meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Poor Prole’s Almanac

Feeding 50 Million; Building New Food models with Vijay Kumar Thallam

The Poor Prole’s Almanac

Bleav + The Poor Prole’s Alamanac

Home & Garden, Science, Nature, Leisure, Education, How To

5761 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2022

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we're joined by Vijay Kumar Thallam, a farm leader in the Andhra Pradesh region of India. What does it look like to rely on biology, fermentation, and place-based resources to feed people at scale? This seems to be the million dollar question for folks in regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and so on. Andhra Pradesh is doing it and showing what these systems can look like. Andhra Pradesh addresses this issue by focusing on building women's cooperatives that are organized federationally, which guides food systems in local communities. This episode is a special one that everyone should be listening closely to. Vijay Thallam is Executive Vice Chairman of the Indian non-profit Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, which focuses on organic agriculture; and an advisor on agriculture and cooperation to the state Government of Andhra Pradesh. After 37 years in government, Thallam took that experience to work with large-scale community mobilization and promotion of livelihoods of rural women, tribal communities and farmers. He served a record 10 years as CEO of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty in Andhra Pradesh and led the mobilization and empowerment of 11.5 million rural poor women into thrift and credit based self-help groups, so they could move out of poverty. During the past five years, he has led a movement for climate-resilient, community managed natural farming, also known as Zero Budget Natural Farming. In 2020, it was renamed as Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming. Thallam was appointed as the Vice Chair of the Champions Network for the UN Food Systems Summit.   You can follow their story on Facebook: Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Twitter & Instagram: @APZBNF https://apcnf.in/     To support this podcast, join our patreon for early episode access at www.patreon.com/poorprolesalmanac For more information and updates, visit www.poorproles.com and subscribe to our e-mail list.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey everyone. Welcome back. This is Andy from the Poor Proles Omniac. I know I say this every

0:20.3

interview, but we have a really,

0:21.6

really special one today. Last week, we had talked about the traditional practice of

0:26.6

Vrykshire Veda and how the fundamentals of this practice have been making a comeback in Southern

0:31.6

Asia. Well, today, we're talking with one of the primary voices in making that change a reality, Vijay Kumar

0:39.3

Thalem, who is the executive vice chairman of the Indian nonprofit, Raitu, Sadikara,

0:45.9

Samtza, which focuses on organic agriculture and is an advisor on agriculture and cooperation

0:52.6

to the state government of Andhra Pradesh.

0:56.0

For those not familiar with Andra Pradesh, it's a state in India with nearly 50 million inhabitants.

1:02.7

During the past five years, he has led a movement for climate resilient, community-managed

1:08.2

natural farming, also known as zero-budget natural farming. In 2020, it was

1:14.6

renamed as Andhra Pradesh community-managed natural farming. Thalm has been appointed as the

1:21.4

vice-chair of the Champions Network for the UN Food System Summit as well during this work. Also, during his period of

1:29.6

managing this, almost a million farmers have moved towards a natural farming method using

1:35.0

biosimulants and fermented byproducts for farming at scale, without subsidies. In framing up all

1:42.0

this work is his record of 10 years as the CEO of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty in Andra Pradesh and led the mobilization and empowerment of 11.5 million rural poor women into thrift and credit-based self-help groups so they could move out of poverty.

1:59.9

We chat extensively about how these two, on the surface, completely separate projects,

2:05.5

are actually part of one cohesive strategy to build resilient, bottom-up solutions

2:10.4

to the problems of petrochemical agriculture.

2:13.8

This was a really exciting and inspiring conversation,

2:17.9

and we'll be having a follow-up from this interview with some special guests and even a special host.

2:23.3

So please tune in and let us know what you think.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bleav + The Poor Prole’s Alamanac, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Bleav + The Poor Prole’s Alamanac and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.