ABOUT N+3F
OUR VISION & OBJECTIVES
Our vision is to ‘catalyse scaling up of nature-positive farming and wholesome food systems across India to meet the fundamental human right to healthy foods, and to move towards a more resilient, sustainable future, while operating within planetary boundaries’. Our specific objectives are:
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To support farming communities, CSOs, and other agencies to evolve, establish, and scale-up context-based N+FFS, leading to an elimination of the use of synthetic chemical pesticides.
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To facilitate the development of local, regional/territorial and national value/supply chains for safe, pesticide-free wholesome foods.
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To build a knowledge base, serve as a resource organisation and create an enabling environment for nature-positive farming and wholesome food systems.
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To promote equality and social inclusion in N+FFS by engaging with vulnerable sections like small farmers, Dalits, tribals, women, youth, and consumers with low purchasing power.
OUR BOARD
Ved Arya, Chairperson
Ved founded SRIJAN and Buddha Fellowship Program. He is the founding convenor of RCRC Coalition. IIT Kanpur conferred on him Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2020. Ved was a member of the Technical Group on Social Stock Exchange set up by SEBI. Business Standard chose Ved as a Social Entrepreneur of the Year (2018). He is a member of several policy making bodies including the Advisory Committee, Promotion of Producers' Enterprises, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. Ved is an aeronautical engineer from IIT Kanpur (class of 1979) and a management graduate from IIM Ahmedabad (class of 1981). As a Hubert Humphrey Fellow for the year 1990-91, he further pursued education at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and worked at the World Bank.
P.S.Vijay Shankar,
Board Member
P.S. Vijayshankar is a founder member of Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS), an NGO based in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh. He received his M. Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. As part of SPS, he lived and worked among the tribal communities of the Narmada valley for over 30 years. Vijayshankar served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP), Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India (2009 to 2014); member of the 12th Plan Working Group on Natural Resource Management and Rainfed Farming and Working Group on Sustainable Groundwater Management set up by the Planning Commission (2012); and member of the Expert Group for the formulation of the State Water Policy of Government of Madhya Pradesh (2019).
Babu Joseph, Board Member
C. Babu Joseph was the Chief Executive Officer of Axis Bank Foundation from 2010 to 2015. He is also a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. He joined the Bank in 1995 and served at different branch positions before moving to the corporate headquarters in Mumbai in 2005 to head the Advances Department. Prior to joining Axis Bank, C. Babu Joseph worked at the State Bank of Travancore (now a part of State Bank of India). He started his career as an Assistant Professor in the Kerala Agricultural University and in 1979 joined State Bank of Travancore, as a Probationary Officer. In June 1995, he moved to UTI Bank (subsequently renamed as Axis Bank) and worked at their Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Basaweshwaranagar and Hyderabad branches. On his promotion as Senior Vice President, he was in charge of Small and Medium Enterprises and Agri Business at the corporate office.
Dr. Yogesh Jain,
Board Member
Yogesh Jain has an MD in Paediatrics from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi where he also served as a faculty member for a few years, but is a public health physician in practice. He has been primarily involved in "primary health care"- through founding and running a community health programme - Jan Swasthya Sahyog (People's health Support group) in rural Bilaspur in central India with like- minded health professionals since 1999. People from over 2500 of the most marginalised villages that are home to the indigenous people access these services for their major health care needs. He has been involved in addressing issues that determine the health care for the rural poor through clinical care, careful documentation, observational research studies, developing appropriate health related technology, training, and lobbying, all based on the continual learning from this community health programme.
Rita Banerji,
Board Member
Rita heads Dusty Foot Productions, incidentally it is her dusty feet that inspired the name of our company ‘dusty foot’! A wildlife – environment filmmaker and cameraperson, with over 15 years of experience, Rita has produced, directed and filmed many award winning documentaries and television programs. Rita has been a core team member of several award-winning films. Amongst these have been ‘The Last Migration’ the first film from Asia to win the ‘Green Oscar’ at Wildscreen Festival, 1994, and Shores of Silence – Whale Sharks in India, which not only won the ‘Green Oscar’ in Wildscreen 2000, but also went on to put the whale shark in the Wildlife Protection Act of India. From Sept. 1999 to April 2001 she was the producer for ‘Earth Matters’ an award-winning environment series that was telecast on Doordarshan, India’s national television network. At Wildscreen 2000 she was one of the 4 editors worldwide invited as a panelist for the Wildscreen Edit Challenge (Wildscreen is one of most prestigious international wildlife and environment film festivals).
Dr. Malleshi,
Board Member
Dr. Malleshi has 35 years of Research experience at CSIR-CFTRI and had opportunities to undertake advanced R&D activities on Millets in world renown Institutes like Kansas State University, Carlsberg Research Laboratory, Copenhagen, Denmark, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK and The National Research Institute of Brewing (NRIB), Higashihirosima, Japan, while in service. His noteworthy contributions are Malting of millets and development of Malted Weaning Food, Infant food, Enteral Food (medical foods), Ragi-rice, Hypoglycemic and Geriatric foods, Millet polyphenols, Quality Jaggery and cereal carbohydrates. He also served as visiting faculty to MS University Vadodara, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, UAS Bengaluru and JSS Arts, Commerce and Science College, Mysuru.
Karthikeyan M., CEO
Karthikeyan, is a Founder Director and CEO of Nature-Positive Farming and Wholesome Foods Foundation. He also serves as Program Advisor in DHAN Foundation, a pan-Indian NGO and Trustee in Small Millet Foundation (SMF) and The DHAN Academy (TDA). He is a postgraduate in Agricultural Economics from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. During his long association with DHAN Foundation, he co-founded Rainfed Farming Development Program and Small Millet Foundation (SMF), and served as Chief Executive of SMF, Principal Investigator for two international action research projects on mainstreaming cultivation and consumption of small millets funded by IDRC and GAC, Canada, and Secretary for Agricultural Biodiversity Community (abc), an international network.