A group of 20 women who are small farmers committed to regenerative seeds growing in their farm in less than one cent of land each. HOOGA has given them rare indigenous varieties of seeds after training them with quality seed production, understanding the value of native seeds and why we are doing what we do, about the impacts of GMO on human health, future generation food security and seed conservation. This has made them feel so inclined as they have never seen those varieties and were interested in growing. It gave them an opportunity to get involved in conservation work as well as an alternate livelihood. With the majority of them growing hybrid tomatoes, we ensure that our seed production plants are covered with nets and ensure purity to variety. 

Quitting a town lifestyle, Mr Yuvaraj is engaged in farming as his full-time livelihood. He has travelled across places to identify those medicinal plants, flowers, fruits and trees which are of good market value and is being a role model and supporter for farmers in his place. Mr Yuvaraj started growing seeds back again now and is majorly into fruits and vegetable production. With his kids playing around, Mr Yuvaraj says very proudly how his children enjoy being around him in the farm learning about soil and plants. Kids are even more knowledgeable when it comes to plants and they are open to guests who visit their farm who are willing to learn, volunteer and support farm activities. 

Mrs Kavin Thirumurugan of Sai Kirupa Special School based out of Tirupur in Tamilnadu has a unique inclusive program collaborated with HOOGA on native seed keeping. Children engage in growing and multiplying native seeds, spend time learning and being with nature and earth.

I am a Pharmaceutical Researcher, Businesman and a passionate farmer, have been into natural farming for the past 5years. I have completed my Masters in Pharmacy and was working as a Senior Manager (Bioanalytical R&D) at PAR Biosciences, Chennai and earlier in Hyderabad. I made a shift to full time Textiles Manufacturing Business and Natural Farming.

But before coming back, I didn’t know anything about practical agriculture. I lived most of my life in Ooty, Chennai and Hyderabad. Initially after coming back from city life, really it was difficult to get along with my family business. I always wanted to do something different. Used to read lot of books in Pharma, Textiles, Dyeing, Agriculture and many other fields. Since my family background is Agriculture, It was in my blood maybe, I am very much involved into Farming very soon. Before starting it, I have traveled places, used to interact with a lot of farmers, where they use only with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Their main problem is in dealing with local traders and middleman post their harvest. Only few farmers based on their personal experience have accept their mistakes in using chemical fertilizers in their lands. They are well aware of pollution issues in using chemical fertilizers and pesticides which are responsible for the depletion of local flora and fauna in their land. But to take high yields, they have used Hybrid seeds which require lot of chemicals in growing them. In my view it’s completely wrong, good quality local seed and healthy soil produces healthy crops with good yields. I always feed the soil and not the crops because the soil here was very poor 5years back. Now everything has changed upon doing farming with only natural inputs.

I attended few training sessions on Natural Farming.

I started growing food with indigenous cow based Natural Farming with a empty space at my home, since i was asked to initiate and experiment my learnings only in small scale.

From selecting seeds, land preparation, sowing seeds, transplanting seedlings, applying manure, harvest and marketing, I practiced myself. I have Kangeyam breed cows at my home to source Cow Dung and Cow Urine. All inputs such as Jeevamritham, Panjakavya, Fish Amino Acid, Neemastram, Agniastram and many other preparations used in farming are being prepared at my home by myself.

Initially it was difficult to find and source native seeds. Since I was insisted to use only Native seeds in my trainings, I sourced seeds from local farmers and many like-minded people’s. I never forget to take my kids to my farm. Now my spouse and my daughter helps me in collection of the seeds, soon I wish have a small organised seed bank, so that I can share my collections to like-minded peoples for growing and multiplication. Presently I have saved over 200varieties of seeds in all vegetable categories. I strongly believe the right to own, sow, breed, save and exchange seeds is a basic human right that we should all exercise.

Traditional Paddy Varieties such as Karupu Kavuni, Maapillai Sambha, Kichili Sambha and Bhavani are being grown in my farm with chemical free farming and the seeds are being saved and distributed to farmers who want to take up Natural Farming. Growing my own food makes me self sufficient and I grow variety of vegetables which I can’t get in the local market.

Everytime when entering my garden or farm, one can meet a new variety of insects, birds, worms, snakes etc, makes us realise the world is not only for humans.

