SEED FESTIVAL – Panasavalasa 2013

Celebrating the richness of Tribal Biodiversity, Culture & Environment

27-28th April 2013, Araku, Andhra Pradesh

Seed is the symbol of life. It is the grassroots’ element of agricultural sustainability. In the perspective of diversity, tremendous richness of landraces has been supplanted by monocultures of hybrids and GM crops to increase the productivity and considering future food security issues in the mind. In order to articulate the core values of seed biodiversity, a deep rooted and constant approach-Seed Festival, has to be part of all the organizational agenda to navigate through the exponential growth with humility in the coming years. Seed festival is an event earmarked to raise public awareness of traditional crop landraces, forest resources and support the efforts pertaining to conserve, rediscover, regenerate and share this precious gift of biodiversity and cultural heritage of farming and tribal communities with the present and future generations.

FEATURES OF THE FEST

Rich display of more than 1000 varieties of traditional crops & seeds of tribals and farmers

One from the participating thirty villages will win a prize for exhibiting highest number of seeds

Festival will celebrate seed diversity the traditional way with tribal songs and dance.

‘Workshop on Formation of Organic food chain and marketing initiatives’ is also part of the Festival.

Traditional seeds, organic products, medicinal herbs, forest produces and craft items will be put for sale.

PROGRAMME

Day 1: 27 April 2013 Seed Festival

Venue: Panasavalasa, Sovva, Dumbriguda, Araku

Day 2: 28 April 2013 (10.30 am to 4.00 pm)

Workshop on ‘Linking Organic producers to the Markets’

Venue: Guest House, Araku

Venue Route Info: Visakhapatnam àAruku (115Kms) Aruku àKilloguda (6kms), Killoguda àSagara (3Kms), Sagara àTikkilibedda (5Km), Tikkilibedda àDevudu Valasa (8kms), Devudu Valasa àPanasavalasa via Odiya Valasa, Malevalasa (3kms)

About the Organizers

Sanjeevini – community-led organization focused on building an equitable society for under-privileged rural and tribal communities, and preservation of traditional seed varieties of tribal’s. It core objective is to achieve social justice for tribal communities and sustainable management of natural resources. Mr. Devullu is the founder and Chief Functionary of the organization. It is organizing the seed festival since 2005. This being the ninth festival organized at Panasavalasa in Sovva Panchayat, Dumbriguda mandal, Visakhapatnam.

ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) is a large, nation-wide informal network of more than 400 organizations drawn from 20 states of India, that have come together in 2010 to organize a, Kisan Swaraj Yatra a nation-wide mobilization to draw attention to issues pertaining to our FOOD, FARMERS, FREEDOM. The four pillars of Kisan Swaraj are income security for farmers ecological sustainability of agriculture; people’s control over agricultural resources like land, water and seed; and access to safe, healthy, sufficient food for all.

Several economists and farmer leaders will meet in Hyderabad to look at the specific economic policies impacting farm livelihoods and ways to ensure minimum incomes to all farm households.

ASHA, OFAI (Organic Farming Association of India), Living Farms, Chetna Organic, Xavier Institute of Management-Bhubaneswar and Knowledge in Civil Society are coming together to organise a 1-day brainstorming session on the policy framework for Organic Farming in the state of Odisha. This is on February 5th 2013 in XIM-B campus in Bhubaneswar.

DRCSC is organising a Training Program on Ecological Agriculture mainly for the North Eastern states from 22-26 February, 2013 at CASA Resource Centre at Alipurduar, West Bengal. This is an invitation to organisations in the North East, willing to promote Sustainable/Ecological Agriculture, to nominate candidates for this training. The invitation letter is pasted below:

Dear Friends,

In order to promote increased awareness and application about sustainable agriculture and development of trainers in the eastern part of India (with special focus on North East), Development Research Communication and Services Centre (DRCSC), as part of ASHA ( Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture), is organizing a Training Program on Sustainable Agriculture/ Ecological Farming during 2013 (upto September’2013). The program is composed of 3-4 weeks of training spread over the year in three segments and with the first segment commencing from February 22-26, 2013.

