| Capacity-building | Farmer led Nurseries: There are two primary innovative livelihood models which empowers farmers to actively contribute to Cauvery Calling's success, while creating a sustainable source of income for themselves
-Farmer led Production Nurseries: 42 farmers were trained to run these nurseries. The farmers also receive seeds and sapling bags to produce high-quality, organic saplings. Cauvery Calling offers an assured buy-back arrangement, guaranteeing a market for the produced saplings.
-Farmer led Distribution Nurseries: This model has empowered 19 farmers to distribute saplings from nurseries established on their own land. Cauvery Calling provides these farmers with ready-to-sell saplings and offers incentives for successful distribution.
5S training for Nursery Workers: The 5S training is designed to reduce waste while optimizing productivity through maintaining an orderly workplace and using visual cues to attain more consistent operational results. 5S refers to five steps – sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain (also known as the 5 pillars of a visual workplace). Cauvery calling Nursery workers are trained in maintaining the 5S, which builds their organizational skills in any activity they undertake.
| On-going |
| Convene stakeholders/Networking | -2019 - Isha Outreach participated in the summit as part of the Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) coalition led by UN Environment. Rally for Rivers was included in the NBS Compendium
-2019 - United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Rainforest Alliance, and EcoAgriculture Partners have included Cauvery Calling in their initiative to support global landscape restoration efforts
-2019 - IWMI has extended its support for the work of Isha Outreach and has offered to provide technical assistance for the Cauvery Calling project.
-2019 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) extended its support for Isha Outreach’s work and offered to provide assistance for the Cauvery Calling project.
-2020 Isha Outreach was accepted as a Member of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Membership. The organization also formally extended its support for Isha Outreach’s work and offered to provide technical assistance for the Cauvery Calling project.
-2020 - Sadhguru joined leaders Klaus Schwab, Jane Goodall, Ivan Duque, Marc Benioff, and others at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2020, to launch a major global initiative of World Economic Forum and UN Environment which aims to unite governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses, and individuals in a "mass-scale nature restoration.
-Isha Outreach - Cauvery Calling signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to synergistic collaboration between Cauvery Calling and various government-based agroforestry promotion schemes in the districts that comprise the Cauvery basin.
-The government of Karnataka has produced and distributed 32 million saplings in the project region since 2020. Cauvery Calling has been supporting the government by creating awareness among farmers on tree-based agriculture.
| On-going |
| Education/Communication/Raising awareness | -The Cauvery Calling campaign was launched to revive the Cauvery River by enabling plantation of trees on lands of 5.2 million farmers in the basin. In September 2019, Sadhguru traversed through the districts along the Cauvery River to create awareness about tree-based agriculture. The initiative was fully supported by the governments of the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, through which the river passes.
-Awareness stats:
-865 public events
-3080 km in 16 days
Massive Farmer Outreach:
-270,000 farmers
-7,000 villages
-56 LED vans
| Completed |
| Education/Communication/Raising awareness | Farmer Training Sessions:
-Day-long extensive technical training conducted bimonthly on tree species and intercropping by agri-scientist experts and model farmers. These trainings take place at a model farm and connect 1000-2000 participants with experts, merchants and government officials.
-17,500+ farmers participated in a Mega Training conducted. 34,500+ farmers have attended the live streaming of these sessions. Some of the mega trainings are mentioned below:
-1500+ Farmers and Experts at a Jackfruit Festival (2023) Showcasing 100+ Products, with insights into jackfruit cultivation, tree-based agriculture, value addition and marketing strategies.
-2000+ Farmers at the “Profitable Sandalwood Cultivation for the Common Man” Seminar (2023), where forestry scientists and pioneering farmers explained cultivation techniques, sales opportunities and conservation methods.
12 x 7 Farmer Helpline:
-Trained volunteers answer farmer queries on a helpline open 365 days, 12 hours a day. Farmers are connected to seasoned experts for specific technical queries like pest attacks and natural input recommendations which are answered within 24-48 hrs. To date, 72,000 farmer queries have been answered.
Social Media Knowledge Sharing and Engagement:
-Youtube, Facebook, Instagram in regional languages with content on best tree-based agriculture technologies and success stories of model farmers act as a knowledge repository. Farmers are notified of upcoming in-person training sessions through these platforms. So far, 1,100 farmer training videos have been uploaded on Youtube with over 35 million views, and 700,000+ subscribers.
-Peer to Peer Learning via Farmer WhatsApp groups moderated by regional field personnel allow farmers to receive immediate responses for any queries and stay updated on upcoming training and engagements. 50,000 farmers are on these 200+ Whatsapp groups.
| On-going |
| Field activities | -Cauvery Calling is a campaign of the Save Soil Movement to support farmers in the Cauvery River basin to adopt tree-based agriculture. Bringing one-third of the basin under green cover can mitigate the effects of deforestation, soil degradation, water depletion, and farmer livelihood loss. To revitalize land, water, and people, the below activities were undertaken:
Production and Distribution Nurseries:
-To create access to high-quality, organically-produced saplings at low cost, until 2024, three production nurseries are established, where lakhs of saplings (timber and non-timber) are produced every year. These are distributed to beneficiaries at highly subsidized rates through 28 distribution points.
