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Traditional diverse seeds have been feeding the generations from time immoral. However, emergence of modern seeds started treating the ordinary farmers as ignorant. Market seeds have lured farmers to buy it in the name of high productions. However, most of our small holder farmers don’t have the means to afford market seeds as it required additional input to yield high productions. It is another fact, that these small holder farmers have no access to the market to sale their yields with better prices. In the other hand the traditional local seeds are climate resilient, grows in adverse climate like high lands, can withstand long dry spells  and have special characters to fit to the portfolio of farmers need. 

Prabhasini Mallick”, grassroots women farmer leader of Gadapadar village one of the few women taking up the task of producing good quality seeds and multiplying it for other farmers.  Considering the promises of the market offering long grain high yield seeds, her fellow women farmers from Tarini women Self-Help Group of the village, sourced a local long grain/thin seed namely ‘Haladi Chudi’ which in local terms in English means Turmeric Bangles. In other words the meaning of the seed name carries its character of low pest attack (compared with Turmeric characters) and bangles for its sharp, long grains. As small quantity of the seed procured in exchange of other local seeds the women farmers wanted someone from their group take the lead to multiply this seeds for the entire village.

Prabhasini volunteered to take on the task for entire village as her family owns 2.5 acres of medium land, as most other families have less than this volume. Additionally, her husband too supported the idea and agreed to help her on this initiative. The village women group agreed to exchange the yield with other local varieties as they would grow this variety in the next crop season. The women farmers opt this  variety for its characters and wish this would enable them to offer a better yield in comparison with the other market seeds (long grain)As a paddy seed breeder, in the first step she has prepared her land with summer ploughing to increase porous inside the soil by making it light and mulch the farm residuals which are left in the land on previous agricultural season. She followed seed treatment process by using of cow urine and termite soil and dried the same before she applied it for germination. After drying of seeds she raised a bed to germinate the seeds and sowed Dhanicha Seed (Green Manure) which was provided by the project. Out of 100 seeds 98 seeds are germinated which bring happiness to her as she never saw this type of germination in her life. After grow up of seedlings up to 20 days she adopted line transplanting method by using of rope and stick and planted the seedlings with the help of her family members and relatives. Her husband also very happy and helped her in this work. Considering the absence of irrigation sources near the seed plot, Prabhasini and her husband were motivated to create 5% model to conserve the rainwater water. This is helping to retain soil moisture of the plot and would be used for emergency irrigation to retain the flowering and fruiting  during long dry spells. She also prepared Agneyastra (an organic pest repellent) along with fellow women farmers and used the same in her paddy field to save the crop from pest. 

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Working in the bio-diverse rich area ORRISSA realized the bounty of local resources are the key to the food security to the villagers. The community traditional livelihoods do contribute to the sustainability of this critical eco-system. The local knowledge and wisdom needed recognition and value to be relevant to the changing external environment. The community gets mobilized to cherish their own knowledge. This is being promoted while addressing their need of earning money for their family needs while remaining food secure

Sustainable agriculture & local resource based livelihood security is a core theme of ORRISSA intervention process. Farmer Led initiative for food sovereignty is the intervention where ORRISSA learned the importance of the local cropping patterns and wisdom. The resilient characters of the diverse cropping systems found to be rich in in-situ conservation enbling soil fertility, filtering water in to the soil, integrated run off management while providing food for the families, animals, pests and that of the forest.

Seed Mothers: Adivasi women play a key role in nurturing the local seeds through selection, treatment and conservation. Recognising this the local Farmer Organisations decided to bring dignity to their role and identified resourceful women in the villages to sphere head the seed knowledge around Traditional Seeds in the area. The selected Bihana Maa in the villages play the link role between farmers to provide vital information on different seed, their character and quality of seed, process and knowledge of cultivation and sourcing them.

