The Foundation for Rural Recovery and Development (FORRAD) was established in Delhi in January 1980 with the objective of promoting, supporting, and coordinating projects related to sustainable agriculture and the protection of natural resources. FORRAD has over the years provided technical and financial support to more than 450 grassroots organizations across rural India in the states of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Currently FORRAD works in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

FORRAD works primarily to address the needs of smallholder farmers and sharecroppers focussing largely on water security and regenerative agriculture to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic climate change. To achieve the above, FORRAD prioritises the restoration of traditional water conservation and management methods, for example the restoration of village ponds, anicuts in Rajasthan, traditional irrigation systems in Tamil Nadu, pyne–ahars in Bihar. FORRAD projects also address the intersecting issues of social justice, community empowerment, education and health-care.

FORRAD ensures that all its projects are community driven and aims to ensure that the control over natural resources and technologies associated with their conservation, treatment and supply or availability is vested with the community stakeholders. Further, understanding that the most vulnerable disenfranchised and marginalised communities are the worst affected by the consequences of climate change, FORRAD ensures that these sections find, representation both as participants and as primary stakeholders. Equal opportunities between genders, castes and communities and equal pay for equal work are the starting point for all initiatives undertaken.