Agriculture

Since 1987, RASTA has been focusing on sustainable agriculture as one of the focal point of intervention as the livelihood of the 95% of the inhabitants of the region are from agriculture and moreover the farming sector has been facing major problems like diminishing productivity, increased incidences of pest and diseases, lack of availability of appropriate technologies at farmer level and weak extension services. RASTA has undertaken a number of activities especially awareness generation, research and extension, infrastructure development activities to support farmers.

Women's empowerment

The status of women in Wayanad district had been very pathetic and backward until the recent years. The women population comprises of 50% of which about 70% rely upon for their livelihood agriculture and agricultural labour. They engage in these works after completing all their domestic duties. They never had the security for tomorrow or the savings habit. As they were having no possession of assets and economic stability, the financial institutions like banks were unwilling to extend loan facilities for them. At this context RASTA initiated to the formation of Self Help Groups ( SHGs ) for the women in villages. RASTA had been the first among the NGOs to form Self Help Groups in Wayanad. By the time the SHGs have become a role-model in the scenario of village development. Now there are about 900 SHGs facilitated by RASTA. The project was supported Intercorporation, and Rb foundation.

支持土著社区

Tribal communities contribute 17% of the total population in Wayanad district. Eight different communities are living in this hilly and backward district. 由于来自不同地区的移民国家，这些当地社区得到了边缘化，一直面临着几个问题，如缺乏土地所有权的涌入, unemployment, 粮食不安全和缺乏基本设施. During the past 15 年RASTA试图改善部落社区在几个方面的情况.

 

 

 

 

 

Technology Dissemination

The technologies developed for application at village level, whether it is agriculture related, water harvesting or health and hygiene, are often away from the vicinity of common man. The role of an intermediary to introduce, fine tune and modify technologies are very important if it has to be adopted at village level. Quiet often the technologies need to be field tested in the specific local conditions before replicating. Being an organization responsive to the local needs, RASTA found a big gap in the technology promotion aspects in the district and it has undertaken it as a primary role in its functioning. During the past 20 years RASTA has been able to introduce, fine-tune and replicate a number of technologies in agriculture and allied sectors to improve the quality of life of rural men and women.