Rural India is home of the original gig-economy worker. Enterprising villagers hop from tilling fields to tending shops, to door-to-door selling each day. Read the latest trends in micro-enterprises, rural start-ups and the shifting livelihoods of India’s villagers.
Livelihoods
Looking for gold
The gold they pan for does not bring lustre to their lives. Yet, with work hard to come by and limited water for agriculture, villagers keep looking for gold.
Early snowfall destroys apple orchards
Untimely snowfall causes extensive damage to apple orchards in southern Kashmir.
Solar “pumps” up incomes
How can farmers produce the food we eat without stable electricity for irrigation? By switching to solar-powered pumps, farmers become self-reliant and fruitful.
Lawyer-turned-farmer advocates for forest farming
Would you quit your professional job to be an organic farmer for the sake of healthier food? That’s what this Tamil farmer did – converting other farmers to his methods to boot.
Ingenious farmers breed new fruit varieties
Ever wished you could have mangoes year round, custard apples with fewer seeds or jumbo grapes? Now you can, thanks to some innovative, self-taught famers.
Walnut market a hard nut to crack
Urban India loves walnuts. But growing the tasty “super food” is labor intensive and Kashmiri walnut farmers are losing out to cheap foreign imports.
30 hours to literacy
Spending an hour every day on activities and custom-made lessons in a cheerful environment helps migrant workers of all ages come out of literacy poverty.
Mushroom cultivation becomes lifeline
After years struggling on paltry incomes, growing mushrooms provides West Bengali women better livelihoods and nutrition – and gives urban India more varieties.
Barge oil spill hurting beach, mangrove and livelihoods
Cyclone Tauktae bashed a barge into rocks, resulting in an oil spill that still hasn’t been cleared, hurting Mahim’s sandy beaches, unique mangrove ecology and livelihoods of fisher folk.