My parents gave me these seeds, telling me to preserve them. They told me these seeds would take care of me and keep me and my family in good health,” says Rajamma, a practitioner of the Akkadi Saalu farming system. Practiced throughout the dryland regions of the state of Karnataka in south India, Akkadi Saalu is a traditional diverse crop system of farming. Referring to by various names across India, it is a type of rainfed agriculture.
Changes in government policies and the need for income have shifted much of Indian farming to monocropping. These high-input practices create an imbalance in the local ecosystems, climate, community nutrition, and financial security.
The native varieties of seeds in Akkadi Saalu provide higher yields than their hybrid counterparts. Native seeds are well-suited to the soil, temperature, and climatic conditions. Unlike hybrid seeds, the yield from native seeds does not diminish over the years, alleviating concern for many farmers.
“Hybrid variety seeds sold by companies are often modified in a manner in which their yield declines after a few years of cultivation. This is done in order to keep farmers dependent on a particular corporation, thereby boosting profits. The native variety seeds are over centuries old and can be stored for extremely long periods of time without decomposing.”
- Prabhakar, farmer
According to Rajamma, native seeds are a major source of nourishment and income in this community, saying, “these are the seeds we’ve been using for generations,” both Prabhakar and Rajamma swore to never purchase hybrid seeds. Traditionally, each member of the family is expected to partake in the farming process. However, as access to education improves, more people seek white-collar employment opportunities over labor-intensive fieldwork.
To this community, the seed is as important as the soil, so maintaining the soil’s fertility is imperative. This is often accomplished by consistently rotating the crops that are sown in the field. Prabhakar plants over twenty different varieties of crops on his one acre of land, continually rotating them through the seasons.
Farmers identify crop compatibility and sow those seeds together to coexist symbiotically. On Prabhakar’s land, climbers and creepers are grown with sturdy crops, like maize, which acts as a support system. This method builds and sustains biodiversity while also being an economically viable and sustainable practice. A variety of organisms are attracted to different crops throughout the field, striking a natural balance. This system also involves cultivating living hedges to prevent staple crops from being eaten by small animals. Thus, an entire ecosystem is woven throughout the one acre of land.
Because this farming method is highly dependent on monsoons, people here have effectively charted these natural cycles. This system does not put pressure on groundwater resources as does modern farming. During the “Mungaru season” or the pre-monsoonal season, four to five different varieties of crops are cultivated. In this manner, multiple crops are sown during different seasons. This allows farmers to harvest over an eight to nine-month period, ensuring financial security. Prabhakar does not only sell whole groundnuts, he also converts them into organic groundnut oil, adding value and income.
The discarded parts of early crops are used as manure for the main crops grown in subsequent seasons. Compost produced from jaggery and other plant and animal matter is used on the field. This enables microbes and other organisms to move deep within the ground, assisting with nitrogen fixation and improving soil fertility. The compost must be mixed into the soil almost immediately to prevent exposure to air and heat, which deplete its nutritional value. To hasten this process, fields are pre-plowed and otherwise prepared. Srinivas, a soil expert, describes how soils that incorporate higher amounts of plant and animal matter absorb moisture more effectively. This is in stark contrast to land characterized by excessive fertilizer and pesticide usage. The salinity (salt content) of pesticides and fertilizers reduces the moisture in the soil. This tends to harden the soil until traditional wooden tools are ineffective; this is the reason we see more mechanized steel plows today.
The role of women is vital to Akkadi Saalu. As an integral and symbolic part of the Akkadi Saalu system, it is the women’s role to preserve these native seeds. During droughts and famines, the seeds are not to be cooked or consumed – that would be a bad omen. Rajamma fondly recalls, “it was my mother who was in charge of conserving our seeds. It is the role of the women to take the culture of indigenous seeds forward and to look after them like children.” In this dynamic agricultural system, every element holds deep value, yet it is the seeds that farmers protect at all costs. It is through these indigenous seeds that Akkadi Saalu finds its reawakening.
Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRAN), a national network on rainfed agriculture has been working towards the revival of Akkadi Saalu both with farmers and at the policy level.
00:07 – What Is Akkadi Saalu? “I’m Vasu P Srinivas and I run a trust called Soil. So my role is to promote Akkadi Saalu. So what exactly is Akkadi Saalu? It is nothing but growing diversified crops, multiple crops, in a single given plot under rainfed conditions, in tune with nature, in tune with the natural rhythms of the climate, the wind, the rain, and others.
It is also making [the] best use of the natural resources available within that ecosystem and by taking that support, we are growing multiple crops. So in a way, Akkadi Saalu is a kind of connectivity between the natural resources, the other plant, animal life, and the human communities. There are multiple benefits for Akkadi Saalu.”
01:05 – The Benefits. “Akkadi Saalu is growing diversified crops. It is the millets, the pulses, the oil seeds, and other medicinal herbs, some plants, greens, flowers, everything. So that [it] is grown in a particular method that growing it is kind of a skill, you know, growing of diversified cops. So, what are the benefits?
Number one, we are addressing nutritional food security, the best food we are getting from multiple crops, fodder security, employment, gender issues, we are giving opportunities for women to be involved in that. And the skill of growing multiple crops in a single plot is a kind of education that we are taking further to the coming generation.
The other one, it is also kind of an art, you know, aesthetics and such. It is building biodiversity, it is building biomass, and it is a culture which has been forgotten. So it is nothing but reviving the old traditional methods, whatever they have, in a new way – in a new approach.
So that’s what we call the benefits. It is also economically viable, where you are using a native variety of seeds to grow multiple crops. And because those seeds can grow well with the variations in the climate and adjust to the variations in the climate, they can come off well.
And it builds soil fertility. With multiple crops, they have multiple root systems which compensate themselves to grow and make other plants grow, therefore building biodiversity above and below the soil. So these are the benefits. More than that, with this multiple crop system, there is no question of losing anything.”
03:18 – Promoting Akkadi Saalu. “We wanted to promote it because this culture was forgotten. How do we want to take it forward? We had an interactive session with the farming community in six different districts of the state. While interacting with the farmers, we wanted to know their understanding about multiple cropping Akkadi Saalu. In North Karnataka, they call it Akkadi Saalu and, in South Karnataka, they call it Mishra Bele, Saha Bele.
Well, when we were interacting with them, we were amused to understand methods of growing multiple crops, their way of growing crops, and which addresses their food security, which addresses their fodder security. So they were all keeping all these things in mind, which are the requirements of their community to move forward.
They used to grow all such things. And to grow this, they had depended on the native varieties of seeds and native livestock because [those] would be the biggest contributors for the crops to grow. And at the same time, they were depending on the different rainy seasons. So Akkadi Saalu was promoted in such a way that we had the crops growing, for two agricultural seasons – one is monsoon and one is Rabi [the Indian subcontinent’s Spring harvest]. When you grow multiple crops in the monsoon season, after three months, one or the other crop will start yielding. After harvesting one particular thing, you will enter the Rabi season. By that time you sow another five or six types of seeds. So for almost 8 months one or the other crop will be on the land. So that the soil microbes are protected and conserved.
Most of these crops are grown under rainfed conditions. But we are not always sure of the rain when it comes, when it doesn’t. This used to give a kind of a boost to the other plants. Even in the absence of rain, the moisture is retained from this method, so that was to support the other crops to grow and harvest after the four months in different seasons.
Throughout the end of the eight months period, one or the other month you can harvest one or the other crops. It is a kind of an incentive. While interacting with the farming community, we used to document their understanding of these things.
And we did it in two levels. One is understanding their practices. Second, [how] to improve them. Most of them were finding it difficult to address pests and diseases problems, especially as they were already growing one or two crops only. We used to address that with soil organic matter, applying soil organic matter in different forms and other things.
And we used to conduct the demonstrative training of [the] making of liquid manure, like panchagavya.
