There is no industry here to speak of. Almost everyone farms, holdings are small, and when a season disappoints, people leave to find work elsewhere. Since 1993 the trust has worked on both halves of that problem — making the farm itself less fragile, and building trades and institutions that pay without anyone having to migrate.
Thematic area
કુદરતી સંસાધનો અને ટકાઉ આજીવિકા
The strategic goal it works towards
To promote sustainable and innovative agricultural practices, improve soil, water and air quality, conserve biodiversity, and strengthen ecosystem services that support resilient livelihoods.
Read the whole frameworkA district with no major enterprise gives a household one thing to sell and one season in which to sell it. Holdings are small, inputs are bought with borrowed cash, and the price at the far end is set by somebody else. When the monsoon is short or the price is low, the adjustment is migration: the family goes where the work is, which takes the children out of school and the household out of every scheme and service attached to its own village. None of this is fixed by one good harvest. It needs the cost side of the farm to come down, and it needs work that exists in the village during the months the farm needs nobody.
Training in sustainable practice, farm by farm and season by season — soil and nutrient management, pest management, water, and the waste and ecosystem side that usually gets ignored because nobody is paid for it.
From one farmer to collective power
One farmer has limited power. A collective can negotiate, learn and grow together. The trust promoted and facilitated Jafrabad Agricultural Producer Company Ltd., and has organised self-help groups and linked them to credit.
From learning to earning
Vocational training aimed mainly at women, run through a training centre, so that an earning option exists in the village and in the off-season.
Learn → Practice → Earn locally
Creating skills that can become a source of income — without leaving the village.
Past work that strengthened community stewardship of shared resources
Water and biodiversity are held in common, which is why they are the first things to be spent. The trust has provided technical support to Biodiversity Management Committees and to the People's Biodiversity Register, and worked on village drinking water.
Helping communities understand, document and protect the resources they share.
The founders recognised early that this area needed alternative livelihoods: there are no industries and no major enterprises, most people farm, and people in rural areas migrate when the farm cannot carry them. Vocational training for women began about seven years after the trust was founded, and the natural resource management work — self-employment groups, skill development, and later sustainable agriculture — grew out of the same reasoning.
REEL — Responsible Environment Enhanced Livelihoods — promotes responsible cotton production through practical, season-long learning with farmers. The approach brings together better soil and nutrient management, responsible pest and water management, ecosystem and waste care, traceability and decent working conditions. Rather than a one-time training, farmers learn, demonstrate and apply these practices throughout the farming season, with regular field-level support from our team.
Our reach: 3,650 farmers across four districts — Amreli, Rajkot, Vadodara and Narmada.
Our work helps farmers make better decisions on the farm, from protecting soil and water to reducing unnecessary chemical use and strengthening sustainable farming practices.
Learn in the field. Apply on the farm. Build for the future.
The trust has also run the Better Cotton Initiative programme, on the same logic and with the same field method — learning groups through the season rather than a training day and a certificate.
Stronger together than alone. Smallholder farmers have limited bargaining power when they act individually. Hariraj has supported farmers to build collective institutions that strengthen their ability to access inputs, markets, knowledge and financial services.
We promoted and facilitated Jafrabad Agricultural Producer Company Ltd., enabling farmers to come together for collective action and market opportunities. We have also supported self-help groups and their linkages to credit, helping turn community groups into stronger financial and livelihood networks.
Farmer groups → Collective strength → Better opportunities. Building institutions that put farmers at the centre of their own progress.
The livelihood work for women started with vocational training and has stayed close to it:
Several earlier activities sit under this programme, and the archive of the old website records them by name without further description. They are listed here as they were, rather than embellished:
Anyone wanting detail on these should ask the office; we would rather point at a gap in our own records than write around it.
REEL Cotton currently covers 39 villages across Amreli, Rajkot, Vadodara and Narmada districts, with the Jafrabad producer company on the coast.
