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Sustainable Agricultural Practices for Empowering Women Farmers: Green Foundation
About Green Foundation
The Genetic Resource, Ecology, Energy and Nutrition (GREEN) Foundation was set up in 1994 by Vanaja Ramaprasad (Ramaprasad) as a community-based organization with the stated vision of enabling the disadvantaged groups comprising small scale and marginal farmers with a particular focus on women farmers to attain food security and lead a life of dignity by adopting traditional methods of agriculture (Refer to Exhibit I for GREEN’s objectives). Ramprasad started working with four to five women in Thalli village in the semi-arid regions of Karnataka, a state in southern India. The aim was to conserve agro biodiversity and raise the income level of farmers in the region by promoting sustainable agricultural practices. The mission of the Foundation was to “work toward a well-preserved, diverse ecosystem that will sustain the rural livelihoods of the present generation without eroding the resource base of the future....... |
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According to Ramprasad, in addition to the desire to provide sustainable livelihoods to the poor, other catalysts that encouraged her to start GREEN were poverty, lack of food security, and malnutrition, among the poor and the increased usage of fertilizers and environmental degradation. According to her, the environmental decline was attributable to the Green Revolution of the 1970s. She stated that while the Green Revolution had succeeded in meeting the food needs of India over the past four decades, it had promoted agricultural techniques with lasting environmental implications, such as emission of greenhouse gases, groundwater contamination, loss of crop genetic diversity, and eutrophication of water bodies.........