Meet the Founder of Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, India

Padma Koppula is the co-founder of Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, a 17 year old permaculture nonprofit organization in India. Aranya is the host of the next International Permaculture Convergence in November, 2017.  Previously, Padma worked for 10 years with the Deccan Development Society, another grassroots permaculture organization.

India has a large government watershed program, in which Aranya has been responsible for facilitating the implementation of rainwater harvesting and vegetative plantings on 37 500 acres of land.  She works with small farmers in her state who grow GMO cotton monocrops, teaching them the benefits of diversified cropping systems, and supports them in changing over to permaculture practices.  She works with tribal communities who are displaced from the forest, and, helps them to develop food forests and do rainwater harvesting on the farm land the government has allocated them.

Padma gives trainings in and uses participatory rural development techniques to work with villagers.  She engages capacity building activities and education for rural people in water resource management, farm management, diversified annual crops and tree based farming systems.  She teaches seed preservation of local and native seeds and helps establish seed banks in many villages.  Padma does trainings for government employees in participatory irrigation management of canal systems from large community owned water tanks for many districts in her state.

In canal irrigation management services, Aranya is directly involved with 200 000 farmers in a democratic participatory approach.  Padma has done a lot of work with village women, helping to organize them into groups and federations. She teaches them to access the government resources available, links them to financial organizations to develop their own farms.  She supports underprivileged women’s motivation, strength and capacities.  Padma leads women in organizing cooperative fodder forests for animals, food forests for people, community herb gardens, and cooperative food preservation systems.  Padma has helped the landless poor to get access from the government to their own farmland and taught them permaculture practices for farming.  Padma Koppula’s work with small farmers and underprivileged people is wide reaching and has long term success.

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