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Continuing Work As a woman-led project in remote rural India, we constantly encounter entrenched patriarchy. Swayyam’s mission to build capacities for resilient communities includes supporting the role of women with the establishment of shared home kitchen gardens for landless women, village medicinal gardens, a nursery for tree saplings, seed saving, seed sharing and home-based enterprises. We work with women to reinvent value-added traditional foods to enhance their economic security, ensure the revival of traditional crops while building their health. We recently started working on designs at Public Residential Schools on an integrated approach towards closed loop systems of growing their own food, composting kitchen waste, managing black and grey water and transforming the landscapes into productive, sustainable school forest gardens that will encourage the children to connect with their environment. We seek to address the migration of rural youth to the cities by providing opportunities for them and engaging them in home-scale enterprises such as seed banks, forest and fruit tree nurseries, mushroom cultivation, bee keeping, blacksmithing and natural building techniques. At the root of our work is an effort to preserve and share practices that highlight the best of humanity and allow for the natural productivity of the Earth. Using permaculture and agroecology strategies, increasing the diversity of tree systems and food sources helps build resilient systems which nurture both humans and the Earth, creating a shared abundance. Malvikaa Solanki is a certified permaculture designer, consultant and an educator, yoga therapist, cook and FarmHer. She lives and works on the Open Shell Farm and is the chief designer for the 1000 Tree Project. For more information on Swayaam, visit: https://swayyam.org i l a n k S o i k a a l v M a © 16 | Diversity is the key to building resilience. A variety of crops, such as grains, oilseeds, legumes and spices, ensure nutrition of the soil and the people

© Matt Dunwell What is the Future of Farming? Caroline Aitken introduces the emerging alternatives to industrial agriculture that can put food on the table and also provide solutions for the climate crisis and food poverty In the past few years, agroecology and regenerative agriculture have increasingly become widespread buzzwords among international organisations, NGOs and national governments. Restoring natural habitats and resources while also producing nutrient-rich food for local communities can help to mitigate a wide range of contemporary issues, from food poverty to climate change. But for most of us, farming still looks like ‘business as usual’ in the large featureless fields which surround us. So, what does regenerative, agroecological and organic farming look like and where is it happening? To answer this question, we first need to unpick the terminology. Many varying approaches to sustainable food production have emerged in the past 100 years in response to increasing industrialisation, creating a complex Venn diagram of frameworks and methodologies. Most share core principles of ecology as the foundation upon which they are based. Therefore, a common thread is diversity: crop diversity (species and varieties, annuals and perennials), farm diversity (mixed systems and polycultures), biodiversity (sharing and/or sparing land for Nature), and soil diversity (restoring and rebuilding the soil ecosystem). Agroecology On a philosophical level, agroecology is about humans becoming part of the ecosystems once more, accepting that like all organisms we alter our habitats. But this need not be a bad thing – as Bill Mollison said, ‘everything gardens’ – and the principles of agroecology are very aligned with those of permaculture. On a farm level, the aim is to build diversity for increased beneficial relationships, reducing the need for external inputs (pesticides and fertilisers etc.). This improves the health and functionality of the whole agroecosystem, issue 108 summer 2021 | 17

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Continuing Work As a woman-led project in remote rural India, we constantly encounter entrenched patriarchy. Swayyam’s mission to build capacities for resilient communities includes supporting the role of women with the establishment of shared home kitchen gardens for landless women, village medicinal gardens, a nursery for tree saplings, seed saving, seed sharing and home-based enterprises. We work with women to reinvent value-added traditional foods to enhance their economic security, ensure the revival of traditional crops while building their health.

We recently started working on designs at Public Residential Schools on an integrated approach towards closed loop systems of growing their own food, composting kitchen waste, managing black and grey water and transforming the landscapes into productive, sustainable school forest gardens that will encourage the children to connect with their environment.

We seek to address the migration of rural youth to the cities by providing opportunities for them and engaging them in home-scale enterprises such as seed banks, forest and fruit tree nurseries, mushroom cultivation, bee keeping, blacksmithing and natural building techniques.

At the root of our work is an effort to preserve and share practices that highlight the best of humanity and allow for the natural productivity of the Earth. Using permaculture and agroecology strategies, increasing the diversity of tree systems and food sources helps build resilient systems which nurture both humans and the Earth, creating a shared abundance.

Malvikaa Solanki is a certified permaculture designer, consultant and an educator, yoga therapist, cook and FarmHer. She lives and works on the Open Shell Farm and is the chief designer for the 1000 Tree Project. For more information on Swayaam, visit: https://swayyam.org i l a n k

S o i k a a l v

M a

©

16 |

Diversity is the key to building resilience. A variety of crops, such as grains, oilseeds,

legumes and spices, ensure nutrition of the soil and the people

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