And there were challenges. Challenges in the sense that, even the seasoned farmers are not practicing and continuing to grow multiple crops. Probably that is due to the non-availability of native seeds.”
06:39 – The Challenges. “The livestock population is declining year after year. And also, soil fertility is declining year after year. That was posing a big challenge. And there are also labor problems. Earlier, most of the family members used to be part of the agricultural activities. Now, many youths have gone out of the villages. Now the aged farmers are not able to manage it properly. Even the government institutions, which were supposed to provide quality seeds to the farmers, are also not focusing on that.
They used to give whatever available seeds – One or two, something like that. These are the number one challenges. The second challenge was the knowledge gap, and many farmers also didn’t know that they can grow multiple crops in a single plot. The third one is the resource gap. While growing a plant, soil plays a vital role, because, through soil only, the growing plant will get all sorts of nutrients, which are required for its growth in different parts of the plant body.
Those nutrients have to be there in the soil. We ensured that before growing a plant, or a crop, all such nutrients are there in the soil. But, unfortunately, in the present condition, most of our soils are hungry and thirsty. They are hungry because there are no nutrients. They are thirsty because they are dried up because of direct contact with the sun.”
08:35 – Understanding the Soil. “What we used to do to address it? We used to see first what kind of soil a farmer has. There is a method of understanding the soil, knowing the sand, the silt, and the clay content of the soil, number one, and secondly, what is the amount of organic matter in that particular plot. So there is a method of knowing that – we call it the bottle method.
After understanding that we used to encourage farmers before plow, to organize and get 25 to 30 kilograms of various types of seeds: the millets, the oil seeds, pulses, greens, everything including dhaniya (coriander). We used to ask them to broadcast it and then plow. After 20 days of plowing, 20, 25 days, some of these (more than 30 varieties of) seeds used to come up well. Those plants which come up very well, the soil itself is saying ‘ I am capable of growing this.’
This is how we used to interact with the farming community. Making the list of the first 10 best plants. Then you plow greens, or whatever it is, back to the soil, so that, I don’t know, two to three tons of green leaves go back to soil, which is a food for soil microbes, so slowly soil structure will be improved.
And soil will develop and absorb rainwater. Whereas, when you apply chemicals, especially in rainfed conditions, normally the chemicals are salty, you know, they absorb wherever there is moisture. So when that is applied to the soil, whatever moisture is left will be absorbed by these chemicals.
And again, as there is no water left in the soil, these chemical fertilizers will make the soil more compact, hard. So, earlier they used to use the wooden plow to do plowing, [but] now they’re using the tractor because of the hardness in the soil.
They develop a kind of a hard pan, which has to be broken. That’s where the usage of tractors is increasing. But actually just around two to three inches of plowing is sufficient for any crop to be grown. That is the thing. But where the tractors will topple the soil in such a way that whatever the microbes settle in this soil, they will be exposed to direct sun and they are killed.
So soil health plays a vital role in growing the plants.”
Large monocultures and land-use change put biodiversity under great stress And endanger much more than agricultural ecosystems. Biodiversity-friendly land management practices safeguard the environment, help keep farmlands secure, and protect wildlife, helping communities plant the seeds for future prosperity.
A nutrient cycle is the movement and exchange of organic and inorganic matter back into the production of matter, such as the one which occurs between plants, insects, animals, and soil.
Photographer, Videomaker
About
Lexicon of Food is produced by The Lexicon, an international NGO that brings together food companies, government agencies, financial institutions, scientists, entrepreneurs, and food producers from across the globe to tackle some of the most complex challenges facing our food systems.
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The Agrobiodiversity Channel was developed by an invitation-only food systems solutions activator created by The Lexicon with support from Food at Google. The activator model fosters unprecedented collaborations between leading food service companies, environmental NGOs, government agencies, and technical experts from across the globe.
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This online platform is years in the making, featuring the contributions of 1000+ companies and NGOs across a dzen domain areas. To introduce you to their work, we’ve assembled personalized experiences with insights from our community of international experts.
