What is Agrobiodiversity?
Agrobiodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals, and microorganisms that are part of farming systems, from ​the diversity of seeds farmers grow to the wild species that support pollination, soil health, and water cycles. It includes the knowledge, practices, and cultural relationships that sustain this diversity over generations.
Our Model
Community-centric
We place local voices, observations, and priorities at the heart of the work
Landscape-rooted
Collaborative
We work across farms, forests, villages, markets, and institutions to understand agrobiodiversity as part of a wider living system.
We bring together researchers, practitioners, community organizations, funders, and local knowledge holders to build shared understanding and action.
Why Agrobiodiversity Matters?
In the Central Indian Landscape, traditional crops like kodo millet have fed families for generations. They are suited to rainfed, marginal land. They require fewer external inputs. They are connected to local food traditions, seasonal rhythms, and farming wisdom passed down through practice and observation.
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But agrobiodiversity is under pressure. As markets shift, input-intensive farming spreads, and land use changes, the diversity of crops being grown, and the knowledge held around them, is quietly narrowing. The consequences touch farmers, soils, forests, watersheds, and the wider web of ecological relationships that sustains life in the landscape.
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Diverse farming systems are more resilient to climate variability. They carry ecological memory that science is only beginning to appreciate. And they are often the foundation of food security for communities living in and around forested landscapes.
Where We Work
Our work is grounded in the Central Indian landscape, one of the most significant tiger habitats in India, and a place where farmland, forest, and community life are closely intertwined. The villages here are home to farming communities whose livelihoods, food systems, and daily lives are shaped by their proximity to forests.
It is a living landscape, with roads, markets, aspirations, pressures, and relationships that extend far beyond the forest edge. Our work tries to meet that complexity honestly.
Collaborate With Us
This program is built on collaboration. If you are a researcher, practitioner, farmer organisation, funder, or institution working on related questions — in Central India or beyond — we would welcome the conversation.
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We are particularly interested in connections across millet research and promotion, traditional ecological knowledge, landscape-level conservation and livelihood work, and community-led governance.
