Webinar on “Uncultivated Foods”, Sept. 4th 2020, 3.30pm

PRESENTATIONS OF THE SPEAKERS

Salome Yesudas’s presentation can be downloaded here : https://kisanswaraj.in/wp-content/uploads/Salome-Yesudas-Uncultivated-Foods-4th-sept-webinar.pdf

Dr Debal Deb’s presentation can be downloaded here : https://kisanswaraj.in/wp-content/uploads/Debal-Deb-Forest_Foods-Webinar-sept-4th.pdf

Debjeet’s presentation can be downloaded here : https://kisanswaraj.in/wp-content/uploads/Debjeet-World-Worldviews-Knowledge-Practices-of-Kondh-community-sept-4th-2020.pdf 

Brief introduction to the Speakers of this webinar is given below:

SALOME YESUDAS, FREELANCE RESEARCHER

Salome is a nutrition scientist who has been part of the ICAR-KVK (Indian Council for Agricultural Research-Krishi Vigyan Kendra) system for many years, and has been with National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIDPR)’s Center for Agrarian Studies having published papers on uncultivated foods. Salome also worked with different NGOs in South India including in a Krishi Vigyan Kendra run by Deccan Development Society.

Her work focused on community nutrition and local food systems including uncultivated foods.

She documented systematically and analysed nutrition composition of some of these foods with the help of National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). She published the data not only for scientific research purposes but also for communities to appreciate their local wealth of resources and knowledge, in their local languages.

An interesting part of her work has been documentation of the foods of most marginalised communities like Dalits and Adivasis.

DR DEBAL DEB, ECOLOGIST & FARMER, BASUDHA, ODISHA

Dr Debal Deb is a freelance ecologist, conservator of folk crop diversity, and a farmer.

He is a biologist, with specialization in genetics, and doctorate in mathematical ecology from Calcutta University. He conducted post-doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and in ecological economics at University of California – Berkeley. His work encompasses conservation biology, agroecology, forest ecology, and ancient ‘sacred’ ecosystems in eastern India. In 1997, he founded Vrihi (Sanskrit for ‘rice’), India’s largest non-governmental folk rice gene bank, conserving 1000+ folk rice varieties in situ.

His research farm Basudha, in Odisha, demonstrates ecological agriculture, ecoforestry, alternative energy use, and ecological architecture. He has served as one of the Members of the Expert Committee on Agro Biodiversity in the National Biodiversity Authority, GoI and is a recipient of the National Plant Genome Saviour Recognition Award. More about his work can be read here http://cintdis.org/basudha/

DEBJEET OF LIVING FARMS, ODISHA

Debjeet has been involved with Kondh community in Odisha in building narratives of self-reliance that are primary to their way of life. This includes putting in practices and knowledge to reclaim the shared spaces, strengthen internal solidarity within the community, reclaim control over local food systems, and defending cooperative modes of living between humans and rest of nature. He works with Living Farms, a nonprofit organisation in Odisha.

Debjeet and his team at Living Farms has been working with Kondhs (one of the adivasi communities) and other Adivasis of Odisha since 1992, to understand their food systems, agricultural practices and way of life and the role it plays in making them self-sufficient and resilient.

The work involves the revival of traditional agriculture, seed conservation, forest conservation and non-monetized relationships within their local economies as well as linking local food systems with food sovereignty.

Most importantly, it has involved the continued reflection with the community elders and youth to respond to the climate crisis, and biodiversity crisis  and envisage a future in which a value system gets deepened: of responsible living/or living with ecological consciousness, harmony with all others, actively promoting respect and tolerance, building strong resistance to lust for wealth and power, active non-violent opposition to all kinds of inequity and injustice producing systems and processes, and local socialism.

Email address: livingfarms@gmail.com; Phone: +91 99385 82616; https://livingfarms.co.in