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We have no idea who grows our food, what farming practices they use, the communities they support, or what processing it undergoes before reaching our plates.
As a result, we have no ability to make food purchases that align with our values as individuals, or our missions as companies.
To change that, we’ve asked experts to demystify the complexity of food purchasing so that you can better informed decisions about what you buy.
The Lexicon of Food’s community of experts share their insights and experiences on the complex journey food takes to reach our plates. Their work underscores the need for greater transparency and better informed decision-making in shaping a healthier and more sustainable food system for all.
Over half the world’s agricultural production comes from only three crops. Can we bring greater diversity to our plates?
In the US, four companies control nearly 85% of the beef we consume. Can we develop more regionally-based markets?
How can we develop alternatives to single-use plastics that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly?
Could changing the way we grow our food provide benefits for people and the planet, and even respond to climate change?
Can we meet the growing global demand for protein while reducing our reliance on traditional animal agriculture?
It’s not only important what we eat but what our food comes in. Can we develop tools that identify toxic materials used in food packaging?
Explore The Lexicon’s collection of immersive storytelling experiences featuring insights from our community of international experts.
The Great Protein Shift
Our experts use an engaging interactive approach to break down the technologies used to create these novel proteins.
Ten Principles for Regenerative Agriculture
What is regenerative agriculture? We’ve developed a framework to explain the principles, practices, ecological benefits and language of regenerative agriculture, then connected them to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Food-related chronic diseases are the biggest burden on healthcare systems. What would happen if we treated food as medicine?
How can we responsibly manage our ocean fisheries so there’s enough seafood for everyone now and for generations to come?
Mobilizing agronomists, farmers, NGOs, chefs, and food companies in defense of biodiversity in nature, agriculture, and on our plates.
Can governments develop guidelines that shift consumer diets, promote balanced nutrition and reduce the risk of chronic disease?
Will sustainably raising shellfish, finfish, shrimp and algae meet the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressure on wild fisheries?
How can a universal visual language to describe our food systems bridge cultural barriers and increase consumer literacy?
What if making the right food choices could be an effective tool for addressing a range of global challenges?
Let’s start with climate change. While it presents our planet with existential challenges, biodiversity loss, desertification, and water scarcity should be of equal concern—they’re all connected.
Instead of seeking singular solutions, we must develop a holistic approach, one that channel our collective energies and achieve positive impacts where they matter most.
To maximize our collective impact, EBF can help consumers focus on six equally important ecological benefits: air, water, soil, biodiversity, equity, and carbon.
We’ve gathered domain experts from over 1,000 companies and organizations working at the intersection of food, agriculture, conservation, and climate change.
The Lexicon™ is a California-based nonprofit founded in 2009 with a focus on positive solutions for a more sustainable planet.
For the past five years, it has developed an “activator for good ideas” with support from Food at Google. This model gathers domain experts from over 1,000 companies and organizations working at the intersection of food, agriculture, conservation, and climate change.
Together, the community has reached consensus on strategies that respond to challenges across multiple domain areas, including biodiversity, regenerative agriculture, food packaging, aquaculture, and the missing middle in supply chains for meat.
Lexicon of Food is the first public release of that work.
Over half the world’s agricultural production comes from only three crops. Can we bring greater diversity to our plates?
In the US, four companies control nearly 85% of the beef we consume. Can we develop more regionally-based markets?
How can we develop alternatives to single-use plastics that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly?
Could changing the way we grow our food provide benefits for people and the planet, and even respond to climate change?
Can we meet the growing global demand for protein while reducing our reliance on traditional animal agriculture?
It’s not only important what we eat but what our food comes in. Can we develop tools that identify toxic materials used in food packaging?
Explore The Lexicon’s collection of immersive storytelling experiences featuring insights from our community of international experts.
The Great Protein Shift
Our experts use an engaging interactive approach to break down the technologies used to create these novel proteins.
