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In India, Agriculture – the primary sector of our economy is facing serious challenges due to the interventions made in the sector in last 40-50 years in the name of 'modern agriculture' for 'developing agriculture'. The recent crisis in Indian Agriculture followed by farmer suicide points out that the system we were following was not ecologically and economically sustainable. Moreover monoculture and chemical intensive practices challenged the food security, led to food contamination and disturbed rural livelihood.
The agriculture sector of Kerala, where almost all modern systems and practices in agriculture being experimented is also facing the crisis which already got reflected in farmer suicides and loss of rural livelihood. . Being a consumerist state dependency for food materials on neighboring states are increasing day by day, leaving our traditional farmers – a large share of our population – into misery.
In this juncture, Thanal is trying to contribute to a change in agriculture to make it sustainable. To sustain agriculture cost of production has to be lowered and farmer friendly marketing mechanisms have to be deviced. Thanal is engaged in facilitating farmer education and training on low cost but efficient ways of farming and is promoting farmer friendly marketing systems like Organic Bazaar.
The objectives of Sustain Agriculture programme are
- Environment Protection
- Food security and
- Rural Livelihood
Through Sustain Agriculture programme we are trying to turn the 'Agri business' into real Agriculture which demands involvement and support of the society and a change in attitude and way of life.
We work on grassroot level with farmers at different parts of India to help them build capacity in agriculture production and marketing. We also do awareness, campaign and sensitising programmes for students, consumers and general public on different issues in agriculture like 'Save our Rice', 'No GM', 'Community Action for Pesticide Elimination', Organic Farming etc., We do lobbying for better policies from the Government to support reviving our agriculture sector.
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Sustain Agriculture