Mr Anandh , his farm popularly called as Anand Vermiculturist Farm is involved in farming along with his brother Yuvaraj Kumarasamy in Komarapalayam, Erode. He is a farm experimenter and innovator. He is very inquisitive about medicinal plants and specialises in herbal healing methods. This brother and co works hard on the ground to produce native fruits and vegetables and does collective marketing which can support other farmers too in the process. Engaged in seed production with specific focus on gourds and Medicinal plants, Mr Anandh is a great contributor to the collective. 

Mrs Jothi and Mr Mahendran are small farmers who depend on agriculture as their source of livelihood. With a small farm (Velaankaadu) taken on lease in Erode, they cultivate Banana, Ladies Finger, elephant foot yam and other vegetables. Mrs Jothi got so excited when she saw that corn has so many varieties and was fascinated to know that red corn is a native variety. She volunteered out of enthusiasm to try red corn in a small patch last year and was happy with the harvest and now she started growing red corn in a bigger patch of land. She is also growing velvet beans and clove bean. With additional income from a small space in less time, Mrs Jothi finds that the work has given her a sense of satisfaction and confidence to try more native varieties.  

From rescuing stray dogs, stopping native cows from entering slaughter houses to growing varieties of spinach and amaranthus, Mr Senthil is a versatile small farmer with extensive experience in growing amaranthus in his farm in Kannampalayam village, Coimbatore. With his high social contributions, setting standards for change making, Mr Senthil is growing seeds to contribute and be a part of this collective effort to promote native seeds at large. He also conducts training at his farm on raised beds farming, water purity maintenance using herbs, and marketing of farm based products with quality assurance of farm products. 

Stepping into organic farming for healthy food, Mrs Suhara’s entice for growing rare indigenous varieties of vegetables started growing day by day. With backyard farming in a beautifully located village in Palakkad Kerala, Mrs Suhara is a fascinating home maker who became an organic food grower and seed enthusiast now. She grows more than 30 varieties of rare indigenous varieties of chillies, ladies finger, air potatoes, tubers and other creepers. She writes amazing poems describing her farm experiences and composes songs out of them. You can visit our instagram.com/seed_keepers_collective to listen to her voices and story behind her interest in native traditional seed conservation. Mrs Suhara has a seed bank which contains very good quality native seeds. Being a home gardener and small farmer, Mrs Suhara makes a great additional income source through her seed keeping activities. She also shares seeds and food grown with her neighbours. Her fermentation skills is a must mention, especially with regards to jackfruit and chillies preserved naturally. Mr Muhammad, her husband helped her break the social stereotypes while other women in their community are not let out of for work or showcase their potential. Mrs Suhara is now a happy seed grower, farmer, and organic farming educator.

With heirloom varieties of 100 years old, Mr George is doing organic farming full-time. His inspiration is from his 99 year old father who can still climb trees. One can listen to the stories of seeds and tubers at Mr George’s farm which are of high resilience and adapt to climate change. Ranging from Red Ginger to varieties of Bush pepper, mango ginger, yellow Jalapeno and medicinal plants, Mr George’s farm is an integrated organic agro forest with dense rubber and pepper plantation. He is a certified organic farmer. 1½ meter length cow pea, Red striped cow pea and elephant tusk okra are his favourite identified variety. With many awards, accolades and recognitions, Mr George is actively involved in native seed growing, multiplication and sharing and all of his seeds are certified organic seeds with verification at source done. With active participation in HOOGA, Mr George is supporting the collective effort to promote native seeds by supplying quality certified organic seeds to us at a fair price. He is also a member of many farming associations and is a great role model to farmers in his village in Kottayam, Kerala and  across other places.

Extensively involved in afforestation activities and biodiversity conservation, Mr Nandha is a dedicated and committed protector of native tree species in Tamilnadu, India. He educates children about forest and wildlife through seedball making awareness programmes in tribal villages and schools. He also actively conducts drives to clean the forests from plastics. Nandha has planted more than 1 lakh trees in order to work towards climate change and forest creation. In this endeavour to protect native tree species and promote native trees, Mr Nandha is a part of the collective by providing us with quality native tree seeds.

