pro-poor, pro-nature & pro-women.
| The President of India inaugurated MSSRF's second building, the premises for the J. R. D. Tata Centre for Ecotechnology, in July 1998. Established with the financial support of Tata Trusts, the major goal of this Centre is to seek solutions to some of the problems of contemporary development like environmental degradation, endemic hunger and extensive human deprivation, feminisation of poverty, and jobless economic growth. The work of the J. R. D. Tata Ecotechnology Centre is supported by a generous endowment grant made by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. Keeping to MSSRF's ideals, this new building too is a blend of modern and traditional structures. The multi-purpose auditorium is a flexible place designed like a conventional koodam, making maximum use of natural light and ventilation. The landscape and garden reflect the principles of sustainable agriculture and land management such as recycling waste and vermicomposting. A park based on the concept of sacred groves of the past has been established adjoining the J. R. D. Tata Ecotechnology Centre. |
| On the same day, the foundation stone for the Golden Jubilee Biotechnology Park for Women was laid by the President of India. This Park is sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). MSSRF serves as the technical resource centre for this unique project designed to provide opportunities for remunerative self-employment to professionally qualified women entrepreneurs in the area of environmentally sustainable biotechnologies. |
| The B.V. Rao Centre for Sustainable Food Security addresses the composite issue of the technological problem of increasing food production and productivity, the socio-economic dimensions of increasing family income and livelihood opportunities, and a whole range of health, hygiene, and sanitation related parameters. Work under this Centre concentrates on the revitalisation of the multi-crop system of food security in some of the districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Centre's principal objective is to foster a Community Food Security System. |
| The Uttara Devi Resource Centre for Gender and Development helps to provide an interactive, collaborative framework to promote the incorporation of gender issues and the idea of gender equality in research and action related to development. The focus is on gender issues in relation to areas like biodiversity, food security, agriculture, livelihoods, and environment, together with emphasis on internalising the gender dimension in all areas of work. |
| The Honda Informatics Centre collects, collates, and disseminates actionable information through various database services, shares technical resources to enhance capacity building of information networking, and makes information available in the public domain. It provides scholars and researchers in agriculture and the environmental sciences access to a large collection of CD-ROMs and multimedia databases. The Informatics Centre offers technical support to training programmes in collaboration with other projects in MSSRF and outside organisations. The main purpose is to enhance capacity building in creating databases and adopt the technology as a tool to access information. |
| The management of The Hindu group of publications has endowed The Hindu Media Resource Centre for Ecotechnology and Sustainable Development. Establishment of this Centre has filled a felt need in the links between scientists and the media. The strategy is to provide data and information services to media practitioners, thus obtaining more space in the mainstream media for scientific issues of public concern. Individually, people need to be equipped to deal with the choices that new knowledge and technologies offer. In tune with MSSRF's policy of organising annual dialogues and public forums of debate, the Media Centre sponsors public lectures to provide an understanding of all the dimensions of key issues like hunger, poverty, population and environment, and sustainable food security. Some recent lectures include: |
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| The concept of the information village emerged from the discussions in the 1992 Annual Dialogue. The role of modern information and communication technology was envisaged where input of knowledge makes a positive difference in advancing rural livelihood security. In collaboration with IDRC, MSSRF has initiated a pilot project in villages in the Union Territory of Pondicherry to test whether Information Technology can become an ally in poverty alleviation and whether it can be used as a tool in empowering the rural poor. Seven Village Knowledge Centres have been set up, each with a computer, a modem, and a wireless system. They are backed by solar power. |
| Tamil is used for all information exchange. The database services provided by these centres are: gathering and transmission of information such as commodity prices, weather, government announcements, daily news; generation of data like surveys, library references, discussions, issue of bulletins; creation/maintenance of locality-specific databases on local hospitals/doctors, training programmes, high school/college course guidance, government welfare programmes/entitlements, transport, local experts in agriculture and fisheries, key government organograms/contacts, official list o£ families below poverty line, and soil agronomy/weather/cropping patterns. |
| MSSRF has established linkages with industries, adopting the triple helix model of partnership involving business and industry, resource-poor farm women and men, and scientists. The Hindustan Lever Research Foundation supported the undertaking of a project on bioconservation and utilisation of minor millets. The Indo-American Hybrid Seed Company provided seed material for establishment of Seed Villages. FICCI, the Indian Overseas Bank, and the Southern Petrochemicals Industrial Corporation (SPIC) sponsored projects for water harvesting and the establishment of Pulses Villages in the dry farming areas. Trusts attached to the Bajaj family gave a grant to establish the Ramkrishna Bajaj Fellowship for industry-community partnership for the sustainable end of hunger and for promoting symbiotic partnerships between private and public sector industry and resource-poor tribal and rural families in the areas of increased food production and improved access to food. |
