For Neelkanth Mishra, inland fisheries always seemed like a viable means of creating livelihood for the 273 million small and landless farmers in India.
Born and raised in the industrial town of Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, Neelkanth self-identified as a changemaker from very early on in his life. The ability to empathise with people and their problems, co-create solutions, and build teams has been a constant narrative of his life. Neelkanth recalls that the very first time he engaged in a process of changemaking was at college, where he created a youth club to promote advancements in science and make them accessible to the student body.
Neelkanth’s passion to address problems has taken him on a journey with a number of organisations, small and large, where he got to understand and work with systems that were preventing struggling farmers from accessing sustainable livelihood opportunities. After participating in the Right to Food Movement in 2001, Neelkanth went on join Oxfam, where he saw the untapped potential of the inland fisheries sector as well as the struggles that the associated communities were facing.
Realising that there were numerous waterbodies across India and very limited focus on utilising these for economic opportunities, Neelkanth set out to explore what he could do. With 74 percent of Indian farmers being landless and/or small, most are vulnerable to exploitation by landowners and other middlemen in the supply chain.
Realising that control was almost always out of the hands of individuals and communities, Neelkanth’s central question of exploration has been, How do I give control of resources to farmers and take it away from people that can exploit them?’
Neelkanth established The Center for Aquatic Livelihood (Jaljeevika) with the vision of legitimising the sector and transforming it into one where farmers could access the resources and support they need for a sustainable livelihood.
At the core of this vision is the insight that access to shared aquatic resources needs to be placed in the hands of farming communities, such as cooperatives and women’s self-help groups (SHGs). Neelkanth believes that it is important the benefits of this high-potential industry are distributed to the farming communities themselves.
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