Janaki Behera, the young women from Grourangapatana village in Ganjam Block of Ganjam district belongs to a traditional fisherman family. The repeated cyclones used to damage her only country boat and net (a country boat costs Rs. 150,000 and one type of fishing net costs Rs. 40,000). She took a CJRF (Climate Justice Resilience Fund, under a project of Huairou Commission, an UN affiliate of worldwide grassroots women members) loan managed by her Village women Group collective to repair her family boat and prepare small Prawn catching nets to continue fishing in Chilika backish waters. She also leased in a small piece of land from other villagers to start farming to add to the family livelihoods as fishing alone cannot provide enough for family needs. She have learned the skills to use various locally available organic materials to prepare compositions to improve soil nutrition as well as pest management in her farm. Janaki have earned more than Rs. 85000 through these small initiatives over the last one year. ORRISSA NGO took the CJRF to the Bay-of-Bengal Coast, where Chilika Backish waters are a key part. The project also motivated the small and marginal farmers of the villages to take up no cost and low cost natural farming practices to reduce the investment burden on the cash poor families on the catchment area of Chilika lagoon. 

The women in the village Anithaban travel from chemical intensive farming to natural farming methods to reduce their farm investment cost. Small farms with high investment cost make families vulnerable in the event of frequent climate change events on the bay-of-bengal coast in Odisha. The women in Ganjam block of Ganjam district initiated crop diversification using local seeds with natural farm management process as resilient action in their village women group to help families sustain their small farms and protect them from the burden of buying costly inputs from market. This enables their land get protected as the family members too protect their health from the hazards of applying chemical pesticides while raising crops.. Struggling to survive with frequent climate change incidents, these experimented with traditional local seeds and combination crops replacing mono cropping and managed to earn Rs. 120,000 during the first two crop seasons of the year. Collecting and exchanging seeds have become a passion for these women as the entire village is being inspired by the success of diverse crops on fields of small farmers. 

Bimala Nahak - the seed mother of Diadien village in Ganjam block of Ganjam district as a small farmer promoting crop diversification with natural farm management process among fellow farmers. Struggling to survive with frequent climate change incidents, she experimented with traditional local seeds and combination crops replacing mono cropping and managed to earn Rs. 120,000 during the first two crop seasons of the year. Collecting and exchanging seeds have become a passion for her as she is being inspired by the success of diverse crops on her field.

ORRISSA NGO took the CJRF to the Bay-of-Bengal Coast, where Chilika Backish waters are a key part. The project also motivated the small and marginal farmers of the villages to take up no cost and low cost natural farming practices to reduce the investment burden on the cash poor families on the catchment area of Chilika lagoon. The communities realise the negative effects of chemical residue flowing in to the Chilika waters and probably destroying the its rich bio-diversity including the fish populations and other natural foods available in the rich water body.

The Adivasi community at Malkangiri, Odisha, India protecting their local seeds and helping small holder family farms to increase their food productions in a sustainable way. This process of work protects their cultural identity and that of their local farm bio-diversity. This community effort also helping families to increase their income by collective marketing approaches.

The Adivasi community at Malkangiri, Odisha, India protecting their local seeds and helping small holder family farms to increase their food productions in a sustainable way. This process of work protects their cultural identity and that of their local farm bio-diversity. This community effort also helping families to increase their income by collective marketing approaches.

Farmers preparing the liquid pest repellant at Gadangaon village in Kandhamal district of Orissa.

Padmashree Dr. Tulasi Munda the renowned gandhian worker travelled more than 1000kms to encourage the adivasi farmers of Malkangiri to conserve their traditional seeds. Tribal farmers from seven different districts did participated in the velidictory function and exchanged millet, paddy and pulses seeds with the host tribal farmers.

chasiswarjabhijan — March 11, 2009 — The adivasi communities of Malkangiri under eight farmer organisations are working towards protecting the rights of small & marginal farmers. Their efforts on reducing the high cost farm input burden and revival of traditional agriculture systems based farming had resulted in the revival of 73 rare seeds of the locality by the end of 2nd year of their action. Throwing a challenge to the Green Revolution package of high breed seeds and chemical fertilisers the farmers here had demonstrated high food production by following the traditional knowledge, methods and seeds. The Community Seed Fair was a process to bring in legitimacy to their work and celebrate the diverse seed & food characters of the locality and encourage the small & marginal farmers to exchange seeds among them and choose the specific varieties they need from thousands in display.
The fair organised through a foot march of 9 day long covered a distance of 60 kms with two seed decorated carts moving through the villages. More than 10,000 adivasi and dalit farmers participated in the programme which was completely organised by the local farmer's coalition. Padmashree Tulasi Munda, veteran gandhian worker and known tribal activist of Odisha state travelled more than 1000kms to encourage the organisers.