THD believes that agriculture can only be sustainable when it is not dependent on external inputs, such as chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. It’s a fact that 85% of farmers in the State are small and marginal land holders and nearly 90% of the net sown area practise rain-fed agriculture. Neither can they afford burgeoning cost of food production nor can bear crop failure incidences due to vagaries of nature or from any other results. Agriculture should depend on locally available and cost-effective inputs and able to produce healthy, nutritious, geographic specific and culturally approved food. Thus, securing food production is as much important as minimising the cost of production.

As agriculture plays a pivotal role in our ecosystem, farming can only be sustainable when it does not adversely affect our environment and ecology. Further, agriculture can only be sustainable when its dependence is less on external inputs such as irrigation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, and more on locally available matters such as farm yard manure and other organic crop matters.

Local crop varieties are more suitable to local conditions and have the required coping mechanism to fight adverse climatic conditions and weather fluctuations. They have the natural adaptability to grow in local conditions and thus, local crop varieties are more appropriate and dependable than foreign breeds.

THD endeavours to establish a risk free, cost effective and less external dependant farming culture so that the small and marginal farmers who occupy less than 1 hectare land can secure their crops. There comes the need to promote sustainable farming– a farming culture that requires less irrigation, no chemical fertiliser, no pesticides, and no herbicides and ensures a secured food production. It should be environment friendly, suitable to the local ecosystem, produces healthy, nutritious and region specific food suitable to the local climate. Under this premise, THD expedites organic farming culture in its operational villages through system of rice intensification and system of millet intensification. The organic practise is not limited to cereal and pulses production, but farmers are promoted its application in vegetables also.

The local food crops including varieties of millet, vegetables and pulses are encouraged among farmers. Restoring traditional food habits is another aspect to encourage food production. Food fairs, demonstration fairs and seed exchange fairs are regularly organised in the field locations to spread greater awareness not only among the farmers but also among the govt officials and general population. Food demonstration camps and food serves are also being conducted at AWW centres and Primary schools. THD has been conserving traditional paddy varieties since 2009. So far, the organisation has successfully preserved 390 varieties of paddy and several varieties of millet.