The ability to provide food and a healthy environment for oneself and one’s family – including future generations – is fundamental for a dignified life.

Honoring the knowledge, culture and desires of the world’s vast rural majority, who make up 80 percent of the world’s most impoverished people, Grassroots supports local community-led sustainable development projects that advance democratic access to and management of crucial local food production and the right to natural resources; and serve as an entry point for organizing.

We give special priority to community-based projects that enable gender justice and equality, soil conservation, watershed protection, reforestation, training and implementation or replication of environmentally and culturally appropriate local technologies, including agrobiodiversity conservation.

We believe that strengthening local communities and grassroots organizations and guaranteeing access to land and water to grow food are crucial first steps to winning social justice for the rural poor. In addition to working directly with our partners, we collaborate closely with other international development and humanitarian aid groups to further this shared vision for fair development.