Dear Colleagues, Partners, Friends and Fellow Travellers,

Beginning the Year with Gratitude

As we step into a new year, I begin with gratitude—for the commitment, care, and consistency you bring to strengthening farmer-led, community-controlled sustainable agriculture systems. The past year reminded us that transformation is never linear. It is season-by-season work—part science, part social process, part institution-building, and part moral courage.

As CSA completed 21 years of work in 2024–25, our purpose remained unchanged: farming must be economically viable, ecologically sustainable, and rooted in equity, dignity, and justice.

What We Carried Together Last Year

Over the past year, we deepened the foundations for large-scale agroecological transitions across the country. This included strengthening farmer-led seed systems and seed sovereignty, supporting community-owned seed enterprises, and advancing decentralised bioinput systems through local Bioresource Centres.

We also expanded learning and capacity-building—through trainings, mentoring, and handholding for farmers, FPOs, civil society organisations, and agriculture departments—reinforcing that transitions require learning ecosystems, not just input substitution. Alongside this, we strengthened farmer institutions, ethical market pathways, and trust-based certification systems that enable agroecology to scale with credibility.

These are not just programme outputs. They represent farmers taking risks, field teams working across seasons, and partners investing in the slow, essential work of confidence-building.

From Islands of Success to Landscape-Scale Change

We are facing a convergence of challenges—climate volatility, soil degradation, groundwater stress, and livelihood fragility. Yet the pathway forward is clear. Agroecology is no longer a niche alternative; it is a credible, scalable solution for resilient livelihoods, sustainable natural resources, and safe food systems.

As we enter the new year, our shared aspiration is clear:

To move agroecology from the margins to the mainstream, and from scattered demonstrations to landscape-, institutional-, and policy-level transitions.

And we will continue to do this the CSA way—rooted in farmer knowledge, backed by science, strengthened through institutions, and argued with evidence in policy spaces.

New Initiatives We Are Launching

As announced in the annual report, we are initiating three new efforts:

• A volunteering and partnership programme to support on-ground agroecological transitions

• A mentorship platform for grassroots NGOs, FPOs, and local marketing initiatives

• A network of agriculture schools to enable rural youth to learn, lead, and build enterprises

These initiatives reflect a core belief: transition is a collective project. We cannot—and should not—do this alone.

Closing

To the CSA team: your work may be invisible in formal narratives, but it is deeply visible to farmers—and that is what matters most.

To our partners and donors: thank you for your trust and for walking with us as we build systems that can endure and scale.

To the farmers and communities we work with: thank you for the knowledge, confidence, and leadership you bring every season.

May this year bring health to our families, courage to our teams, and strength to our farmer institutions. And may it bring us closer to an India where agroecology is not a special programme, but the foundation of rural prosperity and climate resilience.

Warmly,
Dr G. V. Ramanjaneyulu

Executive Director, CSA