At Navdanya we ensure the linking of the Seed-to-the-Table and of Farmers to Co-producers through our Fair Trade Initiatives. One of our seminal contributions to Fair Trade practices has been the marketing of organic agricultural produces directly from the farmers to the consumers, who through their consumption patterns become the co-producers of agriculture.To this end, we have two outlets in New Delhi. Our very first outlet is at Dilli Haat, which is a platform where crafts people and artisans offer their wares to buyers in the true spirit of Swadeshi; recently to better service both our consumer members as well as our farmer members whose numbers are growing, Navdanya opened another outlet at E-52, Hauz Khas Market, New Delhi. We have a similar space also in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, a state where we have a sizeable number of farmer members.
At our outlets, we offer a very diverse range of agricultural produce both as grains and in a processed form. The diversity by way of rice, wheat, millets, cracked wheat, breakfast cereals, cookies etc. reflects our commitment to conserving local seeds and biodiversity, practicing a water prudent agriculture and ensuring the livelihoods of small farmers and women in the face of globalization.
We complete the seed-to-table experience through our Café located in Dilli Haat, New Delhi, where you can eat organic food made from nutritious grains including those that are disappearing and being forgotten. Our menu based on diversity will make eating out a treat for all, even those who have major diet restrictions due to diabetes, high blood pressure and food allergies.
We express our concern for the health of the Earth and its people in many other ways; through our door-to-door organic vegetable basket delivery scheme, our annual Abir Gulal festival to celebrate a toxic free Holi, our indigenous cold drinks festivals throughout the scorching summer months to help you beat the heat in a healthy way, while also being respectful to the Earth, water and people's livelihood.
As a recognition to the services Navdanya is rendering to the propagation of sustainable food producing practices at the level of small farmers and artisan food communities, Slow Food, the International Movement for the protection of traditional foods, invited 13 Navdanya Food Communities to be part of Terra Madre, an assembly of more than 5,000 artisan food producers from all over the world. Around seventy Navdanya food growers and food processors attended the very first Terra Madre event held in October 2004, Torino, and have attended again in 2006 and 2008.
For us, Terra Madre is a celebration of all that we believe in and have been practicing for more than two decades; an honest agriculture in which prices do not lie, which does not exploit the earth and the earth’s caretakers.Terra Madre is also a celebration of our practice of living economies in which we co-produce with the earthworm and the spider, with the mychorizzae and the fungi. We are all connected in the web of life, and it is food that spins that web.
