The festival is not restricted to food. Poison-free or pollution-free clothing will also be showcased. Ananthasayanan, who coordinates the Safe Food Alliance, has also founded the organic cotton initiative Tula.
“The fact that more than 70% of farm suicides happen in cotton belt and a huge amount of pesticides used in India is for cotton are two important factors (cotton is grown in 5% of the agricultural land but 55% of the pesticides sold in India is used on cotton) for us to look at organic cotton and pollution-free clothing.
In addition, the high pollution especially in dyeing combined with the loss of livelihoods of hand spinners and handloom weavers led us to create these fabrics.”
