A storytelling collaboration between The Locavore and Hands of Transition, this project is an attempt to illuminate how food producers across India are adapting to a changing climate—through locally rooted knowledge, ecological practices, and collective strength.
Hands of Transition is a global initiative that connects communities leading the transformation of food systems. Officially launched in 2025, Hands of Transition brings design, storytelling, and ground-up action together to ensure that the people most affected by climate and food insecurity are also the ones shaping the solutions.
Hands of Transition’s intention in India has been to support and accelerate people-powered transitions on the issues most shaping the country’s future, from climate resilience and agriculture to energy and livelihoods.
This partnership represents the kind of work Hands of Transition wants to deepen in India: co-owned, community-centered, grounded in lived experience, and capable of shifting how India imagines its food future.
This project between Hands of Transition and The Locavore is built on the belief that communicators, storytellers, and grassroots voices must collaborate if we are to build a long-term, climate-smart transition with communities at the centre as both messengers and drivers of change.
Impacts of the climate crisis unfolding across India have revealed how urgently we need grounded, producer-first storytelling that can travel across audiences and influence public understanding. By working together to spotlight stories where farmers are adapting to climate shifts, we aim not only to document resilience but to make these stories actionable, visible, and influential across different networks.
This partnership represents the kind of work Hands of Transition wants to deepen in India: co-owned, community-centered, grounded in lived experience, and capable of shifting how India imagines its food future.
“Our hope with Hands of Transition is for it to help bring producer voices to the centre of the narrative ecosystem, ensuring that producer realities are no longer peripheral to conversations on climate, food, and energy. If we succeed in using the power of these communicators to reshape how food systems are understood and manage to spark more empathetic action on ground from both decision makers and citizens, then we will have achieved what we set out to do.”
—Malvika, Associate Manager, Campaigns, Purpose
How Food Producers in the Mountains Navigate Unseasonal Rains
From harvesting honey to growing indigenous vegetables, unpredictable rainfall severely impacts the food we eat. In the face of such varying weather patterns, farmers and producers, including The Locavore’s partners, often have to contend with challenges such as landslides, logistical hurdles, and even changes in local diets.
From Rani Athani to Khadkya Ambemohar: Why Conserving Indigenous Rice Varieties Matters for the Future
Once home to 1,00,000 native rice varieties, only a few thousand survive in India today. To understand the impact of this loss on our food systems, we spoke to Shailesh Awate, co-founder of OOO Farms, about why preserving and reviving these varieties is at the centre of their work, and the promise this holds in a rapidly warming world.
Photo Essay: Can Coffee Survive the Climate Crisis Without Forests?
As unseasonal rains and rising temperatures reshape India’s coffee landscapes, smallholder growers working with Black Baza—a coffee enterprise—show how preserving biodiversity is the most apt climate mitigation strategy.
India’s honey exports are rising exponentially, but at what cost?
Even as small-scale producers struggle to harvest honey amidst climatic stressors and environmental degradation, India’s honey production continues to grow significantly, largely through a policy push that encourages the use of the European Bee, while sidelining native bees and their habitats.
The Impact of Overfishing on India’s Marine Ecosystem
Highlighting the impact of overfishing and the climate crisis on India’s marine ecosystem and fishing communities, the session discussed the role grassroots leaders, scientists, policy makers, and researchers play in bettering our understanding of these intersectional challenges.
Outcomes
1. A series of editorial features that focus on climate mitigation and adaptation strategies from The Locavore’s network of partner producers. The Locavore’s partner producer network is spread across India, and spotlights farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs who have adopted practices of sustainability, transparency, and traditional knowledge in order to build a better, more sustainable food future.
2. A virtual round table to explore how India’s marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods are being reshaped by the climate crisis, and how policy, governance, and sustainable consumption can come together to better protect both—the waters, and the people who depend on it for their livelihoods.
3. To create a repository of people and organisations who have come together through this project and create a larger network for Hands of Transition to amplify challenges as well as solutions.
“When it comes to long-term impact, I’d really like to see this project inspire tangible change in climate and agricultural policy at both state and national levels. A much more realistic hope is to centre perspectives of smallholder farmers, and make people aware of the challenges farming communities face, and how they are adapting to the climate crisis. If even a small group of people make conscious changes in their diets (and how they interact with food) after reading these stories, I think the project would be considered a success.”
—Yashvi Shah, Senior Partnerships Copywriter, The Locavore
Feeding the Future Project is a collaboration between The Locavore and Hands of Transition, and attempts to illuminate how food producers across India are adapting to a changing climate—through locally rooted knowledge, ecological practices, and collective strength.