Ten Principles for Regenerative Agriculture
What is regenerative agriculture? We’ve developed a framework to explain the principles, practices, ecological benefits and language of regenerative agriculture, then connected them to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Food-related chronic diseases are the biggest burden on healthcare systems. What would happen if we treated food as medicine?
How can we responsibly manage our ocean fisheries so there’s enough seafood for everyone now and for generations to come?
Mobilizing agronomists, farmers, NGOs, chefs, and food companies in defense of biodiversity in nature, agriculture, and on our plates.
Can governments develop guidelines that shift consumer diets, promote balanced nutrition and reduce the risk of chronic disease?
Will sustainably raising shellfish, finfish, shrimp and algae meet the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressure on wild fisheries?
How can a universal visual language to describe our food systems bridge cultural barriers and increase consumer literacy?
This game was designed to raise awareness about the impacts our food choices have on our own health, but also the environment, climate change and the cultures in which we live.
First, you can choose one of the four global regions and pick a character that you want to play.
Each region has distinct cultural, economic, historical, and agricultural capacities to feed itself, and each character faces different challenges, such as varied access to food, higher or lower family income, and food literacy.
As you take your character through their day, select the choices you think they might make given their situation.
At the end of the day you will get a report on the impact of your food choices on five areas: health, healthcare, climate, environment and culture. Take some time to read through them. Now go back and try again. Can you make improvements in all five areas? Did one area score higher, but another score lower?
FOOD CHOICES FOR A HEALTHY PLANET will help you better understand how all these regions and characters’ particularities can influence our food choices, and how our food choices can impact our personal health, national healthcare, environment, climate, and culture. Let’s Play!
The FOOD CHOICES FOR A HEALTHY PLANET game allows users to experience the dramatic connections between food and climate in a unique and engaging way. The venue and the game set-up provides attendees with a fun experience, with a potential to add a new layer of storytelling about this topic.
Starting the game: the pilot version of the game features four country/regions: Each reflects a different way people (and the national dietary guidelines) look at diets: Nordic Countries (sustainability), Brazil (local and whole foods instead of ultra-processed foods); Canada (plant-forward), and Indonesia (developing countries).
Personalizing the game: players begin by choosing a country and then a character who they help in making food choices over the course of one day. Later versions may allow for creating custom avatars.
Making tough food choices: This interactive game for all ages shows how the food choices we make impact our health and the environment, and even contribute to climate change.
What we eat matters: at the end of each game, players learn that every decision they make impacts not only their health, but a national healthcare system, the environment, climate and even culture.
We’d love to know more about you and why you think you will be a great fit for this position! Shoot us an email introducing you and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
Providing best water quality conditions to ensure optimal living condition for growth, breeding and other physiological needs
Water quality is sourced from natural seawater with dependency on the tidal system. Water is treated to adjust pH and alkalinity before stocking.
Producers that own and manages the farm operating under small-scale farming model with limited input, investment which leads to low to medium production yield
All 1,149 of our farmers in both regencies are smallholder farmers who operate with low stocking density, traditional ponds, and no use of any other intensification technology.
Safe working conditions — cleanliness, lighting, equipment, paid overtime, hazard safety, etc. — happen when businesses conduct workplace safety audits and invest in the wellbeing of their employees
Company ensure implementation of safe working conditions by applying representative of workers to health and safety and conduct regular health and safety training. The practices are proven by ASIC standards’ implementation
Implementation of farming operations, management and trading that impact positively to community wellbeing and sustainable better way of living
The company works with local stakeholders and local governments to create support for farmers and the farming community in increasing resilience. Our farming community is empowered by local stakeholders continuously to maintain a long generation of farmers.
Freezing seafood rapidly when it is at peak freshness to ensure a higher quality and longer lasting product
Our harvests are immediately frozen with ice flakes in layers in cool boxes. Boxes are equipped with paper records and coding for traceability. We ensure that our harvests are processed with the utmost care at <-18 degrees Celsius.
