The Green Revolution of the e 1970s was hailed for its impact on increasing food production in India. However, in order to do this, the traditional links between food, technology, ecology and culture had to be changed. New high-yield seeds, the hallmark of the Green Revolution, led to accelerated loss of genetic diversity. Uniformity in crop cultivation was accompanied by intensive use of chemicals, particularly pesticides. In a similar way, the i introduction of water intensive crops drained the ground water, significantly raising the amount of water required for irrigation and depleting natural resources. Along with this, indigenous knowledge and ways of doing agriculture were relegated to the background, transforming agriculture into a subsidiary activity and farmers into mere ‘facilitators’ of agricultural process.
Against this background, the GREEN (Genetic Resource Ecology Energy and Nutrition) Foundation (GREEN here after) started the ‘community-based agricultural biodiversity conservation programme’ towards enabling sustainable agriculture for the purpose of food security among small and marginal farmers in two villages of Thalli in n 1996. Initial activities revolved around conservation of seeds with an effort at awareness generation of the concept of conservation of agro-biodiversity and a seed-mapping exercise. The focus was on making the farming community, particularly women in it, aware of the fact that t they were the main custodians of their genetic c heritage. Today, the programme has expanded to include sustainable agriculture practices like organic farming, use of bio-pesticides, bio-fertilisers, and soil improvement.
Till date, the programme has impacted near 4000 farmers spread across 65 villages in Karnataka. 14 community seed banks together house more than 350 varieties of seeds while the gene bank contains over 420 seed varieties.
