Can India Continue To Be Biodiverse While Feeding Its People? - Recording of a round table discussion

Farming & Soil
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Points from the video -

  1. Decrease in soil nutrients is causing lesser nutritional value in our food
  2. Yes India can feed people while continuing to be biodiverse. We need to see if diverting food towards creating fuel is the best policy if food security is really an issue
  3. Pests and weeds have value
  4. Simple process of learning from Mother Nature will increase prosperity of humans and nature
  5. Use the women’s collectives to spread the knowledge
  6. No food security without biodiversity
  7. India is naturally biodiverse but lot of it is lost
  8. India has triple burden of malnutrition, undernutrition and obesity at the same time
  9. Seed bank data gathering is important to take corrective measures
  10. Using agricultural land for maximum profits will not help for humans and nature to be healthy
  11. Soil health should be the driver of human wellbeing and climate resilience
  12. World is already producing for 13 billion people whereas we are only 8 billion. We need to focus on food wastage. There is shortage of good food.
  13. Even in localised food systems diversity with each farmer at the village level is important. Same commodity being grown by everyone, you will have to look for distant market. And it has to be diversity overtime.

@Vikas @sameershisodia - Need a playbook for agro diverse farming for south-east Karnataka districts. Is it available or should we build it together?

4 Likes
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Hi Uthara,

Agro diverse / Natural farming/ Agro-ecology is pretty diverse topic and we will need to build many playbooks for this region.

Let’s work together with RRAN and the stake holders of ClimateRISE alliance to make this happen.

Thanks a ton for raising this need

Regards,
Vikas

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Hi Uthara,

People at Azim Premji Foundation might also be good to speak to. They’ve been doing extensive work in AP and Telangana (touching upon all the points in the video, and working closely with 2 of the panelists- Kavitha and Vijay Kumar). They might be able to provide inputs/guidance for Ktaka as well.

Best,
Smarinita

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That’s good to know. Do you have a particular contact I can speak with?

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@sameershisodia - Can you please connect us to the right person at APF?

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Shaik Anwar, head of AP and Telangana at Azim Premji Foundation