A Decade of Sustainable Agriculture: How the Sustainable Guar Initiative is Transforming Lives in India
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Origins of the Sustainable Guar Initiative
- Why Sustainable Agriculture Matters in Rajasthan
- Building Climate Resilience Through Guar Farming
- From Seeds to Systems: Strengthening Supply Chains and Farmer Incomes
- Empowering Women and Communities Through Sustainable Agriculture
- Environmental Stewardship in Action: Water, Soil, and Trees
- Beyond the Crop: Education, Agency, and Trust
- Setting New Standards: Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
- Looking Ahead: Scaling Sustainable Agriculture Through Shared Value Partnerships
TechnoServe celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Sustainable Guar Initiative, a pioneering program that champions responsible guar sourcing and fosters inclusive growth for farming communities.
The Origins of the Sustainable Guar Initiative
A decade ago, the Sustainable Guar Initiative (SGI) began with a shared commitment: that smallholder guar farming in one of India’s most climate-vulnerable regions could be both sustainable and profitable. A bold initiative, born out of a simple truth that real transformation begins when we invest not just in the crop, but in the people who grow it.
Why Sustainable Agriculture Matters in Rajasthan
India produces approximately 80% of the world’s guar, with the northwestern state of Rajasthan accounting for the lion’s share of that. At the start of this global supply chain are tens of thousands of smallholder farmers, most of whom are confronted with increasingly harsh realities like drought-like conditions, declining soil health, and volatile market dynamics. For these farmers, guar isn’t just a crop. This little green pod is a lifeline, as it enables farmers to earn a livelihood from the land, even in arid conditions. For farmers in Rajasthan, guar offers a path to prosperity.
Guar gum, extracted from the seeds of a guar plant, serves as a crucial ingredient across a wide range of industries. It is used to thicken and stabilize products such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food, and beverages. It’s this global demand that makes guar such an important crop, not just for farmers but for supply chains around the world.
Building Climate Resilience Through Guar Farming
In 2015, TechnoServe, together with Syensqo and their partners, launched the Sustainable Guar Initiative with just 1,500 farmers across 13 villages. Today, our reach has expanded to more than 12,500 farmers across 62 villages. Along the way, we have continuously supported smallholder farmers in adopting sustainable agricultural practices to enhance their climate resilience and improve soil health. We have also strengthened market linkages and empowered rural women.
TechnoServe focused its efforts on strengthening farmer-producer organizations (FPOs) to build collective agency. This helped address systemic barriers, such as high transportation costs, volatile prices, and limited bargaining power, that affected the income potential of smallholder farmers. Farmers learned climate-smart farming practices and adopted drought-resistant, higher-yielding composite seed varieties with a 90-day range, which yielded an earlier harvest compared to the 120-day range of traditional guar.
As we mark 10 years of the Sustainable Guar Initiative, we celebrate a decade of empowering farmers, strengthening rural livelihoods, building climate resilience, and championing a sustainable business model. This journey reflects our commitment and effort in building resilient communities, responsible businesses, and sustainable ecosystems. We look forward to scaling this further, and a future where shared value programs like this become the norm.”
— Kumar Rupam, Associate Practice Leader and SGI Program Director, TechnoServe
From Seeds to Systems: Strengthening Supply Chains and Farmer Incomes
TechnoServe also trained FPO leadership on business and financial planning. With strength in numbers, FPOs can procure a higher volume of guar from farmers and establish a transparent mechanism to provide fair and better market prices to smallholder farmers.
Through doorstep procurement models, where FPOs collect raw materials directly from farmers’ homes or farms, smallholder farmers have also saved on transportation costs while ensuring traceability. Over the years, FPOs have evolved into market-driven enterprises that meet the procurement targets of some of the world’s largest beauty and personal care brands.
Empowering Women and Communities Through Sustainable Agriculture
Today, the transformation is far from abstract. It’s tangible and visible in the everyday lives of the farmers we work with. Eighty-nine percent of farmers are implementing at least four out of five recommended good agricultural practices. More than 90% of farmers with the initiative use the climate-resilient seed variety. Since 2015, the average yield has increased nearly threefold—from 108 kg/ha to 314 kg/ha (~96 lb/acre to 280 lb/acre) in 2024. Revenue from guar has also increased by more than 100% for over 1,800 farmers who have been associated with the program since 2015.
Women, who have traditionally played a more passive role in agriculture, are emerging as leaders by increasing their participation and decision-making through capacity-building initiatives. Twenty-seven percent of participating farmers are women. The program is continually working to increase this number.
Before SGI, most women worked in different agricultural activities with limited or no decision-making participation in guar cultivation or sales. The Sustainable Guar Initiative has ensured an increased representation of women at every level of the FPO, including the board of directors. Women farmers are learning how to improve family nutrition, manage menstrual health, and grow kitchen gardens. There are more than 2,000 women-led kitchen gardens that provide rural families with nutritious, seasonal vegetables throughout the year as well as extra income from the sale of excess produce. Over the years, the program has bridged the digital and financial divide among male and female household members, ultimately enabling deeper and more continuous engagement with women farmers.
Through the FPO and trainings that I have attended, I am more confident about making decisions for my farm and my family. [With higher earnings], my family and I purchased an electric chakki (portable flour mill), which cost me INR 14,000 (~$164). Earlier, we would have to travel to the local mill, which is very far from my home. Now, I can process wheat, bajra (millet flour), dal, and rice at home, saving us time and money.”
— Nirma Devi, Bamanwali Village, Rajasthan, India
Environmental Stewardship in Action: Water, Soil, and Trees
In the desert, every drop of water counts. The project has placed a strong emphasis on environmental resilience. Nine community ponds have been restored, replenishing over 32 million liters of water. Many farming households have also installed rooftop rainwater harvesting structures to capture rainwater for use during periods of drought. To improve soil quality and biodiversity, the respective village communities have planted nearly 92,000 native trees.
Beyond the Crop: Education, Agency, and Trust
The success of the Sustainable Guar Initiative has been driven not just by agronomic improvements but by its commitment to strengthening agency, inclusion, and trust within farming communities.
One way this is achieved is by ensuring that children from farming families stay in school, especially during busy cropping seasons. Through the ‘Children Missing School’ component, we work with farmers to raise awareness, provide training, and support them in finding ways to manage farm work without involving children. We track this closely every year, and to date, there have been zero reported cases of child labor in the program.
Setting New Standards: Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
Perhaps one of the most significant contributions of the initiative has been the creation of industry-level benchmarks for sustainable guar. While there is currently no global certification system for guar (unlike for cocoa or coffee), SGI has laid the foundation for sustainable guar standards. Rooted in agronomic best practices, social inclusion, and environmental responsibility, this model provides a path forward for enhanced traceability, transparency, and long-term value throughout the supply chain.
Looking Ahead: Scaling Sustainable Agriculture Through Shared Value Partnerships
As we reflect on a decade of impact, there is tremendous opportunity in what comes next. Partners are increasingly looking at how this model can be scaled or adapted to other raw materials and geographies. This initiative is a powerful case for shared value programs, which showcase how multi-stakeholder collaboration, centered on communities, can help build inclusive value chains that benefit both people and the planet.
We gathered with our partners to reflect on this decade-long journey and explore what it will take to build the next chapter. The panel discussion, moderated by TechnoServe’s Krishnan Hariharan, focused on creating more resilient supply chains, investing in sustainability, and SGI as a blueprint for other initiatives.
Our work on sustainable gaur reinforces that sustainability, climate resilience, and economic growth need not be competing goals—they can and must go hand in hand.
