Food System Vision 2050 Prize: Rockefeller Foundation | 08 Aug 2020

Why in News

The Rockefeller Foundation has selected Naandi Foundation (a Hyderabad based non-profit organisation), as one of the top 10 ‘Visionaries’ in the world for the Food System Vision 2050 Prize.

  • Naandi was recognised for its Arakunomics model.

Key Points

  • The Food System Vision Prize:
    • It was launched by the USA-based ‘The Rockefeller Foundation’, in partnership with the other two organisations - SecondMuse and OpenIDEO- in 2019.
    • It is an invitation for organizations across the globe to develop a Vision of the regenerative and nourishing food system that they aspire to create by the year 2050.
    • Food System Vision is a story about the future that addresses the following six interconnected themes: Environment, Diets, Economics, Culture, Technology and Policy.
    • The notion is that by transforming food systems, following challenges can be addressed:
      • A global population approaching 10 billion,
      • Greenhouse gasses changing the climate,
      • Pollution poisoning soil, air, and water.
    • USD 2 million will be distributed to the Top Visionaries, who will be eligible to receive a prize of USD 2,00,000 each.
  • Naandi Foundation (Arakunomics):
    • The organisation was recognised for the application of Arakunomics model in regions of Araku (Andhra Pradesh), Wardha (Maharashtra) and New Delhi, leading to the Food Vision 2050 that follows an “ABCDEFGH” framework centring on: Agriculture, Biology, Compost, Decentralised decision-making, Entrepreneurs, Families, Global Markets, and ‘Headstands (implying innovation)’.
    • Arakunomics is a new integrated economic model that ensures profits for farmers, quality for consumers through regenerative agriculture.
      • It is based on work with tribal farmers in Araku for nearly 20 years.
      • This economic model is a tribute to the tribal farmers of Araku region for the world class coffee produced and launched in Paris in 2017, as well as for the high carbon landscape transformation they did in over 955 villages, thereby planting 25 million trees.
    • Arakunomics success in Araku led to Naandi replicating the model to support the livelihoods of farming communities in the villages of Wardha – infamous for agrarian distress, as well as later in New Delhi, as part of an Urban Farms Co programme.
    • Naandi hopes to expand its “food-print” by creating thousands of farm livelihoods by transforming their agriculture over one million acres spread across India.
    • Rockefeller Foundation will release USD 1,50,000 at present and the balance USD 50,000 after a three-month accelerator programme that is intended to help Naandi realise its vision.

Regenerative Agriculture

  • “Regenerative Agriculture” describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.
  • The key to regenerative agriculture is that it not only “does no harm” to the land but actually improves it, using technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment.
  • Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient dense food while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive farms and healthy communities and economies.
  • It is dynamic and holistic, incorporating permaculture (sustainable and self-sufficient agricultural ecosystems) and organic farming practices, including conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, composting, mobile animal shelters and pasture cropping, to increase food production, farmers’ income and especially, topsoil.
  • It has been promoted to counter loss of the world’s fertile soil and biodiversity, along with the loss of indigenous seeds and knowledge.

Source: TH