Natural Farming in India

By Katherine Rempel, 2nd year MDP student

VIKASA office

My name is Katherine Rempel and this year I completed my international field placement with VIKASA in Visakhapatnam, India.  VIKASA is a Natural Resources Management organization with a focus on agriculture and horticulture-based interventions to sustain and strengthen the livelihoods of tribal farming communities in Andhra Pradesh.  They are working to develop a social order that values the real significance of environment protection, social justice, women empowerment and moves towards sustainable development with offices in Visakhapatnam and Araku Valley.  I had the opportunity to visit both office sites while working in a hybrid environment.  At VIKASA I worked under Dr. Kiran who supervised my placement and guided me for each of the projects I worked on. 

My role at this field placement was to work with the team and independently on two project streams that involved building meaningful relationships, developing a case study on recent success stories, and developing content for updating the organizational website.

The first project is called Graduating Maa Thota farmers into Natural farmers in the Paderu Region - A case study on natural farming. The case study documents the history of the “green revolution” in India and shows how VIKASA’s work has improved productivity of major crops cultivation and processing methods, developed natural pest control alternatives, initiated gravity-based irrigation methods, and provided training and outreach in tribal communities.

Kate with VIKASA team members and farmers from the Araku Valley

Developing content for updating the organizational website had many different components.  I worked on turning productivity and processing methods into infographics, I developed multiple slide shows to showcase the work done and projects completed over the years and turned data sheets into graphics and charts to visually represent the results.  To complete this work, I converted the list of projects over the years into a living excel file that can track impacts, developments, and outcomes.

I am grateful for the experience of conducting my field placement at VIKASA.  I walked away with many skills such as time management, organizational development, and the opportunity of working in tribal communities.  Getting to experience firsthand what it’s like to live and work in a completely different environment and culture was a life changing.  I look forward to being able to apply this knowledge and understanding to my work in the future.