CULTIVATING ‘ANANDA’: JOY OF FARMING AND HEALTHY LIVING

Nayakrishi Andolon (New Agriculture Movement) is the farmer-led movement in Bangladesh for Shohoj way to Ananda, or simply, joyful living through the practice of biodiversity-based ecological agriculture. Nayakrishi Andolon represents peasant’s resistance against the corporate takeover of global seed, food, and health chain, an assertion that it is the farming communities of small holdings, not the multinational corporations, that feed us.

The immediate ecological management of food, nutrition, and health directly constitute the biological foundation of the local communities and dictates them to avoid various fictitious notions of 'development' instead of what they must deal with as real problem. Farmers combine the traditional and historical wisdom of their local life practices with the advance in empirical science to solving their problems and meeting community needs. As a broad movement, Nayakrishi represents peoples’ resistance against the destruction of the ‘local’ by privileging the ‘global’ and against effacing of the ‘real’ by installing ‘virtual’. Nayakrishi is an eco-political way to return to our common sense and free us from the tyranny of hierarchy, power and technology. The movement constantly explores alternative life-affirming relations and community building practices through the critique of ego-centrism, oppressive social hierarchy and the industrial notion of high-tech lifestyles and consumerism.

Nayakrishi practices agriculture as a way of life. Our joy lies in our sense of unity with nature a necessary sense of belonging to the soil to fight against the structural violence of modern economy. Farmers practicing Nayakrishi show economic viability as well as environmental sustainability in their production. They are self-reliant and can produce healthy food for others.

 

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