The training modes will be classroom, on-field and exposure. The language medium will be Hindi, English & Bengali. The training Program will be conducted by eminent trainers like Sri Ardhendu Sekhar Chatterjee, Sri Tapas Mondal etc.

Organisations are requested to send names of their would-be trainers at the earliest. We are seeking 2-4 representatives from each state of eastern India. The participants should have focus of agricultural work for at least 2-3 years and should have the interest to promote sustainable agriculture in their areas/state in a result oriented fashion.

All the cost of training will be borne by DRCSC except the cost of travel and travel costs are to be borne by the respective organizations who are nominating participants for the Training Program. The training places will be within the boundary of the state of West Bengal.

We request the organizations to send the names of their nominated participants with a brief description about the participants.

The Primary training starts on 22-26 February, 2013 at the CASA RC, Saontalpur, Alipurduar. The nearest railway stations are New Alipurduar Jn. And Alipurduar Jn. Book your tickets for any of the aforesaid two stations and the training centre is roughly 15-30 minutes auto drive from the station.

CONTACT:

M- 9883119443/ 9433801622

Several organisations are joining hands to organise a state level training to interested cotton farmers, for non-GM cotton seed production, in Raichur, Karnataka on January 24th and 25th, 2013.

Sahaja Samrudha, SOIL, Chetna Organic, SEVA and Gram Vikas are jointly putting in efforts into this.

WORKSHOP ON

SUASTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

(Practices & Policies in Bihar)

Venue: IInd Floor, Hall No. 3

A.N.Sinha Institute, Patna

Date: 08-01-2013

Time: 11 AM onwards

Expert: Dr. G V Ramanjaneyulu, Director

(Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabaad)

Thanking you,

Pankaj Bhushan

Convener, GM Free Bihar Movement

Patna

9472999999/9308305339

http://jansansad2012.blogspot.in/

People’s movements in India have played a very important role in highlighting the concerns of the ordinary citizen, particularly the voices of the poor and marginalized. Almost all have originated in injustice, inequality and denial of rights. One critique of our work has been that we represent single- issue campaigns. This classification has arisen from the nature of our struggles, where detailed attention to an issue has in fact strengthened our advocacy, but at the same time apparently distanced us from larger concerns. However, this critique fails to take into account the larger picture. Our campaigns arise from, and are connected with, important democratic principles.  We are laterally linked and understand that our campaigns and demands will be strengthened or weakened by the successes and failures of other related issues and movements.  This sharing is perhaps not explicitly recognised, and we need to build platforms that underscore our commitment to democratic principles and a broader world-view focussed on the concerns of ordinary people.

A Kisan Swaraj Sammelan, consisting of farmers’ leaders drawn from nearly 20 states of India to discuss the Kisan Swaraj Neeti is scheduled for September 12th and 13th 2012, at Bhopal. The participation is by invitation and confirmations through Nilesh Desai of Sampark (the host organisation), Pankaj Bhushan and Kiran Vissa, Co-Convenors of ASHA.

A brainstorming session on Open Source Seed Systems is being organised by ASHA, hosted by Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, with the involvement of a limited number of invited participants.

In this age of Indian gene banks being put up on offer to MNCs, in these times when regulation of commercial seed trade is used as an excuse to create statutes that seek to criminalise farmers for saving and exchanging seeds, and at a time when big corporations are taking over Indian seed sector rapidly, with or without intellectual property rights in the legal regimes in India, ASHA is seeking to create a parallel force of seed breeding and saving by farmers and a greater role for public sector too, by altering the discourse and understanding on the subject.

“MARKETS THAT EMPOWER FARMERS (& CONSUMERS)”

A learning & brainstorming workshop, organized by XIMB and ASHA

Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar, July 30^th and 31^st 2012

Venue: New Academic Block Room 404

DAY 1: JULY 30^TH 2012

DAY 2: JULY 31^ST 2012