-In addition, to recognize the importance of creating sustainable livelihoods for farmers, in 2022, farmer nurseries were piloted in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, empowering farmers to become active participants in the project’s growth. Under this 61 Farmers were trained to run their own Production and Distribution nurseries and were supported through a sapling buyback arrangement and performance incentives.
-Monitoring and Evaluation is conducted every year by Cauvery Calling through a physical survey of reviewing saplings planted by farmers who have taken more than 250 saplings. Field executives collect the geo-coordinates of the land, details of the farmers visited, species- wise number of trees planted that survived and other details about the land on a mobile-based open source application that was developed in-house.
-Farm visits for pre-plantation consultation and post-plantation farmer query resolutions and surveys are conducted to handhold farmers in their journey towards tree-based agriculture. Since 2022, 63,000 farm visits have been conducted. | On-going |
| Field activities | Farmer Outreach and Support System:
-Field executives(Agricultural experts) conduct village-level awareness meetings and meet various NGOs and Farmer producer organizations (FPOs) to mobilize the maximum number of farmers to adopt tree-based agriculture. Field executives also participate in agriculture exhibitions to generate farmers’ interest in tree-based agriculture by displaying brochures, saplings in a stall.
Farmer Outreach and Support Process consists of:
-Pro bono assistance to farmers transitioning to tree-based agriculture
-Farm Field visits to conduct soil and water testing
-Tree recommendations by soil type
-Distribution of organically-grown, high-quality, subsidized saplings -Recommending farmers the best practices for intercropping, irrigation, fertilizer use and pest management
-In the awareness meetings model farmers engage one to one with the attendees to address various queries
-The entire farmer outreach and support system is guided by experts
| On-going |
| Fundraising | -There is ongoing effort to engage global citizens in supporting a public eco-restoration movement. The project is supported by 580,000 donors from 171 countries. In addition, we have set up a crowdfunding platform for anyone to become a fundraiser. So far, people from across the world have created 50,000+ crowdfunding campaigns to support this movement.
-We have a dedicated fundraising team that has enrolled over 75 Corporate Social Responsibility Indian organizations like SBI, HDFC banks, etc. Also, we were able to get multiple foreign grants from companies like Yves Rocher, Rainforest alliance, etc.
-A quarterly newsletter is sent out to engage individual donors and periodic detailed progress reports are shared with CSR donors. | On-going |
| Policy influencing/advocacy | -Before the Cauvery Calling campaign was launched as an on-ground model in 2019, Sadhguru had presented policy documentation on revitalizing rivers in India to the Prime Minister of India in 2017 after rallying for rivers from southern India to northern India in 30 days. Then, NITI Aayog, an apex public policy think tank of the Government of India (GOI) reviewed the policy recommendation and circulated it in 2018 to all States of India to launch projects to revive rivers.
-In 2020, the carbon sequestration potential of Cauvery Calling projects to contribute towards India’s NDC targets under the Paris Agreement were presented to the Environmental Minister of India.
-The water resource ministry acknowledged Sadhguru’s efforts in reviving rivers when this budget was released. The significance of this recommendation is now driving a change from an engineering-based approach to nature-based approach for river revitalization.
-All these steps led to the Government of India allocating a $190 billion budget to revive 13 major rivers across the country.
-After Cauvery Calling was launched in 2019 and the detailed project report was presented to the government, the State of Karnataka increased farmer incentives by 25%. The Karnataka Government is now providing an incentive of Rs.125/- per sapling under its Krishi Aranya Protsha Yojane (KAPY) programme to farmers in the first 3 years for up to 400 saplings per hectare, based on sapling survival rates. | Completed |
| Scientific/technical activities | -Cauvery Calling’s detailed project report (DPR), which includes a detailed financial model for the plantation of 2.42 billion trees in Cauvery basin, was submitted to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu state governments, with the Karnataka government committing to provide 32 million saplings to the project.
-Cauvery Calling’s detailed need assessment document, prepared with inputs from field experts and scientists, lays out the problems of deforestation, reduced rainfall, river depletion, farmer suicides, intensified droughts and floods, unsustainable land use. The proposed solution is an economic model with ecological benefits, namely,agroforestry on private agricultural land to provide economic opportunities for local communities while improving soil structure, water infiltration, forest conservation, and up to 33% green cover in the Cauvery basin.
-In 2020, a technical document covering the potential impact of Cauvery Calling in mitigating Climate Change and contributing to India’s NDC targets under the Paris Agreement was created and this was received by the Indian Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Online Platforms to Support Farmers:
-48,000+ farmers are being nurtured with knowledge of tree-based agriculture and training event updates via Farmer WhatsApp groups
-72,000+ farmer queries were resolved via 12/7 helpline
-700,000+ followers for Cauvery Calling farmer-centric social media channels
-35 million viewership on regional Youtube channels
| On-going |
