Development consultancy for aquaculture, agriculture and livelihoods
Based in Assam, working across India. We design, fund, run and measure farm and livelihood work that holds up in the field.
Morigaon, AssamCasting a net on a village pond
Most rural projects do not fail on paper. They fail in the gap between a sanctioned plan and the farmer, the SHG or the field team who has to make it work. That gap is where we work.
Three habits
In the field this season
Rural households rarely live off one thing. A family grows paddy, keeps a pond, sells vegetables and runs a small enterprise through its SHG. We work across all of it, so plans fit the way people actually earn.
Ponds, beels and hatcheries, planned and run for yield, not guesswork.
1.9 → 3.4 t/hatypical yield gain on the ponds we support
Paddy, oilseeds, vegetables and spices, from one farmer’s plot to a district plan.
2 cropswhere there used to be one: rice fallows put to work
SHGs, FPOs and small enterprises that earn through the year.
3.5 lakh+SHGs in Assam, the base most livelihood work builds on
Farms that cope with floods and cost the planet less.
−58%chemical fertiliser on integrated demonstration plots
A livelihood project needs a design and a DPR. A training programme needs a baseline. A well-run farm needs both. Take one service or several; the same team stays with you.
A quick demonstration
Most farms in the valley produce well below what the same land and water can give. Choose a crop, set your area and your usual yield, and see the gap at today’s prices.
Sali paddy
₹90,000more per season
3.8 tonnes of extra produce
Where the gap usually is
Indicative only. Gross value before extra input costs, which we work out properly in a farm plan or DPR.
Ask for a farm visitWhere we work
About seven in ten people in Assam depend directly on farming, on roughly 28 lakh hectares of cultivated land and 2.8 lakh hectares of ponds, beels and rivers. Yields on both are well below what the land and water can give. The gap is rarely the soil or the water. It is planning, finance, markets and institutions.
Every assignment so far has been in Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. The methods travel, though: the same practice applies to fisheries, agriculture and livelihood programmes anywhere the problems look like these.
Sources: Economic Survey of Assam; Assam State Rural Livelihoods Mission / DAY-NRLM; Department of Fisheries, Government of Assam. Figures rounded.
We count what reached the field: money sanctioned, not proposals written; farmers trained in their own ponds and fields, not seats filled in a hall.
DPRs and feasibility studies prepared
in bank finance and scheme support mobilised for clients
farmers and SHG members trained in their own ponds and fields
FPOs, SHG federations and cooperatives supported
baselines, evaluations and impact studies
states: Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh
Six stages, not all of them in every assignment. What stays constant is that the people who assess a project are the people who help run it, and who tell you honestly how it went.
Every engagement starts in the field. We look at ponds, plots and institutions as they are, not as the proposal describes them, and we listen to farmers, staff and officials before recommending anything. You get: Diagnostic note or baseline.
We narrow the options to the few that fit the site, the budget and the people. The result is a plan a bank, a board or a department can approve, with its assumptions in plain view. You get: DPR, strategy or theory of change.
We work alongside farmers and field teams through the season: pond preparation, stocking, feeding, harvest and sale. Where we are the implementing partner, we are accountable for the numbers. You get: Operating plan, trained teams, working linkages.
Simple monitoring that field staff can keep up: stock, feed, water, costs, sales and participation. Problems get spotted in weeks, not at the endline. You get: MIS, dashboards, monthly field reports.
Midlines, endlines and reflection sessions that separate programme effects from good or bad seasons, and that name failures as clearly as successes. You get: Evaluation reports, learning briefs.
Once a model has proved itself, we help take it further: scale-up plans, convergence proposals and the institutional arrangements that let it spread without us. You get: Scale-up plan, convergence proposals.
Every engagement starts in the field. We look at ponds, plots and institutions as they are, not as the proposal describes them, and we listen to farmers, staff and officials before recommending anything.
Diagnostic note or baseline
On an integrated farm, what one enterprise throws away, the next one uses. It cuts bought inputs, cuts emissions and adds income. Tap any part of the farm to see how.
Each part of the farm buys its own inputs and throws away its own waste. Switch to integrated to see what changes.
Gives
Takes
Water-quality sensors, aerator timers, feed calculators and simple farm records that replace guesswork with numbers a farmer can act on.
Fish with ducks, pigs, poultry, paddy and horticulture, laid out so that one enterprise’s waste becomes the next one’s input.
Composting, pond-silt reuse, fish-waste silage and by-product value addition that turn waste streams into income.
Low-external-input practices in line with the National Mission on Natural Farming: bio-inputs, mulching and crop diversity, introduced plot by plot.
Our assignments contribute to 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Pick a goal to see how, and what we measure.
Goal 1
Most of our work is about household income: more from the same field or pond, a second crop, a better price, a small enterprise that pays through the lean months.
What we measure
Goals in colour are the ones our work contributes to. Icons follow the United Nations SDG icon set, used for information.
Who we work with
If one of these sounds like you, start there. We will pick up the conversation from your question, not from a brochure.
Tell us what you are working on. A senior member of the team will call you back within two working days, usually sooner.
