About
About
Our mission
Living Farms is a non-governmental organisation, initiated in 2005 with the mission to uphold food sovereignty. We strongly believe that people can organise themselves to sustain their own needs. We work with indigenous communities, landless, marginal & small farmers and consumers in Orissa, in the eastern part of India.
We work to improve their access to and control over food, farming systems and natural resources. We promote local production, storage and consumption, prioritize local markets and the consumers' right to safe and nutritious food.
Our key strategies are sustainable agriculture and sustainable management of natural resources. In collaboration with the local communities we try to understand their traditional knowledge of farming, the conservation of natural resources and trade. In collaboration with communities, we set up action research to find solutions to their local, specific problems. We document and share information about conservation initiatives, crop biodiversity, the impact of policies on farming communities and people’s struggle to assert their food sovereignty.
Our vision
Living Farms means farms are alive i.e. the life beneath & above the soil are alive. Living Farms envisages landless, marginal and small farmers living with dignity by upholding their rights, the soil being reinvigorated to a living entity, the culture in agriculture being restored and celebrated, agriculture becoming economically viable ecologically sensitive and capable of preserving the social fabric of rural communities.
Food sovereignty : our main goal
Food sovereignty is the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.
It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime. This offers a paradigm which prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and farmer-driven agriculture, communities involves in the farming system and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability.
Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees a just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food.
Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, social classes and generations.
Food sovereignty ensures living with dignity and self respect.
Living Farms advocates following principles to uphold food sovereignty.
You can read more on Food Sovereignty in this in-depth article
Our story
A close encounter with hunger and malnutrition in tribal villages of Northern Orissa in 1998 compelled Debjeet to search for ways & means to respond to existing scarcity of food & nutrition. Having been intimately associated with tribals in Orissa for more than eight years, he tried to look for solutions which were closer to rural life, improves availability of food & nutrition at household level, and reduces malnutrition related deaths in villages. This search led him to work as a farmer under the guidance of an experienced teacher of ecological agriculture for one year.
Living Farms was formally initiated in 2005. As a part of our policy we have decided to work with landless agricultural labourer, marginal and small farmers having a focus on issues related to food security and sovereignty.
Our team
We like to present our team members, the driving force behind Living Farms.
We want to explain what we are doing, in which projects we are involved... But we also want to tell you about our motivation to work for Living Farms. We want to share our dreams with you!
Jyoti - Information and documentation team
After working on community health, development, human resources and women empowerment, I felt a need to work on "Nutrition" aspects so I decided to get involved in farming. Living Farms is an extension of this interest. I share a part in its process of inception and growth. I am documenting and communicating the concept of sustainable agriculture and related issues. I love to work with the local villagers. They are the producers and “life” starts with them. I dream of villages having food sovereignty, Seeds, land, water, forest in the hands of villagers. People deciding for themselves and managing their resources in a respectful and sustainable way to have healthy food and a healthy way of living.
Jagannath - GM campaign team
Jagannath Chatterjee, who has worked with a public sector company as a state head and started his career with national English daily as a journalist and who has been a one man campaigner against vaccines, puts in his efforts as an anti-GM campaigner in Living Farms. "Living Farms offered me the perfect working environment for the kind of work I am doing", he says. "Campaigning is a very difficult job especially when you are up against mighty corporate forces and their allies in big governments. It requires a lot of coordinated effort to get your message across. The climate within Living Farms, its credibility and the network helps me to see result of my work.
Debjeet
I work along with my team members to accomplish the tasks at hand and help them to grow by taking independent responsabilties, working together in the field. I network with other organisations on behalf of Living Farms. I am also responsable for fund raising. To see people amidst of all odds taking care of people around them is a great source of inspiration. Children are also a source of inspiration.
Chinmayee -Information and documentation team
I work for Living Farms since 2006. I am responsible for Project report compilation, database management as well as managing our website of our organisation.
Living Farms gives me an opportunity to document information which is directly related to peoples lives. By sharing this knowledge (books, magazines, articles, reports, statistics...) with the media, NGOs, students, educational institutes... we want to inform them and raise awareness.
Suasanta - Community food sovereignty team
I work for Living Farms since may 2007. I prepared different case studies on the impact of pesticides on human health and I designed communication mechanisms to improve the fieldwork. I am motivated to work for Living Farms because we are purely working on sustainable agriculture for communities in the grassroot levels.
Brochure
Click here to download the Living Farms brochure.
Status
We are a non-profit organisation registered by the Indian Trust Act.
Our registration number is 1968-2008 (Dt. 08-12-08)
