Saviour extraordinaire
Sumana Bharadwaj
Dr Vanaja Ramprasad, a gutsy lady who had dedicated her life to saving biodiversity believes that unless small farmers are saved from the onslaught of global pressures and indigenous crops revived, we are looking at a bleak future.
At first glance, she seems like any other grandmother playing with her granddaughter in her study amidst piles and piles of books on a wide range of subjects, including books authored by her. But what belies the seeming ordinariness is the extraordinary and exemplary work she has done to preserve biodiversity and help the small and marginal farmers in the semi-arid regions of south India. Meet Dr Vanaja Ramprasad, Director of Genetic Resource Ecology Energy Nutrition (GREEN) Foundation (GF).
A nutritionist by training, Dr Vanaja has dedicated herself to the cause of empowering the custodians of our biodiversity, the food producers of our country — the small farmers from the backward regions. Her vision, along with her team of committed individuals at GF, is to help them lead a life of dignity and to help sustain their livelihood in agriculture in a manner which is both ecologically and economically viable while at the same time ensuring food security for one and all.The beginningWhat started off as a quest for answers to the paradox surrounding her during her career at the Community Health Centre in the 70s, eventually culminated in the movement called GF.
It was the decade of the Green Revolution and the entire nation was rejoicing over it, while she was treating children for malnourishment! So Dr Vanaja set off on a mission to find answers. She worked with various other grassroot organisations and after years of research, the answers to her search slowly began to unravel. As the connection between food production and poverty became clearer, Dr Vanaja realised that, poverty is not result of lack of development, poor technology or scarce resources, but is, ironically, the manifestation of the extensive and invisible costs of resource intensive and resource destructive processes, which form the very foundations of a 'developed nation'.
She was convinced that the western model of development while seemingly offered solutions, was simply not sustainable and was in fact depleting and polluting natural resources. And finally, it was the small farmers in backward areas who bore the brunt of it all, steeped in debts and dying from hunger. Most of us are looking westwards for solutions to problems of poverty and underdevelopment, which have come to falsely mean not having high consumptive power and lifestyles perched on western science and technology, with the naïve belief that by increasing investments, creating jobs and raising incomes, poverty can be eliminated.
But Dr Vanaja firmly rooted in her convictions, believes that unless the small farms are saved from the onslaught of global pressures and traditional agricultural practices and indigenous crops are revived and the fast dwindling biodiversity conserved, we are looking at a bleak future. This eventually led to the emergence of Green Foundation as a proactive initiative to empower the small farmer by conserving agricultural diversity through a network of seed banks across the state.
Green Foundation was thus formalised as an organisation in 1996 with 5 farmers and a handful of seeds in 2 villages and the whole team of committed individuals GF today boasts of about 2,000 farmers in 161 villages who participate in seed conservation programs through out Karnataka. And since its inception, GF has facilitated conservation of approximately 382 indigenous seed varieties of millet, paddy, vegetable and oil seeds, which would have otherwise been threatened by extinction due to non-organic farming practices. In the process, the movement has been instrumental in elevating the economic status of the rural women and revival of traditional farming methods and culture.
GF was awarded the United Nations’ Equator Initiative Prize in recognition of its outstanding community effort for reduction of poverty and biodiversity conservation over a decade. Among the various programmes run by GF towards this purpose are the concepts of kitchen garden, the one-acre integrated farming practice, and community farming for landless farmers, integrated agroforestry and livestock management to meet the community's need for fodder and fuel and reduce dependence on external inputs, training programmess to encourage community participation, essential for conserving biodiversity, community marketing programs to market the wholesome, healthy food products directly to consumers and holding workshops/seminars/conferences by linking with other organisationss to bring in policy changes.
The future
Looking back, the results that Dr Vanaja's efforts have brought, fills her with hope that things can be changed and by anyone too. The degree of devastation that the earth has seen in just the last 6-7 decades is enormously high and there is still so much to be done, says Dr Vanaja. And so, Dr Vanaja will continue to do her 'bit' to the society for as long as she can, even as she modestly says, "I haven't done anything"! And the least, we the people from 'developed cities', can do, is to applaud her single handed efforts in trying to bridge the big gap between the producer and consumer, which is central to saving our environment.
here's the link to the article published in Deccan Herald http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul282007/she2007072715482.asp
Contributed by Ms Kalpana Prasanna, Executive Assistant to the Director, ATREE
Sumana Bharadwaj
Dr Vanaja Ramprasad, a gutsy lady who had dedicated her life to saving biodiversity believes that unless small farmers are saved from the onslaught of global pressures and indigenous crops revived, we are looking at a bleak future.
