Navdanya

Navdanya is an Indian-based non-governmental organization which promotes biodiversity conservation, organic farming, the rights of farmers, and the process of seed saving.

Navdanya has helped set up 54 community seed banks across the country, trained over 500,000 farmers in seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture over the past two decades, and helped set up the largest direct marketing, fair trade organic network in the country.

Navdanya is actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge and culture. It has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering, defended people's knowledge from biopiracy and food rights in the face of globalisation and climate change.

Navdanya has so far successfully conserved more than 5000 crop varieties including 3000 of rice, 95 of wheat, 150 of kidney beans (rajma), 15 of millets and and several varieties of pulses, vegetable, medicinal plants etc.

It has its own seed bank and organic farm spread over an ares of 20 acres in Uttrakhand, north India. The seed bank in the farm at Dehradun preserves 500 land races of paddy, 80 land races of wheat, 11 land races of barley, 5 varieties of barnyard millet, 10 varieties of oats, 6 varieties of finger millet, 3 varieties of foxtail millet and 7 varieties of mustard.

They have organized more than 50 international courses on Biodiversity, Food, Biopiracy, Sustainable Agriculture, Water, Gandhian philosophy, Globalization, IPRs, Buisness Ethics, Grand Mothers University etc.

Navdanya started as a program of the Research Foundation for science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a participatory research initiative founded by world-renowned scientist and environmentalist Dr. Vandana Shiva, to provide direction and support to environmental activism. Navdanya means nine crops that represent India's collective source of food security.