Seed Mapping: Seed mapping forms base of this intervention where families access their local seeds available at the households and the need for the season. This is being done with the belief that the local seeds have their capacity to produce enough food for the families and have resilient characters to survive in the event of climate change effects. Community level Seed Mapping process initiated at two villages ten years back now reached to around 200 village by now. Though our intervention have not widened to this level. This mapping was done with the purpose of locating the type and quantity of the local seeds and the need of other seeds for the village. Village and cluster level farmers under the banner of farmer groups/village development committees/women self help groups analyzed the local seeds available in the village, chalked out the need of each participating farmer households through the seed mapping program. Based on the outcome plans for seed exchange among the farmers are done inside the village and requests are made with the Lok Sagathan or the Farmer Organization of the area.

Village Seed Exchange: Seed the key farm input is being handled by the women for its preservation, storage and showing knowledge. The seed exchange process initiated inside the village first to help each other.

Seed Multiplication: Realizing the need of shortage of the local seed needs and also the requirement to increase the varietal number by outsourcing from nearby areas the farmer organizations identified lead farmers to help in this front. The traditional short duration & aromatic paddy varieties, millet, pulses, tuber and vegetable varieties are multiplied by these lead farmers which are later shared among fellow farmers.

MixCropping: Traditionally known as the shifting cultivation practice wherein the adivasi grow more than 15 varieties of crop lately shifted to the uplands owned by the families near the forest. With the advent of cash crops this diversity was lost. Now the adivasi’s have re-invented the old trend to bring in diversity  (pulses, millets, cereal, vegetable ) and ensure regular harvest of foods round the year. With the advent of cash crops this diversity was losing its ground. Many had stopped growing crops on these up-land patches. Now the adivasi’s have re-invented the old trend to bring in diversity (pulses, millets, cereal, vegetable ) and ensure regular harvest of foods round the year. This process had enabled the traditional way of harvesting guided by the adivasi elders. The young adivasi farmers realized that the process of this cultivation is very simple, immune to the hazards of heavy rain in a short time.

Gharabari: The adivasi dwelling carries an impressive space for backyard farm where in key food species along with domestic animals are grown. The seed exchange process enriches this space giving it a sustainable feature by women folks to have easy access to food all round the year. All the spaces around the dwellings are used for producing food round the year. The efforts are also on to sustain this process through bio-dynamic integration of available resources around it. The women have established their own green houses and nurseries to multiply saplings.

Community Food Festivals: The adivasi farm families had started to believe that the millet based foods are no gentlemen food. When the government fair price shops only supply rice this belief gets more strengthened and young farmers don’t want to grow these crops. The community level food festivals aimed at addressing stigma attached to local foods and bring in legitimacy. This program helps to revive the traditional food practices and try to assimilate the old with the modern approach of preparing millet  based  nutrition rich food and sphere head the nutrition value of the local crops.

Community Seed Fairs: Community Seed Fairs provide a platform for the Seed Mothers and common farmers to cherish their rich seed diversity. The local farmers’ organizations organized this event to make people aware of the threats to their heritage of seeds. This year 5 Community seed fairs (3 in Malkangiri & 2 in Kandhamal) were organized during February and March 2015. The seed mothers displayed the rich diversity of the seeds and abundance of natural resources available in the locality. Hundreds of farm women led by the Seed others demonstrated the richness of the biodiversity by displaying samples of various seeds. Farmers from Koraput, Nawarangpur, Bolangir, Kandhamal, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Rayagada participated in the fair and exchanged seeds among themselves.

Exchange visits: This process enables peer learning within the operational area of the district we work and inside the organization as well as alliance building with other farmer organizations in the region to source seeds, imbibe values of local agriculture systems, food reliance and fighting for the rights of common farmer.

