Change you can count, in villages you can visit.

Nagamma’s family lived off a small plot farmed the traditional way. The soil was poor, monkeys and wild animals raided the crop, and there was never enough money. Her children’s schooling was at risk, and she felt she had no way to add to the family’s income.

She joined Aasara’s agricultural entrepreneurship program for rural women, where she received:

• training in organic farming, including neem extract as a natural pest repellent;
• good-quality seed and essential farm tools;
• help installing a solar-powered fence against monkeys and wild animals;
• a place in a women’s farming collective that shares one fence across neighbouring fields.

₹40,000

from vegetables in a single year. She cleared every debt, kept her children in school and improved what the family eats. Today she trains other women in her village to farm the same way.

In these two Scheduled Caste villages of Kulkacharla mandal, there was no steady work. Parents migrated to Hyderabad and Mumbai, children were sent to hostels, and only the elderly stayed behind.

With ICAR – National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, under the SCSP scheme, Aasara gave sewing machines to 50 women and sprayer pumps, tarpaulins and vegetable trays to 100 farmers.

Thirty of the women now earn from tailoring and train others. The men, with their own equipment, find farm work all year in and around the village. Families live together at home again.

In Adilabad’s cotton belt, farmers relied on chemical fertiliser and lost money most years. After harvest, dried cotton stalks were simply burnt.

Trained by Aasara with RPG Foundation, 500 tribal farmers now make their own organic fertiliser and convert cotton stalks into biochar. Input costs are down, surplus fertiliser is sold for extra income, families eat healthier food — and the soil is in better shape every season.