Sourcing plant based ingredients, like soy, from producers that do not destroy forests to increase their growing area and produce fish feed ingredients
With adjacent locations to mangroves and coastal areas, our farmers and company are committed to no deforestation at any scale. Mangrove rehabilitation and replantation are conducted every year in collaboration with local authorities. Our farms are not established in protected habitats and have not resulted from deforestation activity since the beginning of our establishment.
Implement only natural feeds grown in water for aquatic animal’s feed without use of commercial feed
Our black tiger shrimps are not fed using commercial feed. The system is zero input and depends fully on natural feed grown in the pond. Our farmers use organic fertilizer and probiotics to enhance the water quality.
Enhance biodiversity through integration of nature conservation and food production without negative impact to surrounding ecosysytem
As our practices are natural, organic, and zero input, farms coexist with surrounding biodiversity which increases the volume of polyculture and mangrove coverage area. Farmers’ groups, along with the company, conduct regular benthic assessments, river cleaning, and mangrove planting.
THE TERM “MOONSHOT” IS OFTEN USED TO DESCRIBE an initiative that goes beyond the confines of the present by transforming our greatest aspirations into reality, but the story of a moonshot isn’t that of a single rocket. In fact, the Apollo program that put Neil Armstrong on the moon was actually preceded by the Gemini program, which in a two-year span rapidly put ten rockets into space. This “accelerated” process — with a new mission nearly every 2-3 months — allowed NASA to rapidly iterate, validate their findings and learn from their mistakes. Telemetry. Propulsion. Re-entry. Each mission helped NASA build and test a new piece of the puzzle.
The program also had its fair share of creative challenges, especially at the outset, as the urgency of the task at hand required that the roadmap for getting to the moon be written in parallel with the rapid pace of Gemini missions. Through it all, the NASA teams never lost sight of their ultimate goal, and the teams finally aligned on their shared responsibilities. Within three years of Gemini’s conclusion, a man did walk on the moon.
FACT is a food systems solutions activator that assesses the current food landscape, engages with key influencers, identifies trends, surveys innovative work and creates greater visibility for ideas and practices with the potential to shift key food and agricultural paradigms.
Each activator focuses on a single moonshot; instead of producing white papers, policy briefs or peer-reviewed articles, these teams design and implement blueprints for action. At the end of each activator, their work is released to the public and open-sourced.
As with any rapid iteration process, many of our activators re-assess their initial plans and pivot to address new challenges along the way. Still, one thing has remained constant: their conviction that by working together and pooling their knowledge and resources, they can create a multiplier effect to more rapidly activate change.
Co-Founder
THE LEXICON
Vice President
Global Workplace Programs
GOOGLE
Who can enter and how selections are made.
A Greener Blue is a global call to action that is open to individuals and teams from all over the world. Below is a non-exhaustive list of subjects the initiative targets.
To apply, prospective participants will need to fill out the form on the website, by filling out each part of it. Applications left incomplete or containing information that is not complete enough will receive a low score and have less chance of being admitted to the storytelling lab.
Nonprofit organizations, communities of fishers and fish farmers and companies that are seeking a closer partnership or special support can also apply by contacting hello@thelexicon.org and interacting with the members of our team.
Special attention will be given to the section of the form regarding the stories that the applicants want to tell and the reasons for participating. All proposals for stories regarding small-scale or artisanal fishers or aquaculturists, communities of artisanal fishers or aquaculturists, and workers in different steps of the seafood value chain will be considered.
Stories should show the important role that these figures play in building a more sustainable seafood system. To help with this narrative, the initiative has identified 10 principles that define a more sustainable seafood system. These can be viewed on the initiative’s website and they state:
Seafood is sustainable when:
Proposed stories should show one or more of these principles in practice.
Applications are open from the 28th of June to the 15th of August 2022. There will be 50 selected applicants who will be granted access to The Lexicon’s Total Storytelling Lab. These 50 applicants will be asked to accept and sign a learning agreement and acceptance of participation document with which they agree to respect The Lexicon’s code of conduct.
The first part of the lab will take place online between August the 22nd and August the 26th and focus on training participants on the foundation of storytelling, supporting them to create a production plan, and aligning all of them around a shared vision.
