The Team
Bihar
Mr Rajnish Kumar:
Rajnish Kumar (Raja), the founder of Aranya Eco Village, has been passionate 
about natural farming from the moment he sowed his first seed. Before Aranya, Raja lived a full life. A tough life in many ways, but a rewarding one overall. Beginning his life in Bihar, North-East India, Raja spent many years travelling and learning in different pockets of the country.
Through this time he coined the saying, “I am a seed”, a term he refers to himself by a lot, so much so, it inspired our logo. Over the years of learning, working, volunteering and travelling, Raja, the “seed”, accumulated knowledge, skills, confidence, networks and much more. Finding projects and communities that worked towards sustainable and regenerative agriculture, ecological living and natural nutrition. In that time, Raja, the “seed”, grew taller and taller, with more awareness and information being internalised each day. To the point where he knew in himself that he was ready to embark on his own journey and be the seed of a new beginning.
This journey was the beginning of Aranya Eco Village and here we are today with a flourishing organic permaculture farm in Tamil Nadu and a new native seed bank and ecological agroforestry project being established in Bihar.
Tamil Nadu
Mr Bhagtawatsalam Gowda:
Bhagtawatsalam Gowda, who tends to Aranya Eco Village farm, Tamil Nadu, is a third generation farmer from the village, learning first-hand organic farming from his Grandfather and more recently, Raja. After his grandfather retired from the land, his father took over farming and taught Gowda his approach. Gowda has been farming for 24 years and still loves his livelihood.
When Gowda was 16, farming in the village took on a drastic change as the Green Revolution swept through rural villages with new technologies and inputs that are still being used today. Farmers were told very little about the inputs they were advised to use, but the burden of crop failure was all too much, so they had little choice but to use them to improve their yields. Gowda’s father was a farmer subjected to this reality. It did improve yields for some time, but at a cost, a cost to the consumers and the environment. It was only five years ago that Gowda was given an explanation as to what he was putting on his crops. Since then, he has been slowly transitioning back to an organic system, which he enjoys the growing benefits from.
The bubbly and smiling Gowda that we are all so fond of is passionate about animals and their welfare. He owns three cows and fifteen native buffalo that accompany him on his farm. Gowda grows a variety of crops in the rainy season and currently uses monocrops in the dry season to help him manage the resources efficiently. Ragi/finger millet, red gram, green and purple beans, foxtail millet and much more are grown on his farm.
Mr Sam Venkatraman:
Sam was born close to where Aranya Eco Village, Tamil Nadu, is, and still lives there now. Through word-of-mouth, Sam and Raja crossed paths some years ago, but it was only in 2017 that they truly met. Almost instantly they became good friends and project partners. Raja knew of Sam because of the fantastic work he had done. When he was only 19, Sam recognised a deteriorating situation faced for the local cows, as feed was scarce. He setup a feed-aid to address the issue, and it did just that. His expertise and passion are vested in photography and film production, using these expressive tools to combat local issues through spreading awareness and harnessing support to address the problems at hand. His past work has included a documentary that brought to surface the need for targeted socio-economic planning to enable a nearby lake to be sustainably harvested by local farmers and citizens in 30 villages. Some 30 villages have since been granted permission to use the lake for farming and domestic purposes. Due to his fluency in Tamil, Telegu (local dialect), some English, Hindi and Kannada, his outreach has been fantastic. Other work has contributed to increasing citizens’ awareness of the serious fight against bonded labour and the hidden employment slavery that traps thousands of citizens.
This on-going work and care for local needs has established great trust between himself, his causes and local farmers. He works closely with organic farmers over the river from Aranya and through these close bonds, he is helping Aranya to connect with local organic smallholder’s. This is helping the organisation increase our inclusive capacity to enable organic farmers to join hands with us all at Aranya.
Board of Directors
Founder: Rajnish Kumar (Raja)
The story of how Aranya came to be what it is today is deeply interwoven into Raja’s life story, something that can be found on our other page, ‘How it all begin‘. Do have a read if you are curious. Raja acts as project coordinator, director, lead farmer and teacher. The roles in Aranya are dynamic and do not necessarily remain set. We do a lot of delegation, working with individuals and their skills rather than role-fulfilment.
Raja’s past experiences have centred around organic and natural food, fuel and material production, food preparation and nutrition, forestry and water conservation, landscape design, organic fertiliser production, natural building, photography and film production. Some of these fields have been experienced through volunteering, such as helping growers go organic in Tamil Nadu, others have been through qualifications, through Permaculture Field Courses and Environmental Leadership Internships and others through paid work, such as landscaping. Spending some time in his early years studying and working in clerical and business related fields, he acquired wonderful amounts of knowledge to “seed” Aranya Eco Village.
(photo)
Co-founder: Indira Vijaysimha
Alongside her important work and input into Aranya Eco Village, Indira has served as a member of the Academics and Pedagogy group of Azim Premji Foundation. She headed the Teacher Preparation unit. Her work at the foundation was in the area of curriculum development and implementation of elementary teacher education programs in two states – Chattisgarh and Uttarakhand. In addition to this, Indira spear headed a two-year quality improvement program in collaboration with a B. Ed college. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was a faculty member for the M.A. El. Ed program at TISS, where she developed and taught a course on Teacher Professional Development.
