In the dry stretches of Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, where farming depends more on hope than certainty, livelihoods have been influenced by loss. 

“There were times when we had no cash for months together,” recalls Dinesh Sahebrao Shinde, a farmer from Vetale village near Pune. “I had reached a point where I was ready to leave my village and work in a factory in the city just to survive. Farming alone was not enough anymore.”

His words indicate an underlying crisis that has unfolded across rural India, where the disappearance of native ecosystems has weakened soil, water and biodiversity. 

Native seeds, once central to farming systems, have been replaced by commercial varieties that demand more water, more chemicals, and more financial risk. In the process, the natural balance that supported agriculture has slowly eroded.

Anant Bhikaji Tayade, the man behind ‘8 Naturals’, often returns to this idea when explaining his work. “If native seeds disappear, everything else begins to collapse, from soil health and water cycles to birds, insects, and ultimately farming itself,” he explains.

A childhood tied to struggle and observation

Born in 1977 in Fuli village in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district, Anant grew up in a farming household where cotton cultivation was the primary livelihood. His earliest memories are not of abundance but of uncertainty, in which every season brought the fear of drought or crop failure.

“In Vidarbha, you grow up understanding that nature is not predictable,” he says. “But what we did not understand then was how much of that unpredictability was actually human-made.”

As a child, he was exposed to farmers cutting down native trees to expand farmland, believing it would increase productivity. What followed, however, was an invisible collapse. Birds that once controlled pests began disappearing. Soil began losing its moisture. Pest attacks increased, leading to heavier dependence on chemical inputs.

“We thought we were improving farming, but in reality, we were breaking the very natural system that kept it alive,” he shares with The Better India.

This early observation stayed with him, slowly moulding a lifelong commitment to ecological restoration.

Learning from the ground, not classrooms

Between 2000 and 2004, he worked closely with social reformer Anna Hazare, engaging in grassroots rural development work. That period, he says, became a turning point in how he understood social change.

“Working with Anna Hazare taught me that change does not happen overnight,” he explains. “It requires patience, discipline and absolute........

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