Farmers’ sovereignty, which gradually vanished over the years, can be restored through the seed chain under the Sanjeevani programme.

Many Indian states have seen an agricultural breakthrough in the mid-60s with the intensive use of new seed-fertilizer technology. Over the years, climate change, unsustainable agricultural practices and water availability have adversely affected the productivity and yield of the farmers.  

Seed plays an important role in the agrarian-dominated economy which is a determinant of food and nutrition security and sovereignty. Multi-nationals and corporations hijacked the seed business and made farmers dependent.  

Caritas India through its Sanjeevani programme is promoting a seed chain initiative to ensure access and availability of indigenous seeds to the farmers. Imbibed with the ‘Sharing Community’ and ‘Dialogue with nature’ the programme is creating a seed chain. This will ensure greater availability of more than 35  indigenous varieties of food crops and more than 28 varieties of forest-based vegetable seeds which are climate resilient.   

“The organization gave us seeds of different varieties of traditional food crop, some of us received, 100, 200 and very few of them received 250 grams, with the condition that we cultivate, harvest and return back the same quantity of seeds to the organization and same quantity of seeds given to a neighbouring farmer or farmer in the nearby village and we did so,” says the village leader of Sanjivani project village in the Jhabua diocese to the participants of Sanjeevani outreach Workers and Community Educators during learning sharing exchange meet.  

This initiative not only helped in preserving indigenous seeds but also ensured farmers’ participation in decision-making thereby increasing farmers’ sovereignty. 

Today not only the agriculture university and Krishi Vigyan Kendra but students from such institutions are brought to the campus and project villages for action learning.  Indeed, seeing is believing and sharing community approach is doing wonders.  

Caritas India has brought the Sanjeevani outreach Workers and Community Educators to experience this seed chain initiative for learning experience and replication. These participants were called for a learning-sharing exchange meeting from 10 to 12 October 2022, at Pragati Society -DSSS-Jahabua in Madhya Pradesh.  Altogether,  20 participants, including 3 Diocesan Directors from Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Jhabua, 7 Outreach Workers, and 10 Community Educators attended the programme.  The programme served two-pronged objectives, to share their learnings and experiences of implementing the Sanjeevani programme, and gain on-ground experience of the project villages to understand how programme participants actively play vital roles to get the desired results.