Climate change: learning from women farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India
What we saw when we visited the women’s self-help groups transforming their communities with natural farming
Thursday 20 July 2023, 6-8pm
Swiss Cottage Library, 88 Avenue Rd,
London NW3 3HA ALL WELCOME
SOLVEIG FRANCIS, based at Crossroads Women’s Centre, will report on her visit in November 2022 to the growing women-led natural farmers’ movement in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India.
She and her colleagues met women organised in 140,000 Self-Help Groups across 3,000 villages who are spearheading an agricultural, economic and social transformation through Community Managed Natural Farming (agroecology based on no/low tilling, crop diversity, ground cover all year round, and water conservation). They expect all six million farmers and two million landless farmworkers in Andhra Pradesh to be regenerating the soil by 2031, rejecting chemical fertilisers & pesticides, and using local seeds. This transformation benefits the land, the wildlife, the nutrition of the food, the health of the family and women’s incomes, while helping reverse climate change by cooling the earth. A new way of measuring and valuing these benefits is underway.
As news spreads, Andhra Pradesh is invited to work with other states in India and other countries to adopt natural farming. In the UK too agroecology is increasingly being taken up. Help spread the word of this movement which gives hope to us all.
