-GaonConnection.com Ram Lotan Kushwaha, a seed conservator from Satna, Madhya Pradesh goes to great lengths to preserve and conserve traditional medicinal herbs and seeds of indigenous vegetables in his farm. The vegetables and seeds also find place in a desi museum he has set up. Satna, Madhya Pradesh: Bottle gourds, in different shapes and sizes, are on display on one wall. Look around and there are other legumes of vegetables arranged neatly,...

-The Hindu Manoj’s work is consistent with his belief that man connects with Mother Earth for survival Kochi: Manoj Kumar I.B. always walks barefoot in the forest. He has literally grown one, spread over one-and-a-half acres on which his modest house stands at Edavanakkad, not far from the city. He says it connects him with Mother Earth, which he firmly believes has a therapeutic effect in building immunity and keeping one healthy. That...

-TheNewsMinute.com Founded by Ananthan Krishnan, Himakiran and Parthasarathy VM, all of them organic farmers, the main aim of the Thondaimandalam Foundation is to focus on sustainable rural livelihoods. They say if an elephant were to enter a harvest-ready kaatu yanam (180-day crop) rice field, no one would know. For the sea of paddy, which would stand at least eight-feet tall, would completely hide the pachyderm. S Ganapathi Tamizhselvan, who is a paddy...

-TheWire.in Natural farming is a type of organic farming, based on the elimination of chemical inputs and use of locally available resources to reduce farmers' input costs and make agriculture remunerative. We need to fix agriculture in India – our current system is exploitative for both our farmers and the environment. Today, nearly all public spending in agriculture goes to support input-intensive practices that have only deepened the crisis. As we are...

-Countercurrents.org More than half of rural households in India are landless, or almost so. This deprives them of the most obvious asset needed for sustainable livelihoods and food security in villages–farmland. After  agriculture the next most important source of rural livelihood in India is dairy farming but here too the household with farmland has free access to crop residues which is increasingly not available to landless households who  have to incur extra...