Based on their motivation, quality of the story, geography, and participation in the online Lab, a selected group of participants will be gifted a GoPro camera offered to the program by GoPro For A Change. Participants who are selected to receive the GoPro camera will need to sign an acceptance and usage agreement.
The second part of the Storytelling Lab will consist of a production period in which each participant will be supported in the production of their own story. This period goes from August 26th to October 13th. Each participant will have the opportunity to access special mentorship from an international network of storytellers and seafood experts who will help them build their story. The Lexicon also provides editors, animators, and graphic designers to support participants with more technical skills.
The final deadline to submit the stories is the 14th of October. Participants will be able to both submit complete edited stories, or footage accompanied by a storyboard to be assembled by The Lexicon’s team.
All applicants who will exhibit conduct and behavior that is contrary to The Lexicon’s code of conduct will be automatically disqualified. This includes applicants proposing stories that openly discriminate against a social or ethnic group, advocate for a political group, incite violence against any group, or incite to commit crimes of any kind.
All submissions must be the entrant’s original work. Submissions must not infringe upon the trademark, copyright, moral rights, intellectual rights, or rights of privacy of any entity or person.
Participants will retain the copyrights to their work while also granting access to The Lexicon and the other partners of the initiative to share their contributions as part of A Greener Blue Global Storytelling Initiative.
If a potential selected applicant cannot be reached by the team of the Initiative within three (3) working days, using the contact information provided at the time of entry, or if the communication is returned as undeliverable, that potential participant shall forfeit.
Selected applicants will be granted access to an advanced Storytelling Lab taught and facilitated by Douglas Gayeton, award-winning storyteller and information architect, co-founder of The Lexicon. In this course, participants will learn new techniques that will improve their storytelling skills and be able to better communicate their work with a global audience. This skill includes (but is not limited to) how to build a production plan for a documentary, how to find and interact with subjects, and how to shoot a short documentary.
Twenty of the participants will receive a GoPro Hero 11 Digital Video and Audio Cameras by September 15, 2022. Additional participants may receive GoPro Digital Video and Audio Cameras to be announced at a later date. The recipients will be selected by advisors to the program and will be based on selection criteria (see below) on proposals by Storytelling Lab participants. The selections will keep in accordance with Lab criteria concerning geography, active participation in the Storytelling Lab and commitment to the creation of a story for the Initiative, a GoPro Camera to use to complete the storytelling lab and document their story. These recipients will be asked to sign an acceptance letter with terms of use and condition to receive the camera.
The Lexicon provides video editors, graphic designers, and animators to support the participants to complete their stories.
The submitted stories will be showcased during international and local events, starting from the closing event of the International Year of Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022 in Rome, in January 2023. The authors of the stories will be credited and may be invited to join.
Storytelling lab participation:
Applicants that will be granted access to the storytelling Lab will be evaluated based on the entries they provided in the online form, and in particular:
Applications will be evaluated by a team of 4 judges from The Lexicon, GSSI and the team of IYAFA (Selection committee).
When selecting applications, the call promoters may request additional documentation or interviews both for the purpose of verifying compliance with eligibility requirements and to facilitate proposal evaluation.
Camera recipients:
Participants to the Storytelling Lab who will be given a GoPro camera will be selected based on:
The evaluation will be carried out by a team of 4 judges from The Lexicon, GSSI and the team of IYAFA (Selection committee).
Incidental expenses and all other costs and expenses which are not specifically listed in these Official Rules but which may be associated with the acceptance, receipt and use of the Storytelling Lab and the camera are solely the responsibility of the respective participants and are not covered by The Lexicon or any of the A Greener Blue partners.
All participants who receive a Camera are required to sign an agreement allowing GoPro for a Cause, The Lexicon and GSSI to utilize the films for A Greener Blue and their promotional purposes. All participants will be required to an agreement to upload their footage into the shared drive of The Lexicon and make the stories, films and images available for The Lexicon and the promoting partners of A Greener Blue.
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