Aadhimalai Pazhanagudiyinar Producer Company Limited (APPCL) has been initiated to anchor livelihoods of indigenous communities by encouraging traditional organic food farming, handicrafts, livestock rearing, sustainable harvest of forest produce, conservation of natural resources, thereby securing the well-being of the landscape, value addition of harvests and trading. It is a company wholly owned by the indigenous communities, one of the first of its kind at a national level.
Aadhimalai has been incubated by Keystone Foundation (www.keystone-foundation.org) in April 2013. The NGO has been working from the past two decades in the Nilgiri biosphere reserve on the intersection of environment and livelihood. The intervention has been in 147 villages. The community is involved in cultivating coffee, pepper, silk cotton, millets, pulses, cereals, spices and fruits. Further the community is traditionally involved in collecting honey, amla, shikakai, soap nuts & berries, phoenix leaves seasonally from the adjacent forest. The Producer Company was established due to the lack of a sustained and organised intervention in this area. There was a need to provide a fair price, eliminate market fluctuations and ensure continuous marketing of these produce.
The producer collective was registered as Aadhimalai Pazhanagudiyinar Producer Company Limited on 3rd April 2013 under the Indian Companies Act of 1956.