Teaching farming to over 1,000 families in India

We have recently extended the reach of our AMS Programme to include 400 very poor farmers from the villages near Ganjam in Odisha.  For this initiative we have teamed up with a local NGO, VIEWS India.

The people we are helping are from communities where there are very few opportunities to earn money other than from farming but the costs of farming can be so high that farmers find it very difficult to make it a profitable or sustainable livelihood.

That's where our AMS Programme comes to the fore. 

Historically, farmers have often succumbed to using expensive fertilisers and pesticides on their crops which has resulted in very poor soil, deficient in many essential natural nutrients needed for healthy growth.  One of our key trainings is to teach farmers how to make bio-pesticides and bio-fertilisers at home for no cost. We also help them to make an organic composting pit.  Using these techniques, farmers can increase their crop yields by up to 40%, as well as significantly reducing their input costs. 

To explain further, we have made a short video documenting the intial stages of our AMS Programme in Odisha which you can watch on YouTube: just click here.  

Thank you for your support which is helping us to provide opportunties for poor and marginalised communities to earn a decent income from farming.

Best wishes from

The team at Shivia

Shivia's work contributes towards the delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

In this report we have a short video sent to us by Chandrani Banerjee, Head of Livelihood Programmes for Shivia in West Bengal.  Chandrani is with two of our Field Team who explain how they coped during the worst of the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns, including how they reacted when Tapas himself contracted Covid.

You can watch the video on our YouTube channel here.

We are delighted to say that Tapas recovered well from Covid and is back at work.

Thank you for your support which allows Tapas and the rest of our Field Team to keep delivering our services to some of the poorest families and farmers in the villages around Kolkata.

Best wishes from all of us at Shivia