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The PEOPLE

Sahaja Samrudha

Vasundhara Mitra Organisation)

The organisation 'Sahaja Samrudha,' founded in 2001 and working in the field of millets across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, is a people's movement dedicated to preserving agrobiodiversity, constructing sustainable villages, and ensuring organic food futures. Sahaja Samrudha, which translates as "Bountiful Nature," collaborates with farmers to preserve and improve indigenous crop varieties, regenerate soil, and capitalise on the wisdom of our traditional farming techniques.

Since its humble beginnings, their initiative has grown into a thriving multi-faceted farmers' organisation spearheading a thriving movement for the regeneration of Indian food, farming, and communities through a variety of innovative projects. Their goals include promoting sustainable agriculture, conducting on-farm research to standardise sustainable practises, assisting farmers and grass-roots organisations in implementing techniques, and disseminating information, research results, and knowledge on natural resource management. Their team has successfully established organic networks between producers and consumers that protect food quality as well as farmers' livelihoods. Sahaja Organics, for example, is the largest wholesaler of organic rice and millets in Karnataka, connecting consumers and producers. Sahaja Seeds is a farmer-owned company that sells high-quality, organically grown, traditional, public-domain vegetable and food crop seeds. Sahaja Media is a media-related outsourcing firm that specialises in publication, photography, short films, and other media-related content. Krishikala is their organization's initiative to preserve traditional crop varieties and art forms. Reviving millet diversity, roots and tuber crops, traditional maize and diversity blocks, promoting nutritional gardens, millet multi-cropping, and community seed banks are some of their major programmes in up to seven states. Many prestigious awards have been bestowed upon the organisation, including the Ashoka Innovators for the Public in 2011 and the Jaivik India award for Farmer Producer 2022.