Food and Water

Making water use and distribution ecologically sustainable, making food accessible, safe and sustainable

This section features initiatives towards producing and making accessible safe and nutritious food, sustaining the diversity of Indian cuisine, and promoting slow food. Along with this, it carries stories on making water use and distribution ecologically sustainable and equitable, achieving decentralised conservation, retaining water as part of the commons, and democratic governance of water and wetlands.

We would like to avoid featuring purely elitist food fads even if they pertain to healthy or organic food, and expensive technological water solutions that have no relevance for the majority of people.

‘We have more hardy, nutritious grains than GM can offer’

Debal Deb has conserved 1,200 climate resilient rice varieties. He speaks on the need to conserve traditional seeds and why we don’t need genetically modified ones.

Maharashtra goes Doha for water

How the inexpensive Doha model of groundwater recharge is saving the livelihoods of farmers in Maharashtra. Doha is a low-cost, eco-friendly water impounding structure built in a stream with no casting material used.

Nagaland’s docu-film bags first prize

“We want to show the people and the government about the importance of sustaining the cultivation of millets for maintaining agro-bio diversity,”

A fruitful journey

A food safari in the desert of Rajasthan reveals a variety difficult to imagine in cities

Melghat’s Payvihir brands its forest produce to success

Payvihir, which has a 182-hectare forest under community forest rights (CFR), has worked wonders in the last four years, showing the way for tribals.

From farmers to consumers the organic way

These second generation farmers wish to market chemical-free and pesticide-free farm produce directly to the consumers and eventually become “entrepreneurs.”

Malnad will leave you with food memories

The theme for this year’s Mela is traditional seeds and cuisine, and transformation/healing.

How Her Travels and Experiences Inspired Backpacker Madhu Reddy to Become an Organic Farmer

Madhu Reddy talks about the journey that inspired her to return to her family farm and convert it into a chemical-free establishment.

Making Organic Produce Affordable

"A lot of our products are cheaper than the inorganic equivalent in supermarkets, since our overheads are low."