M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation

An additional area of 746 ha of mangrove was brought under management by forming seven Mangrove Management Units (MMUs) covering 10 villages in Orissa. A total area of 240 ha of degraded mangroves has been restored. A series of 7 manuals under the common title Joint Mangrove Management in Tamil Nadu: Process, Experience and Prospects has been prepared. The GIS unit prepared Atlases of the Mangrove Wetlands of AP and Orissa. The DAE has sanctioned the next phase of the programme on nuclear and biotechnological tools for CSR, for consolidating the gains already made in the project. The project on promoting alternative livelihood options in the Gulf of Mannar region was evaluated by the funders.

India is ranked as one of the 12 mega-diversity-rich countries of the world. The escalating rate of erosion of biodiversity in India is a cause for grave concern. Erosion of biodiversity not only represents an irretrievable loss for humanity but also deprives millions of rural people, notably tribals, of their livelihoods. The challenge lies in evolving ways and means in reconciling the needs of the rural poor, with the necessity of conserving and enhancing the natural resource base. The M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation has been working in the area of agro-biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits with the overall goal of improving livelihoods of the rural poor through sustainable natural resource management.

In the domain of in-situ conservation, on-farm conservation by rural and tribal women and men has remained largely unrecognised and unrewarded. These communities continue to possess the traditional knowledge to cultivate, use and preserve a large number of land races and folk varieties of crop plants and animal breeds. These practices, which are of great value to sustainable food and nutrition security, have so far been sustained without any benefit or reward accruing to the community.

Biodiversity projects are implemented in three agro-biodiversity hotspots - the Jeypore Tract in Orissa, known as a secondary centre of origin of rice, the Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu, known for its diversity of millets and the Wayanad District in Kerala and located in the Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot.

A Manual on Farmers’¡Ç Rights has been prepared for use as training material. MSSRF and the Indian Farmers’¡Ç Movement (INFAM) issued a joint declaration to transform Wayanad into an ’¡ÈOrganic district’¡É by 2007. The Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) of the DBT, Government of India, accorded permission for controlled field trials of the transgenic rice containing genes for salinity tolerance from Avecennia marina. The novel salt tolerant nitrogen-fixing and phosphate solubilising bacteria strain isolated from wild rice, Swaminathania salitolerans (gen. nov., sp. nov) is being field-tested at Chidambaram. Women SHGs in Karaikal region were trained to maintain a micro, vegetative and seed propagated bioenergy nursery of 70,000 plants, to be taken up for plantation in the coming year.

MSSRF and SBI are jointly facilitating a credit linked biovillage programme in Kodathur village, Pondicherry. An agriculture training centre has been set up at Manikollai village, Chidambaram by the farmers’¡Ç association. The SRI method of cultivation has been mainstreamed in the extension programme of the State Agriculture Department, Pondicherry. The annual turnover of Kulumai federation of SHGs in Kannivadi was Rs148.7 lakhs. 19,752 trainee days were organised by them benefiting 661 individuals. The ICT-enabled functional literacy model developed by VKCs in Kannivadi has been accepted as viable and cost-effective by the State Resource Centres working on nonformal education. A SHG of landless women agricultural labourers in Kannivadi region was given training and facilitated to take up production of Pseudomonas flourscens, a biopesticide, as an enterprise activity.