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Shrinking of the sea and the largest salt water lagoon Chilika connected to the sea have slashed the fishing opportunities for the highly concentrated
fisherman communities. The fisherman communities (four project villages have fisherman communities) migrating in search of wage earning outside, while women of this community work mostly as agriculture laborers. Most of these fisherman families are landless and few have small patches of land. Struggling for the portable drinking water, drainage for the water logging, sanitation, housing, sufficient cyclone shelters, communication, sustainable livelihoods with accessible health and education are the areas the communities are deprived to have rightful access. However, overcoming all the odds the collective of the grassroots women through their self-help groups are exploring ways to bring positive changes to their lives while they live in vulnerable conditions from repeated disasters. Exploring the locally available natural and other resources combined with traditional wisdom and bringing in appropriate methods/technologies, these ordinary women creating hopes for the most vulnerable families pursue livelihoods to overcome their challenges as they empower the community to face disasters with efficient plan, sharing of responsibility, mutual support and ability to negotiate with public institutions. We present here some of the resilience actions taken up by women groups and their members.

The fisherman and farming communities on the Bay-of-Bengal coast have been living in harmony with the nature since generations. The high tides, cyclones, high intensity rain/wind and floods have been a way of life for them as families have endured their hard experience to become resilient to the risks of repeated disasters brought in to their villages. Frequency of Cyclone in the villages have been a regular feature over the last 10 years. First ever worst cyclone struck the area in 1999 Super Cyclone which almost destroyed the villages and its ecology followed by heavy flood in the year 2001. Three other major cyclones namely Hudhud, Philin, Titli have occurred in the last 5 years. In- addition to this, the year 2018 have witnessed excess 800 % rain compared to the average rainfall in this area. 

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500 Adivasi households in Malkangiri block of Malkangiri district are identified and mix hoticulture plantations are taken up on one acre (for each households) of their uplands. These adivasi farmers form their own Udyan Vikas Samitees to take care of thier long term plantation assets. The families promote their plantations through organic methods and take up inter cropping in between plants. This project is being implemented through NABARD support. 

Eleven Watersheds in Mathili block of Malkangiri districts are being covered under this project for conservation of rain water and creating productive assets using the local natural resources. This programme being lauched in 2012 in collaboration with the Tribal Development Department of Government of Odisha.

In collaboration with Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI) Five Adivasi villages in Chakapada block of Kandhamal and three Adivasi villages in Banapur block of Khurda district are now promoting Climate Resistance integrated farming taking local Tuber crops and integrating other crops with livestock in the year 2012. 

We are the Nodal partner agency for the 'Orissa Forestry Programme' at Phulbani division supported by Center for People's Forestry, Hyderabad. Under this programme a total of 30 VSS are being groomed by five Field NGO units spread  over the forest ranges. 

Continuing our committment to work in the most difficult regions of the state, the field team of Malkangiri had taken the responsibility of managing three Child Labour Schools in Malkangiri district. A total of 148 working children from the adivasi communities are attending regular classes in these centers.

This is an extension of our Farmer-led programme and the follow-up of our KHOJ project. The health center at Chahali in Kandhamal district created under the KHOJ project is now the headquarters of the ORRISSA Self-Help women's Agriculture & Health Cooperative.  This adivasi women cooperative in Kandhamal district is managing a Mini Health Center at this remote pocket.

With technical input from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore the programme on demonstration and training of SMB is presently being implemented in Kandhamal district. The project funded by CAPART would create four low cost housing models in the area and would train around 100 masons on the skills over a two year period time.

Sponsored by the Department of Youth Affairs under Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India

We are the district representative of the state WeCan network to curb violence against women.

 The adivasi women from 79 Self Help Groups spreaded over 50 villages of Chakapada & Tikabali blocks of Kandhamal district are being given backward and forward linkages for improving their traditional leaf stiching styles to meet the present market demands. The groups are also given support to maintain their account and negotiate with the traders.

In our mission of creating a just & equitable society, our group have been facilitating the growth of active People’s Organisations. We strengthen them focusing on their local needs. Enabling them to access and control the local resources with public service provisions are the key areas of our intervention. This people's process have been active in four adivasi grampanchayats in Malkangiri block of Malkangiri district.