Located in a small village near Kangeyam, Tamilnadu Mr Vishwanathan is involved in growing seeds organically in his farm for sometime now. With quality farm inputs, years of experience in farming, he volunteered to support HOOGA in its movement towards native seeds promotion and bringing quality native food to our plates. He has also cultivated lemon, guava and banana in his farm and supplies fresh fruits as food to the markets nearby.

An educator, organic farming trainer and passionate book reader, Mr Thangavelu has chosen a minimalistic lifestyle, quitting his mainstreamed way of living years back. He now resides in a thatched roof hut in his farm where he hosts volunteers, conducts training for months on organic farming and native seed conservation. Growing native food has been a substance of high priority in his farm teachings. He values earth and food more than himself and volunteered to support HOOGA in the effort to promote traditional desi variety heirloom seeds.

Mr Thamaraikannan and his wife from Tanjore of Tamilnadu, India are hard working and enthusiastic seed savers, majorly working on to protect indigenous paddy varieties at scale. They have saved and revived more than 40 varieties of paddy and right now in a journey to protect more varieties. Farmer Thamaraikannan is an organic farmer and owns a small farm in which he cultivates paddy every year and creates awareness about native paddy varieties and its importance.  

An IT graduate who is aspiring to grow own food and working on to create an integrated farm model at a small scale level utilising vacant spaces in and around his house in his native town in Tamilnadu. Understanding the importance of native seeds and the need for agro biodiversity conservation, Mr Nirmal started growing native vegetales. His inspiration for seed saving started with HOOGA and now he has started saving and multiplying native variety seeds.

Ms Saru is from a beautiful village in Mayiladuthurai, Tamilnadu. She got in touch with HOOGA Seed Keepers Collective through our instagram seed_keepers_collective and shared her experience, aspirations and interest in supporting farming and farmers. Saru is a social entrepreneur who has her business named ‘Magizham’ , which is acting as a platform to market food products, skin and hair care products and spices directly sourced from small and marginal farmers in Tamilnadu. She did her under-graduation in agriculture and an MBA in marketing. With her passion, interest and inclination towards protecting native seeds, she started growing, multiplying and saving seeds. HOOGA has shared rare seeds collected during the seed yatra and Ms Saru is taking it very cautiously to grow them and contribute to this movement of growing own food from native seeds.

A grassroots level small farmer who is into paddy cultivation. His livelihood was dependent on palm tree climbing however now since most palm trees are being cut he has started growing vegetables. His paddy field is beautifully lined with different gourds hanging all over. Mr Mayil has a great local knowledge on native seed keeping and is growing gourds currently

A tribal couple from western ghats region of Tamil Nadu growing indigenous varieties of vegetables. They have a good diversity of tubers growing with them for many generations and Mrs Eshwari has an in depth knowledge of medicinal plants.

He has a beautiful permaculture farm in Kerala where they grow a over 50 varieties of fruits and vegetables some of which are very rare to find anywhere else in the region.

A graduate from Tamil Nadu who is extremely passionate and enthusiastic about growing food in her backyard despite of water shortage. Sandhya uses grey water from her house to irrigate her small garden.

Started as a home gardener to grow her own homegrown natural food for her kids, her garden is full of food self-grown to fulfill their home consumption needs. In this journey, learning and exploring for almost 8 plus years, Mrs. Kokila is now a hard-core seed saver who has saved more than 20+ varieties of Tubers and 100+ varieties of vegetable seeds. She says” There is no food without seed” and her journey to protect seeds for future generations is highly inspiring many urban gardeners to take up seed saving as part of growing food. All of it in just *500Sq.foot * space, Woww;-)

Myself ROSHAN S did my B.Sc. Hons in Horticulture. “I am from a farming family and have loved farming since childhood. I chose to study agriculture and completed my course at Adhiparasakthi Horticultural College. For the past year, I have been working as a farm supervisor, where we cultivate bhendi, bottle gourd, pumpkin, ash gourd, papaya, moringa, tomato, brinjal, curry leaf, turmeric, legumes, banana, agathi, and citrus on around 9 acres of land. We also grow fodder crops. I like to travel with Hooga seeds because I will also be a part of the native seed collection process which makes me proud and helps me learn something new about seed production.