Agriculture World, Environment Day Talks: June 5 /2020

Agriculture World Magazine on June 5 /2020 held Environment Day talks with diverse persons holding prominent positions within India. They were Environmentalist /Engineer Sridhar Radhakrishnan, Kerala, Samir Bordoloi from North East, Farmer, IARI, Innovative Farmer Award Winner2019, Landscape Architectand Academician Sandeep Menon from KRVIA, Mumbai and Shiv Singh Rawat, Engineer, Irirgation Department, Haryana.

The Environment Day Talks organized by Agriculture World emphasized the need for thinking out of the box solutions for tending to pandemics and climate change. There is a dire need to understand the current situations around us and act responsibly. We should stand together as communities and understand the implications and work on the aspects we need to change and move forward. While Sridhar emphasized on sustainable homes, green living, Samir focused on the importance of Local Food. Sandeep Menon discussed a wide array of topics like Anthropocene age to food we eat to the sustainable homes to the best designed city in the world to ecological Urbanism, landscape ecology, sustainable urban water management and wetland systems. Shiv Singh Rawat focused on Water Conservation and methods adopted by the government to tackle water issues. If Corona Crisis hasn’t changed situations, then I don’t think we can ever.

Sridhar Radhakrishnan is an Engineer by education and Environmentalist by passion & practice.His main areas of work cover Sustainable Agriculture & Food Sovereignty, Environmental Policy & Advocacy, and Ecosystems & Land Use Policy. He has played critical roles at the State and National levels in issues related to industrialisation, agriculture, environment and, food and agriculture trade policies.

He was closely and influentially associated with many campaigns – the industrial pollution issues in Eloor-Edayar; the anti-Endosulfan struggle in Kasaragod; the campaign to establish Zero Waste as an alternative to dirty waste management practices; to keep India free of hazardous GM Crops, and so on.He also worked closely with the Government to draft the Organic Farming Policy and also the draft Land Policy. Presently he functions as Coordinator(Policy & Campaign) of the Save our Rice Campaign, which is a national movement towards building a sustainable way for food security in India. He is Director in Thanal, a well-known environmental organisation in Kerala. He is also a founder and co-coordinator of Kerala Paristhithi AikyaVedhi (KPAV), a state-wide platform for the Environment. He is member of Advisory Council of Consumer Research Education Action Training and Empowerment (CREATE) Trust since 2009. He has also been a Fellow of the Association for India Development (AID). He authored two books - ‘Grasim Since 1963 – A burden on Our Heads’ – A book on impact of Gwalior MavoorRayons Factory on the economy and ecology of Kerala, and ‘Cleaning Up Kerala – A synthesis of studies on Municipal Solid Waste Management in Kerala’. He was also closely associated and co-authored in the publication ‘A Green Print for Sustainable Kerala – Lessons for Existence’ edited by Dr V S Vijayan & Dr LalithaVijayan for the KPAV.

Samir Bordoloi is a farmer and Pragati Puraskar Award Winner 2016, Best Entrepreneur Award Winner 2017, Krishak Ratna Award Winner2018, IARI Innovative Farmer Award Winner 2019. He is at presently involved in Creating a tribe of Green Commandoes: Young Social Agripreneurs in building Climate Friendly farming and Conservation of Local food.

Sandeep Menon is a practising landscape architect and a core faculty member at KRVIA, Mumbai. His academic interests range from ecological Urbanism, landscape ecology, sustainable urban water management and wetland systems. He is the recipient of School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, Gold medal for best outgoing student 2006 and Narendra Juneja Gold Medal for Best Thesis Project 2006 for Landscape Masters Thesis project which was a socio-ecological experimental intervention at Bekal, Kerala.

Dr Shiv Singh Rawat is Superintending Engineer in Irrigation and Water resources Department, Haryana. His work deals with Water Conservation methods in the State of Haryana.