Farmers and landholders
Plant suitable species, with bamboo where it fits, along your own field edges (Green Boundaries) and sell the harvest, individually or through a producer group.
Farmers and Communities
Built with communities, not just for them.
Mera Gaon Mera Desh asks villagers to imagine their village as their country: to map what they have and to own what they build. Our philosophy is that farmers, women, rural youth, local entrepreneurs and underserved communities should take part in rural economic development as producers, workers, partners and enterprise builders, not only as beneficiaries. This page describes how that could work in practice, and the conditions that come first. It is a proposed framework for communities to help shape; no community, group or institution has joined yet.
Ways people could take part
Proposed model
Many possible roles in one shared enterprise.
Gram Sabhas
Decide whether, where and how any community land, gairan or community forest resource is used (Green Commons), and on what terms.
Gram Panchayats
Plan village works and, where land is theirs to offer, agree lease or produce-sharing arrangements that bring income to the village.
Farmer Producer Organisations
Collect, grade, process and sell together, gaining bargaining power.
Self-Help Groups
Run nurseries, make bamboo sticks and crafts, and form maintenance crews.
Rural youth
Learn skilled work in nurseries, treatment, furniture and quality control, and start enterprises.
Women entrepreneurs
Own and lead nursery, craft and processing enterprises.
Tribal communities
Take part as rights-holders, on terms decided through your own institutions.
Rural processing enterprises
Buy, process and sell bamboo, creating steady demand for smaller producers.
How income could stay in the village
Proposed model
Income that could stay where the land and work are.
- Selling bamboo grown on your own land.
- Running a nursery enterprise.
- Wages for planting, maintenance and harvesting, including public works that a Gram Panchayat chooses to plan.
- Wages and profits from processing and manufacturing.
- Owning a share of an enterprise.
- Lease or produce-sharing income for communities that hold land.
- Skills that carry into other work.
Real income figures will come from measured pilots. Until then we make no promise about earnings.
An economic stake
Proposed model
Who owns, who decides, who earns, who pays.
People should hold a genuine economic stake in the enterprises and the environmental outcomes. This is how we propose that to work in a village. It is the same framework as on How Mera Gaon Mera Desh Works.
The people who work in it
Enterprises owned and governed locally by farmers, women's groups, FPOs, cooperatives or individual entrepreneurs. Environmentrepreneurs does not take ownership of land or forest resources.
You, within the law
The Gram Sabha for community land and resources; you for your own land, in writing. Anyone may refuse or withdraw.
Those who do the work
Farmers from sales or cost savings; women and youth from wages or enterprise margins; community stewards from paid service contracts.
Buyers and eligible clients
Buyers pay for products. Eligible programme, CSR or public clients may pay for defined stewardship services. Subsidies and carbon credits are not assumed to fund everything.
Written, open and reviewed
- Prices, shares and payments are written down and shared with everyone involved.
- Terms are explained in a language you use, with time to decide.
- Shares are reviewed together, and changes need agreement.
- Inclusion by gender, age and community is tracked, not assumed.
Sooner, and later
- Sooner, if funded: nursery work, planting and maintenance, intercrops, paid stewardship.
- Longer: bamboo harvest (NABARD's bankable model assumes income from about year 5) and processed products.
- Only if eligible and verified: carbon. It is not assumed.
Earnings are measured, not promised. See Green Gold earning timelines.
What comes first: rights, consent and safeguards
Proposed model — intended prerequisites
Before any future pilot begins.
These are the prerequisites we intend any pilot to meet before planting, processing or any enterprise starts. They are proposed safeguards, designed around communities' rights; no pilot has been planned or approved yet.
- Your rights decide.Rights under the Forest Rights Act, the powers of Gram Sabhas in Scheduled Areas, and customary rights determine who decides how land and resources are used. We follow those decisions.
- Consent you can refuse.A Gram Sabha decision for any community land or resource. Individual written consent for private land and personal participation. Information in a language you use, time to decide, and the freedom to say no or withdraw.
- Land status confirmed.Land classification, ownership and the permissions required are checked and documented first. No land right passes to us by default.
- Nature protected.Every site is checked for ecological suitability. Natural grasslands and other open habitats are not turned into plantations, and species are chosen to suit the place, preferring native ones.
- Existing uses protected.Grazing, fuelwood, water, paths and cultural uses are mapped with the community and protected, or changed only by agreement.
- Open benefit-sharing.Prices, shares and payments are written down, shared with everyone involved and reviewed together.
- A way to complain.A named, accessible way to raise concerns, with independent escalation, and a record of how each one is resolved.
- Fair inclusion.Participation tracked by gender, age and community, so inclusion is measured, not assumed.
Our commitments to communities
What communities can count on.
These will apply to any future pilot or enterprise we take part in.
- We will share only incomes that have been measured, and promise none before then.
- An offer of jobs is never a substitute for permission to use land: that is decided by landholders and Gram Sabhas.
- Land and forest resources stay with their owners and communities; we take no ownership of them.
- Nothing starts without free, informed consent.
Current reality — Oct 2026
Where we are today
We are at concept and foundation stage. No village, Gram Sabha, Gram Panchayat, producer group or enterprise has been engaged yet, and no land has been committed. Our initial focus is Nandurbar district. The first step is careful research and site screening, including conversations with community institutions before any field activity.
If you are part of a farming household, a community institution, a producer group or an organisation that works with them in Nandurbar district, we would value an early conversation.