Meet the women championing organic and sustainable farming in India

From advocating for better farming policies to saving heirloom seeds and pioneering farmers’ markets, these feisty women are leading the fight to make safe, pesticide-free food available to all

Kavitha Kuruganti: The Policy Influencer

Thirty years ago, while studying for her master’s in communications at Hyderabad Central University, Kavitha Kuruganti took up a research project in Pastapur, a village in then Andhra Pradesh, along with the NGO Deccan Development Society. “This was the first time I got in touch with farmers, particularly landless farmers and Dalit women farmers, and I was fascinated by the fiery manner in which they were able to articulate their issues,” she says. Five days after her final exams, Kuruganti packed her bags and returned to the village where she lived and worked amongst the women farmers for six years, before moving on to funding organisations like ActionAid and Greenpeace among others. Over the past 15 years, she has been involved with setting up national volunteer-driven platforms such as Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch, National Coalition for Natural Farming and others, all of which promote agroecology (sustainable farming that works with nature) and rights of farmers, particularly the marginalised ones. “We try to ensure that the pathways for scaling up agroecology are well laid out and we add to the discourse by showcasing on-ground practices. We also try to influence policy, whether it’s the creation of organic farming policies or trying to put a stop to anti-farmer policies,” says Kuruganti. She was a part of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, which protested the three farm laws in 2018, eventually leading to their repeal in 2021.

While the organic farming movement took root in the 1980s in India, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the government started to take notice, particularly when tangible fallouts of chemical-based agriculture such as land degradation, water pollution and health concerns started becoming evident. In 2005, Kuruganti collaborated with the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture to create a completely pesticide-free village in Punukula in then Andhra Pradesh. This initiative later scaled up to many villages in the state, demonstrating to the policy makers the possibilities of agroecology. The 2015 central government flagship programme Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana further accelerated organic farming in the country. “The correct paradigm to do this is to make sure that it’s knowledge-driven, done collaboratively with farmers and is not market-dependent”, says Kuruganti.

So what can an average consumer do to support sustainable livelihoods for farmers while buying organic produce? “Our advice to consumers is to get to know who your farmer is. You can opt for a community-supported agriculture model like Navadarshanam, a group of farmers in rural Tamil Nadu that has tied up with around 500 families in Bengaluru; customers pay in advance for assured seasonal organic produce to be delivered to them. Or you could think about direct farmers’ markets,” says Kuruganti. She also warns against depending too much on the so-called certification regime. “We find that the certification process in India is either deficient in terms of loopholes where cheating is possible, or that the agencies are not equipped to keep pace with the scaling up that is happening in the organic farming sector,” she says.

Sangita Sharma: The Seed Guardian

After quitting her successful career as a specialist in corporate affairs (in Dubai and Singapore) and relocating to India, Sangita Sharma became increasingly concerned about finding out where her food came from and why it was laden with harmful pesticides. After spending two years traversing the length and breadth of the country, she zeroed in on the crux of the matter—the seeds were no longer in the hands of the farmers. “Our heirloom or desi seeds were disappearing because of the hybrid seeds that came about during the Green Revolution. I found it diabolical that farmers had to purchase expensive hybrid seeds from the market. Add to this the cost of production and the farmer is in debt even before starting out; no wonder farming is not sustainable in India,” says Sharma.

In 2001, she founded a non-profit trust Annadana Soil and Seeds Savers Network and started procuring and safeguarding indigenous seeds. Beginning with a plot in Auroville in Puducherry to a state-of-the-art seed bank at her father’s self-sufficient agroecology farm in Bengaluru, Sharma has been instrumental in conserving thousands of heritage seeds—from vegetables, fruits and herbs to cereals, oilseeds and grains. “We are reviving the farmers’ inherent seed-saving skills. We also offer knowledge resources on the best practices in soil regeneration, pest and disease management, the use of growth promoters and boosters, composting and more,” she says. Till date, Annadana has distributed more than a million seed packets to farmers throughout India.

Under the Coalition for GM-Free India, Sharma has also campaigned against genetically modified seeds being introduced in India. “Once upon a time, we had 6,000 varieties of cotton seeds; now we have Bt cotton (a genetically modified pest-resistant cotton variety), which has ruined the entire ecosystem. When we heard about (the proposal to bring in) Bt brinjal, we launched a campaign—My Right to Safe Food—to educate consumers on what is happening to our food chain and why we do not need genetic modification. Eventually, the government brought about a moratorium on it,” she says.

Sharma’s mission is to empower the rural youth to take charge of their seed legacy. “We want to build a green army of rural youth who don’t need to migrate to cities but can champion sustainable farming. We are creating on-ground models that demonstrate how agroecology can be profitable, which all goes back to saving the seed—if we are seed secure, we are food secure,” she says.

Kavita Mukhi: The Market Maven

“When my son was born 40 years ago, he was a colicky child. Paediatricians told me to stop breastfeeding, saying he was allergic to my milk. Actually, he was allergic to the milk I was drinking, and not to my milk per se. That was the exact moment it dawned on me,” says Kavita Mukhi of her shift towards a healthier way of living.

In 1990, she started a small health shop at Mumbai’s Nepean Sea Road and was the first to sell whole wheat bread and noodles made by a local baker. A meeting with Masanobu Fukoka, the famed Japanese organic farmer, further ignited her interest in organic foods, eventually leading her to set up the brand Conscious Food that sold organic staples (she sold the brand in 2001). “My parents lived in Daytona Beach, Florida and when I would visit, I would spend all my money at farmers’ markets. Back in Mumbai, I really missed the markets. Conscious Food had all the dry products but no fresh produce, and nobody was willing to keep it,” says Mukhi. In 2010, she took matters into her own hands and started Farmers’ Market in Bandra, the first urban market of its kind in India where you could buy fresh produce directly from organic farmers in Nashik, Maharashtra. Now in its 13th year, the Sunday market still attracts a loyal clientele, with 20-30 per cent new footfalls.

Despite the growing interest in organic food, Mukhi laments that its perception as being more expensive seems to have taken hold in consumers. “People want everything cheap, but if you pay for peanuts, you get peanuts, not almonds. And yet, it's a choice. We need to change our priority for food in terms of where our money goes,” she says.

Mukhi believes that consumer demand is the one thing that will push the organic movement forward. At her market, she is also championing heirloom seeds, with most of the cereals and pulses available being grown from desi seeds. “One day, there should be no need for the word ‘organic’; it should be the way it was where everything is desi and grown organically. There's no other way (forward),” she says.

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