Indira completed her doctoral studies at NIAS, Bangalore, where she undertook ethnographic research on the work of science teachers in different types of schools. She was associated as a consultant with the District Quality Education Programme in Chamarajnagar, Karnataka. Indira began her career as a High school science teacher and then joined the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) as a teacher educator. Her work as a teacher and later as a teacher educator with CEE, provoked a deep questioning about the processes of education and lead Indira to found the Poorna Trust. This non-profit trust manages Poorna Learning Centre in Bangalore – an ‘alternative’ school which emerged out of Indira’s experiences from home-schooling her own children and from her reflections as a teacher and teacher educator. Indira continues to be actively engaged with the Poorna trust and its activities as a centre that promotes inclusive and ecologically sustainable education. Academic Qualifications: Ph.D. , B. Ed , M. Sc (hons).
Co-founder: Abhishek Priyadarshi
My life started in a place which is surrounded by nature like no other place and with the most scenic views of Mountains, rivers, flora and fauna.
I am Abhishek Priyadarshi born in Arunachal Pradesh. I come from Bihar. I have been close to nature throughout my life. Lush green mountains, sparkling clean rivers, cool breeze, birds chirping as I woke up every day untill I was sixteen. Well after my secondary education I had to move to Muzaffarpur, Bihar for my Higher education, since then I started to feel what I left in those mountains which were so close to me.
Just 15km away from Muzaffarpur town is my village Madhaul. A different vegetation altogether with plains, farming fields, lakes and orchards of mango & lichi. My village gave me another chance to be around nature, fields of freshness which I was missing in Muzaffarpur unlike where I came from in Arunachal. Also, I was growing up and beginning to learn things that were raising concerns within me. I was very upset about how we were destroying our nature and ourselves in different ways, and one of them was by using harmful chemicals on our fields.
…That’s when I saw a need for organic farming and finding ways I can be the medium of change for the people. For me a moment of push came from Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka’s story (Japanese farmer). I started to read about him and by the end of that night I already finished his book. So after that, I was continuously searching for ways I could start working for nature and humanity, and that’s when I figured out that I had interest in filmmaking and photography and social subjects too. So, I went ahead and pursued Journalism and Mass communication to strengthen my skills and abilities to work further in the same direction.
While I was in college, I first visited Aranya Eco Village to understand organic farming better, as well as to contribute my part towards the field of my interest. Since then, I am actively associated with Aranya eco village. Whenever I get a chance, I spread the message to inspire farmers to take up organic farming through the Audio-Visual medium.
I will continue to work and inspire more and more people for the need of organic farming to make this world a better world for all.
Co-founderL Sam Venkatraman:
Sam was born close to where Aranya Eco Village, Tamil Nadu, is, and still lives there now. Through word-of-mouth, Sam and Raja crossed paths some years ago, but it was only in 2017 that they truly met. Almost instantly they became good friends and project partners. Raja knew of Sam because of the fantastic work he had done. When he was only 19, Sam recognised a deteriorating situation faced for the local cows, as feed was scarce. He setup a feed-aid to address the issue, and it did just that. His expertise and passion are vested in photography and film production, using these expressive tools to combat local issues through spreading awareness and harnessing support to address the problems at hand. His past work has included a documentary that brought to surface the need for targeted socio-economic planning to enable a nearby lake to be sustainably harvested by local farmers and citizens in 30 villages. Some 30 villages have since been granted permission to use the lake for farming and domestic purposes. Due to his fluency in Tamil, Telegu (local dialect), some English, Hindi and Kannada, his outreach has been fantastic. Other work has contributed to increasing citizens’ awareness of the serious fight against bonded labour and the hidden employment slavery that traps thousands of citizens.
This on-going work and care for local needs has established great trust between himself, his causes and local farmers. He works closely with organic farmers over the river from Aranya and through these close bonds, he is helping Aranya to connect with local organic smallholder’s. This is helping the organisation increase our inclusive capacity to enable organic farmers to join hands with us all at Aranya.
Our growing team
Through friendships and collaboration, Raja has worked with both the agricultural and rural development departments of Bangalore’s Azim Premji University. Some of the work includes developing a natural fertiliser for the university to continue to develop and produce to enhance natural farming methods and welcoming students to the farm to learn organic methods. Due to the strong connection with both departments, we have worked with staff members on aspects of Aranya’s preliminary development and strategic planning. In time, we hope to work with Azim Premji University on an Intern Programme, enabling students to have first-hand experience in organic and permaculture food production. We are in contact with other institutions too, working towards similar objectives.
Aranya Eco Village has a growing volunteer programme too, welcoming individuals, families and groups to come and stay, learn and help out with our operations. Without generous individuals who have shared their time, skills and expertise, we would not be where we are today. Volunteers are welcomed to be part of our growing team, even if it is just for a very short period. To find out more about this, visit our ‘get involved page’.
There are many different ways to get involved with Aranya Eco Village and help us progress towards the vision. Volunteering is an obvious route, kind donations to help our charity continue working is a very helpful option at this time, or something not so obvious, which is knowledge sharing. We promote free knowledge sharing and welcome any expertise on the activities we re undertaking. So if you have any knowldge or know-how when it comes down to our hands on work and you feel would benefit our organisation, please get in touch. Knowledge is one of the most important things in life.
For donations please contact us through our contact page or via email: ecovillagemovements@gmail.com
All photographs and videos are property of Aranya Eco Village, of Eco Village Movement and cannot be used, distributed, edited or claimed as personal property. Any use of images or videos from this blog requires permission. Please contact ecovillagemovement@gmail.com for any inquiries.
©2021 Aranya Eco Village.
Aranya Eco Village 