Farmer Support
Acknowledging the crucial role farmers play in sustaining our food security, we extend our support to address the challenges they face. From a lack of infrastructure and financial backing to limited access to modern training, these hurdles impact their productivity. Our commitment lies in supporting farmers with vital resources such as seeds, manure, essential farming techniques, modern equipment, and necessary market access and connections.
Our Focus Areas
Maharashtra
We support low-income farmers with training in new cultivation techniques and help them understand the importance of using organic fertilisers and pesticides. We also supply seeds and farming facilities such as fertiliser sprayer pumps and safety kits comprising industrial gloves, face masks, rechargeable torches, safety shoes etc.
Within three years of supporting widowed farmers in Osmanabad with crop seeds and training in land acquisitions, packaging, pricing and marketing, most had become self-reliant and requested us to support other widows instead.
During the pandemic lockdown, we trained tribal migrant families from Palghar in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and improvement of their kitchen gardens and offered them a start-up kit of paddy seeds, urea briquettes and vegetable saplings. They soon began to earn a livelihood from farming.
Our project, ‘Harita’, is empowering 300 women farmers in Javale, Vadgaon, and Mirje, Maharashtra. It focuses on promoting on-farm, off-farm, and non-farm entrepreneurship.
Tribal women face ongoing difficulties in attaining sustainable livelihoods due to various socio-economic factors. Our initiative, the Saathi project, addresses these challenges by providing comprehensive support, including empowerment, training, and entrepreneurial guidance to women farmers in Trimbakeshwar-Nasik. As we continue our commitment to tribal women empowerment, we envisage further expansion and deepening of our impact, ensuring these communities’ ongoing progress and prosperity.
Participants at a livelihood training session in beekeeping at Mokhada Village in the Palghar District
Widows in Osmanabad supported with tuvar and soya seeds for their farming activities
Farmers provided with rice and vegetable seeds at Kasop and Golap Villages in the Ratnagiri District
A migrant farmer trained in the Systematic Rice Intensification (SRI) technique during the pandemic, stands in his kitchen garden, now a source of his livelihood, in the Palghar District
Celebrating Kisan Divas in Trimbakeshwar, Nasik, with a training session and the distribution of seeds to empower women farmers as part of Project SATHI
A woman farmer, who was supported as part of the Suprakshita project, weeds a cluster bean plot in Uruli Kanchan, Pune District
Women farmers use the facilities provided to spray pesticides on their crops in Uruli Kanchan, Pune District
A farmer in Bhimashankar, Pune District, pursues honey bee cultivation after a livelihood training session and the provision of a start-up kit
A villager pursues vermiculture after receiving livelihood training at Bhatye Village in the Ratnagiri District
Organic farming and spice cultivation at Phansop Village in the Ratnagiri District following a livelihood training programme
A dairy farming programme in session at Panwadi Village in the Pune District
Gujarat
In our endeavour to empower rural women, we promote farm mechanisation among women farmers at the village level and non-farm livelihoods through mushroom cultivation among women from landless as well as small and marginal farming households. We train the latter in improved agricultural practices of creeper cultivation, floriculture and vegetable farming, and register them with micro, small and medium enterprises for mushroom production. In addition, we also upskill farmers and provide seed bags, fertiliser sprayer pumps and other agricultural facilities.
Mushrooms harvested by a farmer in Silvassa after a livelihood training session
A farmer in Bojadra Village, dist Jambusara, Gujarat has planted the millet seeds provided during a training session
A farmer in Bojadara and Masar Village uses the pesticide spraying unit provided during a training session
Tripura
The pandemic impacted the livelihood of many families that were reliant on farming. We followed up our grocery support to the tribal families in Tripura with an initiative to train them in betel nut cultivation. In association with the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of Tripura, we organised a skilling session for families in Devipur ADC village. We provided them with saplings of fruit-bearing trees such as red apple ber, guava, and lemon, and other essential farming support.
Farmers participated in training for mushroom cultivation and unit setup in July 2023.
A betel nut cultivation training session in progress, facilitated by the members of Yuva Vikash Kendra, at Bhadra Miship Para Village
Betel nut saplings distributed to the participants of the livelihood training session at Bhadra Miship Para Village
Farmers at a Betel Nut Plantation in Bhadra Miship Para Village
Jammu & Kashmir
Our work in Jammu & Kashmir began during the pandemic with a grocery support initiative for underprivileged families. We continued our association with a local on-ground partner to support women with a small herd of sheep and skills in sheep rearing, thus allowing them to earn a sustainable income.We support destitute and vulnerable women across 12 villages in the Kupwara, Pulwama, and Budgam districts of Jammu and Kashmir using our association with a local on-ground partner to provide a small herd of sheep and skills in sheep rearing. It allows them to earn a sustainable income. We aim to empower women-headed households, widows, farmer women, and others by providing sustainable livelihood opportunities.