Natural Farming - For better food systems and public health!

Yasmin Story

Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming is on a mission to be the change. For better food systems with sustainable farming solutions.

DevCom Films by Vidyasagar Kattula

4th November’ 2024 – Strategic Communications Unit from Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming, visited Yasmin’s family to document her efforts to reverse family’s health crisis. Meet Yasmin and Rafi – a couple from Bellamkonda Village, Palnadu District, Andhra Pradesh. India. Yasmin – a woman from POP family who fought against anaemia and set as an example for many, today.

Yasmin is one of among the beneficiaries of Health and Nutrition Interventions found to be anemic with her baby boy. Health and Nutrition Interventions played a remarkable role in bringing behavioral change, change in consumption patterns of her family. Diet Recall methods are used to identify the patterns of consumption, comprehending what is lacking from the diet and prescribed appropriate diet plan to improve the overall intake of essentials for good health and nutrition. Home visits and counselling’s are regular routine for the Health and Nutrition personnel – they tracked and traced the family’s progress, to confirm behavior change in the way they consumed.

at Bellamkonda Village, Palnadu District with Yasmin Family

She firmly believes in setting up a Kitchen Garden aka Nutri Garden at backyards, terrace or another space available at home to consume chemical-free homestead food. Healthy and nutritious diet has become an expensive and luxurious choice for poorest of the poor families. Health is often ignored in the vicious cycle of busy lives – She adds.

Professing the bright side of establishing Kitchen Gardens and encouraging women to actively participate in creating a natural farming movement in her village. 

Rythu Sadhikara Samstha has devised multi-pronged approach to effectively reach out to the farmers and public in general to promote the production and consumption of healthy and nutrient dense natural farming foods. At community level – Health and Nutrition Personnel organize Farmer Nutrition School. Members in a community gather and discuss about health and nutrition as agenda, while actively engaging in cooking demonstrations from HN Personnel. Recipes are strategically calendarized and helps the community members to gain knowledge over what to eat, why to eat, when to eat and how to eat. Food Basket is another program, with which the diverse foods grown in a community are made accessible for all the members in a community. Beneficiaries will have an access to essentials like pulses, oils, and millets grown within the communities, warranting healthy intake.

Healthy food systems are the need of the hour. Rythu Sadhikara Samstha is not restricted to the production, but also operates on the need to consume healthy foods on daily basis. Nutri gardens, backyard Poultries and breeding small ruminants helps landless members in a community grow and take daily culinary needs without using pesticides, herbicides and weedicides. Kitchen Gardens, Backyard Poultries and Small Ruminants gives an opportunity to grow healthy foods at compact spaces back home and offer fresh foods available round the clock, cutting the transport carbon footprint. 

In the midst of treatment expenditures skyrocketing, public health has become paramount important for state and central governments. Atmanirbhar Bharat – country’s journey towards self-reliant approach – with farmers and farming at its core. National Mission on Natural Farming – is an initiative by the apex governance to promote the natural farming for healthy food production and consumption. Using Indigenous technical body of knowledge and revisiting tradition practices with locally available resources makes less reliant over the synthetic and chemical fertilizers – thus able to make way for future generations to healthy and safest havens on the earth.