| The Foundation was requested by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, to prepare a project support document entitled A Conceptual Framework for Promoting Benefit Sharing of Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources. On behalf of FAO, a paper on The Impact Evaluation of FAO Support to the Development of Higher Education and Agricultural Research in India was put together. On behalf of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India, the Foundation prepared the first national report to the Convention on Biological Diversity for consideration by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Council. GEF also approved a project for preparing a proposal for conserving India's Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve. With the support of the state's Forest and Fisheries Departments, this proposal has now reached the point of implementation. |
| IDRC, Canada, supported a project on Field Verification, Demonstration, and Training in the Use of Medicinal Plants in the state of Kerala. This project is being implemented at MSSRF's Community Agrobiodiversity Centre set up at Kalpetta in the Wayanad district of Kerala in land made available by the family of Professor M. S. Swaminathan. IDRC also sanctioned support for a programme to study the impact of information technology in rural areas. |
| The Bernard Van Leer Foundation, Netherlands, continues to support a project on development of communication and resource materials, and capacity building related to child care and development. Media strategies for advocacy among policy makers and awareness generation among the public are the highlights of this programme. |
| The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation has;- provided for the development of a database of On-farm Genetic Resources Conservation by Rural and Tribal Families in the rice tracts of Jeypore in the state of Orissa. |
| A project on Strengthening Rural Livelihoods through Agro-industries with Specific Reference to Tribal and Rural Women has been jointly undertaken with the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore. This project is fully supported by the Foodlinks Initiative of IDRC. |
| The Coastal Systems Research Programme was further extended during the year through a joint research project with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, financially supported by the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. Under this very important scheme, nuclear and biotechnological tools are being applied to improving the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of coastal agriculture and aquaculture and in the establishment of pulses and groundnut villages. The Department of Atomic Energy also established the Homi Bhabha Chair on Nuclear Science and Rural Society at the Foundation. Professor P. C. Kesavan is the first holder of this Chair. |
| The SDC-supported project on the conservation, enhancement, and equitable use of biodiversity is in progress in the states of Tamil Nadu (Kolli Hills), Kerala (Wayanad), and Orissa (Jeypore). This has helped the Foundation to intensify its research in the areas of conservation, sustainable use, and equitable sharing of benefits, which are the three cardinal principles of the global Convention on Biological Diversity. |
| The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India sponsored the ongoing programme on Bioprospecting. Genetic Enhancement and Biomonitoring has made significant progress during the last few years. This project has a mandate of identifying novel genetic combinations from the mangrove species and providing new pre-breeding genetic material to grassroot level breeders for developing location specific crop varieties capable of offering tolerance/resistance to coastal salinity. |
| Among the several conferences, workshops, and meetings organised by the Foundation, the Annual Inter-disciplinary Dialogue in 1998 was on Malttus and Mendel: Population, Science, and Sustainable Food Security. The 1999 Dialogue had as its theme Climate, Biotechnology, Food and Water Security. An international training course, sponsored by ITTO, Japan, on Timber Trade Statistics for Professional Foresters was attended by 45 participants from 16 countries. |
| During the 86th session of the Indian Science Congress held at Chennai, MSSRF organised a National Consultation on Genetically Modified Plants: Implications for Environment and Food Security and Human Nutrition. Nobel Laureate Professor James D. Watson inaugurated this consultation. The Foundation was also the host for the Asia-Pacific Regional Workshop on Biosafety organised in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Cornell University in 1997. This workshop was attended by 81 participants from 16 countries. |
| The Foundation works with the rural and tribal poor at the grassroot level and with policy makers at the state and national levels. The Foundation believes that synergy between technology, ,public policy, and social action can alone help to achieve the goal of environmentally and socially sustainable job-led economic growth. MSSRF has hence played an active role in developing draft legislation for Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights, and Biodiversity Conservation. |
| Early in 2000, Shri Digvijay Singh, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh launched at MSSRF a National Network on Biovillages and Community Banking. This Network brings together MSSRF, the Dhan Foundation, Madurai, the Bharatiya Agro-Industries Foundation, Pune, and the Society for the Promotion of Wasteland Development, Delhi, to combine their complementary strengths in the fields of natural resources management and poverty eradication. Also, a Centre for Precision Farming for Poverty Eradication was established at Kannivadi in Tamil Nadu with financial support from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. This Precision Farming Centre has the benefit of collaboration with the Arava R & D Centre in Israel. In July 2000, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust approved an interdisciplinary project to be undertaken jointly with the Ohio State University, USA, for developing sustainable land, water, and crop management systems for red (alfisols), black (vertisols), and alluvial soils. In August 2000, MSSRF received the Motorola Dispatch Solutions Gold Award for outstanding and innovative contributions in the use of two-way radio communications in rural areas. |
| The final objective of all the above programmes and partnerships is to promote an ever-green revolution in agriculture and to create more income and livelihood opportunities for rural families in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. |