At first glance, she seems like any other grandmother playing with her granddaughter in her study amidst piles and piles of books on a wide range of subjects, including books authored by her. But what belies the seeming ordinariness is the extraordinary and exemplary work she has done to preserve biodiversity and help the small and marginal farmers in the semi-arid regions of south India. Meet Dr Vanaja Ramprasad, Director of Genetic Resource Ecology Energy Nutrition (GREEN) Foundation (GF).
A nutritionist by training, Dr Vanaja has dedicated herself to the cause of empowering the custodians of our biodiversity, the food producers of our country — the small farmers from the backward regions. Her vision, along with her team of committed individuals at GF, is to help them lead a life of dignity and to help sustain their livelihood in agriculture in a manner which is both ecologically and economically viable while at the same time ensuring food security for one and all.The beginningWhat started off as a quest for answers to the paradox surrounding her during her career at the Community Health Centre in the 70s, eventually culminated in the movement called GF.
It was the decade of the Green Revolution and the entire nation was rejoicing over it, while she was treating children for malnourishment! So Dr Vanaja set off on a mission to find answers. She worked with various other grassroot organisations and after years of research, the answers to her search slowly began to unravel. As the connection between food production and poverty became clearer, Dr Vanaja realised that, poverty is not result of lack of development, poor technology or scarce resources, but is, ironically, the manifestation of the extensive and invisible costs of resource intensive and resource destructive processes, which form the very foundations of a 'developed nation'.
She was convinced that the western model of development while seemingly offered solutions, was simply not sustainable and was in fact depleting and polluting natural resources. And finally, it was the small farmers in backward areas who bore the brunt of it all, steeped in debts and dying from hunger. Most of us are looking westwards for solutions to problems of poverty and underdevelopment, which have come to falsely mean not having high consumptive power and lifestyles perched on western science and technology, with the naïve belief that by increasing investments, creating jobs and raising incomes, poverty can be eliminated.
But Dr Vanaja firmly rooted in her convictions, believes that unless the small farms are saved from the onslaught of global pressures and traditional agricultural practices and indigenous crops are revived and the fast dwindling biodiversity conserved, we are looking at a bleak future. This eventually led to the emergence of Green Foundation as a proactive initiative to empower the small farmer by conserving agricultural diversity through a network of seed banks across the state.
Green Foundation was thus formalised as an organisation in 1996 with 5 farmers and a handful of seeds in 2 villages and the whole team of committed individuals GF today boasts of about 2,000 farmers in 161 villages who participate in seed conservation programs through out Karnataka. And since its inception, GF has facilitated conservation of approximately 382 indigenous seed varieties of millet, paddy, vegetable and oil seeds, which would have otherwise been threatened by extinction due to non-organic farming practices. In the process, the movement has been instrumental in elevating the economic status of the rural women and revival of traditional farming methods and culture.
GF was awarded the United Nations’ Equator Initiative Prize in recognition of its outstanding community effort for reduction of poverty and biodiversity conservation over a decade. Among the various programmes run by GF towards this purpose are the concepts of kitchen garden, the one-acre integrated farming practice, and community farming for landless farmers, integrated agroforestry and livestock management to meet the community's need for fodder and fuel and reduce dependence on external inputs, training programmess to encourage community participation, essential for conserving biodiversity, community marketing programs to market the wholesome, healthy food products directly to consumers and holding workshops/seminars/conferences by linking with other organisationss to bring in policy changes.
The future
Looking back, the results that Dr Vanaja's efforts have brought, fills her with hope that things can be changed and by anyone too. The degree of devastation that the earth has seen in just the last 6-7 decades is enormously high and there is still so much to be done, says Dr Vanaja. And so, Dr Vanaja will continue to do her 'bit' to the society for as long as she can, even as she modestly says, "I haven't done anything"! And the least, we the people from 'developed cities', can do, is to applaud her single handed efforts in trying to bridge the big gap between the producer and consumer, which is central to saving our environment.
here's the link to the article published in Deccan Herald http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul282007/she2007072715482.asp
Contributed by Ms Kalpana Prasanna, Executive Assistant to the Director, ATREE
