“Millets are incredible ancestral crops with high nutritional value. Millets can play an important role and contribute to our collective efforts to empower smallholder farmers, achieve sustainable development, eliminate hunger, adapt to climate change, promote biodiversity, and transform agrifood systems.” - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu

The lanes and backyards of Lakhamapur Village, Chandrapur, are, literally, teeming with goats. Families here are busy expanding their herds and growing their small, but thriving, backyard businesses – the incessant song of bleating goats rings through the air at every turn...

In 2023-24, the women of Maa Santoshi Swayam Sahayta Mahila Self Help Group ventured into the farm machinery business - capitalising on the high demand for cotton shredding machines among farmers, to shred left over crop residue like stalks, once cotton has been picked.

Traditionally, indigenous practices have ensured the health of farmlands and maintained fertility of soil. Adding farmyard manure, rotating crops, sprinkling ash, and many other such techniques have kept India's soils - which have always been low in nitrogen - at an optimum level of fertility.

Worms & Farm Waste, and the art of vermicomposting, are providing farmers with more sustainable and environmentally friendly methods of fertilizing fields, whilst simultaneously helping them build viable businesses to diversify and bolster incomes.

Ram Jethabhai Mulubhai has made some bold decisions in his life. On completion of 12th standard, he enrolled himself in a 5-year Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, and decided to become an artist! Pretty bold for a humble farmer’s son!

When Hari Singh was just 16 years old, he lost his hand in a fodder chopping machine. It took his parents almost 1.5 hours to reach the nearest hospital on their only vehicle – a tractor! But the gentle Hari is far from bitter about it. Despite his challenges, he has become a passionate advocate of organic farming - dedicating his life to educating farmers about it.

India is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change risks, and nowhere will the impacts be felt more acutely, than in the area of water – particularly in water stressed rural areas, where livelihoods so desperately rely on natural resources, like water, for survival.

A third of the world's soil is moderately to highly degraded, threatening global food supplies, increasing carbon emissions and foreshadowing mass migration. In India, soil erosion and degradation are widespread across the largely agrarian nation - putting our food security, and the livelihood of millions of farmers, at threat. A change in farming practices has never been more urgent.

Sourav Mukherjee is a key driver of the goat based livelihood, and women empowerment programs for Ambuja Foundation in Farakka West Bengal. To say the least, this man is passionate about goats – having seen first-hand how goats have the ability to lift families directly out of poverty – and has no problem talking your ear off on the subject when you show even the slightest bit of curiosity.

In the terrain of Darlaghat, water is the most common challenge due to the pressing issues of soil erosion, eradication of the green cover, and reduction in agricultural produces in the hills. To address these issues, Ambuja Foundation collaborated with NABARD and developed a Ridge to Valley approach and worked on proper management of agriculture land and drinking water availability.

When people talk about India’s water crisis, stark images of the deserts of Rajasthan and the dry, dusty interiors of Maharashtra come to mind. But India’s water woes are relentless—leaving no corner of the country untouched in its wake.