Eco Village

Step 1. Identification of a Village known for its heritage and traditional wisdom (MALIYUR IS A GOOD EXAMPLE) (Traditional village with Sacred Elements. )  Temple  Ponds  Sacred trees  Folksongs  Knowledgeable Persons  Eco friendly Houses  Active youth groups and organized women Step 2. Landscape Mapping (past / present/ future)  Identification of water resources and traditional wisdom in water management  Local Biodiversity documentation and inventory  Mapping of past and present landscapes to highlight landscape transformation  Forecast the future landscape map  Development of decision making support systems Step 3:Motivate the villagers to enhance the scope for Rainfed and modern irrigation techniques used Organic Cultivation.  Identification of traditional Crops  Estimation of the demand for locally available agricultural inputs  Reduction of fertilizer and pesticide load using bio fertilizers  Revitalization of Local Agricultural Practices  Development of organic produces for National and International Market Step 4. Revitalization of Traditional Cattle and Poultry Farming  Identification of local Breeds  Identification of local fodders and feeds  Identification of Traditional Farming Methods  Revitalization of Local Animal Husbandry Practices  Development of organic animal produces for National and International Market Step 5 – Ethnic Kitchen and Management of Malnutrition  Identification of forgotten recopies from the villages  Documentation of the knowledgeable persons and reorganization of best cooks  incorporation of locally available ethnic crops and local breeds of animals as ingredients of food items  Standardization of ingredients and methods of cooking  Nutrition value estimation and formulation of balance diet  Development of organic foods restaurant with ultra modern kitchen that uses renewable energy

Step 6 Integrated Community Energy and Waste Management 1. Rural Renewable Energy a. Biogas (methane production) b. Bioenergy Pellets (Agri-waste) c. Biodiesel 2. Water treatment a. Micro domestic waste water treatment b. Drinking water desalination 3. compost production a. compost toilets b. vemicompost units c. Manure Production Step 7 Model Village / Environment Certification / Eco-Tourism / Environment Education Village level activities Identifying skilled persons and train them to produces handicrafts and hand made items

Novel handicrafts using Lantana twigs and fiber yielding plants like agaves, aloe and banana

Rewarding the villages with venture capital to revitalize organic agriculture

Encouraging graduates and youth to act as facilitators and local guides

Capacity building for women to start collecting non edible oil yielding seeds to produce biofuel / agricultural waste / cattle dung /

Urban level activity - Development of national and international market links (especially fair trade market) Organic food / ethnic Camping and trekking / dhabha (hotels) / net Resource centers for work of ethic canteens environment education for for school and schools and colleges / eco colleges and industries tourism

Introduction of renewable energy and products for renewable energy market

My main business theme

Finding and adopting a rural or tribal village which has an agricultural background but not enough funds to sustain their living. Providing them the initial funds and helping them set up a cattle farm which can yield them milk, money and the fertilizer for farming Training and motivating them to grow crops in their land in an organic way and teaching them to grow bio fertilizers and use of traditional seeds Marketing of their produce for them in the open market in local, national and international level.

Organic foods yield 2-3 times more money than the regular food crops so we give the correct market price of the crop to the farmers and invest a part of the profit in developing their village and retaining the rest of the money with us. When a cluster of neighboring villages are joined together to form a big organic food producing unit we sell their total produce through our corporation and develop schools and medical facilities for them from the surplus profit We can retain enough profits from that for our efforts only thing is we cant take the 100% profit out from it as we r working for a social cause too we must invest at least half back into it and keep growing. Once this agri business is set we can promote rural and farm tourism in tamil nadu which is a growing business in north india , we can set up farm houses in our adopted villages which has scenic surrounding and open them as rural resorts to foreigners and local rich people , by which we can introduce this new concept instead of the regular hill station tour. After 2 or 3 yrs in this line can can become eligible to get funds from international agencies citing the eco- friendly and best practices we are adopting to change the face of rural india.

Things we can achieve

Get a work force of people who are poor and are willing to adopt to eco-friendly practises who believe in us that we won’t cheat them like many middle men do. We can train the women in the village to work in handicrafts and tailoring and even by educating their children can set up rural bpo’s using them. Trying to achieve maximum energy freedom for these villages from the national grid by making them adopt to solar and husk electricity’s which will have a cost effective solution for them in the long run Our main aim is to achieve community development in rural areas by bringing them close to the now globalized world , not many have attempted this but we can succeed in this tremendously as we are doing this not fully for profit motive but a social kind of business too. By setting up educational and medical units among a cluster of coordinating villages we can get their support in whatever we do as we are giving back to them development

Why this is important 1. Increasing food security concerns which not many care in our country and not many are aware 2. climate change that is slowly taking its toll in our country where people in south india are in great risk of getting eliminated by sea water entering into lands or extreme drought or rain fall which is evident by the ongoing seasonal changes we encounter. 3. Providing cheap education to the poor and needy where most of the current schools are run for money and no care 4. Improving the conditions of them and extracting their labor from them We are not doing this as a charity for them but getting work out of them and paying them back what they deserve that is development and we can establish a big corporation on various sectors like organic foods and rural tourism where there is minimum competition as of now.

What we want to setup are

1. Prepare a detailed business plan for getting some initial funds for this project from bank 2. Prepare a database on potential villages that can be adopted that too preferably from south Tamil nadu as already there is a team which has started preliminary work and local contacts are many and potential for development is high in these areas. 3. Form a team who will monitor national and international markets for the demand of our products and a marketing team who can travel both national and international level to get orders for our company. 4. A strong supply chain network with modern storage and transportation since we are dealing with perishable products. 5. Setting up of a main office in Chennai since export and coordination of marketing will be efficient from here, a storage house will also be required here. 6. Setting up of mini offices and coordination teams in the district capitals in south tamil nadu like Madurai, sattur, virudhunagar , nagerkovil ,tirunelveli..etc 7. A food processing and packing unit need to be setup in any one of the southern districts prefarbly Madurai which is well connected with Chennai and banglore. 8. Formation of an HR plan in mobilizing people , pay roll mgmt providing training schedules to farmers and tourism management mainly dealing with cross culture expertise as we will be dealing mostly with international tourists and south tamil nadu has many untapped tourists spots which we are goin to tap. 9. A well knowledgable finance team which can prepare a finance plan for our start up till the commissioning of the project. And has expertise in forex management and export procedures. 10. I already have people in US, CANADA ,UK and many north Indian states , we just need a good start up plan and business proposal by which we can approach the banks . 11. we will start small initially by adopting one tribal village on the outskirts of Madurai slowly we can cover whole of tamil nadu then India and in 5-7 yrs down the line we can setup our offices in Dubai, US, UK and Canada . 12. We need certification for producing food products in organic fields which will be given by US and European certifying bodies the minimum requirement to get their certifications is 2-3ys of organic produce. 13. so initially we will focus on national markets and rural tourism then we can move to international business once we get the certification. 14. our vision will be to develop every village in rural india as a model self sustainable village helping them gain development through globalization. 15. This is a recession proof business and the competition we might get in the future will only benefit india as a whole .

For more info on organic foods and rural tourism visit the following links http://www.organicfacts.net/organic-cultivation/organic-farming/ http://www.apeda.com/organic/ http://dare.co.in/opportunities/agriculture-rural/farming-health-and-wealth/Page-3.htm http://www.dare.co.in/opportunities/agriculture-rural/digging-gold-in-rural-india.htm http://www.satavic.org/whyorganic.htm