A Daawat To Sustain Future Entrepreneurs: Araku Farmer Families

Araku Valley is an inaccessible, dramatically beautiful highland, 2,900 feet above sea level in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Life is hard: as in most of the world’s isolated places, subsistence farmers survive in a cycle of inter-generational poverty. Many live in houses they built themselves from mud bricks, and many, eating only what they can grow, were malnourished. Naandi Foundation has partnered with the adivasi community of farmers for the past 20 years in healthcare, education then in transforming the local coffee cultivation to become a world class coffee and recognised brand. All the while the approach was one of shared value so that coffee farmer families could become entrepreneurs and make a prosperous living from growing quality arabica coffee.

In addition to coffee cultivation and establishing a world recognised brand, the region also desperately needed to restore its forest and from 2010 Naandi assisted farmers in providing fruit and indigenous forest trees on the the farmer's lands adjacent to the community villages. The region is huge and besides restoring over 20 million trees as nutritional food forests many more villages and remoter regions need to be assisted.

Critical to effective action has been the GPS mapping and baseline surveys that allowed Naandi and the community to comprehend the conditions of the soil and ecology and plan effective action to address the challenges of soil health and agrarian distress. Naandi has therefore partnered with the community in skills development and asset creation to ensure that prosperity is fostered.

More outreach is required to ensure more and more villages are part of the agrarian transformation. Naandi is therefore collaborating with The Bombay Canteen to raise funds to bring more trees and arable assistance to even the remotest regions of Araku.

The entire agrarian work is certified organic and attracts a lot of interest from markets retailing safe to eat organic products. The biological methodology is in tune with the cultural values of non-harm and caring and sharing of the adivasis community. These coffee farms gives good income and the fruit trees give valuable nutrition and additional income. The entire transformative activity and shared value from production to market is a template for social and economic change that ensures sustainability and community empowerment. With over 20 million trees planted and an effective and quality driven coffee programme families are assured of continually improving incomes and a diverse high carbon landscape that guarantees well-being for the ecology and the the community.