Sustainable Livelihood

We work for enhancing sustainable livelihood opportunities for the rural poor farmers through interventions in Renewable Energy, Energy Audit, sustainable agriculture and livestock development, access to water and sanitation, skills development and women empowerment. Through our targeted interventions for economic and environmental sustainability through farmer aggregation, knowledge empowerment and market linkages, we contribute towards food security and rural economic development.

With the active participation of our dedicated 22-plus staff and experts across 12 field offices in 3 states, so far. We have contributed to enhancing sustainable livelihood opportunities for more than 5200 farmer households, 120 Agri-entrepreneurs, 200 BPL youth, 500 women in 450 villages, 75 blocks, 24 districts across India.Institute of Environment and Eco- Development (IEED) is an innovative, dynamic, scientific non-government, non-profit organization working since 2002 for the empowerment of rural India through sustainable farm and non-farm livelihood development.

Small Farm-Based
Holistic Model

IEED has developed its own model of intervention focused on yield improvement, agribusiness and human development.The problems faced by small farmers can be grouped in three categories viz. Input-Throughput (farm level) and Output and our approach addresses each of these categories by deploying our 4Ps strategy (Production, Participation, Partnership, and Profitability).

Agribusiness Village Resource Centre for Effective Aggregation and Provision of Farm Services:

To achieve the objectives of farmer aggregation in context of sourcing of inputs, credit, value addition and sale of output, the critical link is a local facilitation Centre, which provides all the necessary services to farmers of member FPOs in their quest to become more productive and efficient as viable farm enterprises. These agribusiness village resource centers (AVRCs) are managed by their associated FPOs and are equipped to handle provision of a variety of services and also to nurture farmers for tapping growth-oriented opportunities through targeted assistance and capacity building. They are planned based on a study of the local input-output market demand, opportunities and financing solutions and can help FPOs function effectively as aggregators. This approach encourages rural entrepreneurship for offering service linkages with medium and larger commodity buyers and input sellers, which can eventually help build a more efficient value chain. IEED's FPO programs include setting up of such support institutions as well.

Custom Hiring cum Agribusiness Centers

While smallholdings have higher productivity compared to medium and large farms, it is not enough to compensate the cost of cultivation per hectare for the small and marginal farmers. Through timeliness of operations, increase in land productivity, saving in labour requirement and reduction in human drudgery, farm mechanization leads to increase in output and productivity, safety and ease in farming and improved returns and profitability. While farm machinery is not affordable for an individual farmer, if the crop is not sown or harvested in a given time frame, the risk of crop failure increases. IEED facilitates establishment of Custom Hire cum Agribusiness Centres (CHACs) that provide necessary farm machinery at reasonable rates.

Rural Entrepreneurship and Vocational Training:Rural Enterprise Promotion

With limited access to employment opportunities in rural India, large scale migration pushes migrant labour into the urban informal sector with inadequate social safety nets and poor living conditions in urban slums. A sustainable solution lies in enhancing their access to livelihoods back home. Local entrepreneurship in rural or semi-rural regions could enable growth locally and build local talent and capacity. This requires relevant and adequate training as well as building capacities to help create micro and small enterprises.

Under the aegis of the Entrepreneurship Development of India (EDI), IEED is running an Entrepreneurship development program (EDP) for unemployed agriculture and allied sector graduates in 2 states of India. The initiative is part of the Agri Clinic, Agri Business, Agro-forest and Food Processing of. After training, IEED provides active hand-holding support to these trained agripreneurs for setting up their own business ventures. IEED has trained more than 1000 students so far, and incubated around 30 successful ventures.

IEED-EDP locations in Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states of India. The program is 60-days training and one year of hand-holding support. The training covers modules for soft skills, business skills, preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPR) for access to credit, and the support phases includes mentoring and guidance.