Deepika Kundaji and Bernard Leclerq would like to guide the growing number of farming youth drawn to organic farming on biodiversity and seedsaving by sharing their seed conservation skills & seeds. They would like to strengthen the on-ground seed & diversity conservation work at Pebble Garden so it continues to be a living example of diversity revival.
Outreach in Seedsaving & Soil regeneration: Deepika and Bernard would like to create a resource hub/website on all aspects of seed/plant diversity & soil life conservation based on their 26 years of experience. This would include the creation of captivating educational videos for a Youtube channel, a revision and enhancement of their books on reviving Vegetable Diversity (already published in 6 Indian languages on popular demand).
Strengthen the ongoing Seed conservation in vegetable seeds and saving biodiversity at Pebble Garden: To enlarge and reconstruct the existing nursery, adding wire fencing to protect the site, and to upgrade the seed drying and storage facility
Background
Deepika Kundaji received the national award Nari Shakti Puraskar Award for 28 years of work as a seed conservationist of traditional vegetable seeds in 2018
Saved over 100 endangered /rare farmer bred varieties of vegetables and other hardy plants for home use, from across India conserved on 2000m2 regenerated land using low cost techniques to maintain purity and produce quality seeds.
Distributed over 50,000 seed packets of non commercial varieties to farmers across India since 2010
Deepika participated in more than 15 national level and regional biodiversity/seed festivals
She trained farmer seed savers on seed/soil conservation on invitation by NGOs in different Indian states – more than 30 workshops since 2010.
Deepika authored a book “A Seed Savers Guide to Reviving Vegetable Diversity”, published in 2015, now translated into 6 indian languages.
She is a founder member of Bharat Beej Swaraj Manch (BBSM) India Seed sovereignity Alliance, an informal network of grass-root seed savers from all Indian states, regularly holding seed festivals and biodiversity fairs, where sometimes footfall exceeds 5000 visitors per
