Odyssey of Learning

The Annual Saksham Review meeting was held physically after a gap of two years on 19^th – 20^th October 2021. This review meeting was well-conceived and designed for the purpose of coming together as a Saksham family to share and learn. The theme for this meeting was “Odyssey of Learning” which means a journey of experiences. The partners from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand came together with rich experiences from the ground from fourteen regions of the country. The experience shared were around local governance, organic farming, government schemes and the sovereignty of food guarantee. The first-hand experience sharing through achievement became a real pool of learning which all the participants took home along with them for better innovation and implementation in the field.

The first day was dedicated to the sharing of the outcome of the program where all the partners came up with the achievement of the field. Then the discussion centred around how to help people in organic farming and food sovereignty for sustainable agriculture and livelihood. The second day was an input session by Dr. Haridas on climate adaptive agriculture. Dr. Haridas the resource person detailed the process of vermicompost, trenches, companion crops, mixed crop, solar light and the innovative ways for conserving the earth and sustainable agriculture where we can help the mother earth to reclaim the Monsoon calendar.

The two days annual review meeting was a real learning experience as all the partners participated in this Meet. The participation in the discussion by partners was indeed forthcoming. They were eager to learn, and they were ready to disseminate and apply these learnings and new insights in the field. All the program coordinators were highly enthusiastic and would organize their internal platform where they can share the information and help one another in the successful implementation of the program.

The Annual Review Meeting created a lot of impact with many lessons learnt showcased during the 2-day review.  The meeting ended with a positive note on striving to preserve the indigenous variety of seeds and helping the marginal farmers to protect their yields from the corporate and company invasion by practising adaptive agriculture in the days to come.