Fourteenth Annual Report 2003-2004
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Fourteenth Annual Report 2003-2004 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation Centre for Research on Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development Chennai, India M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation Centre for Research on Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development Third Cross Road, Institutional Area Taramani, Chennai 600 113 India Telephone : +91 (44) 22541229 +91 (44) 22541698 Fax : +91 (44) 22541319 Email : [email protected]; [email protected] Visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.mssrf.org Cover Design : The Frontline, Chennai Printed at : AMM Screens Citation : Fourteenth Annual Report: 2003-2004 M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113 Contents Chairman’s Introduction ................................................................. 004 Programme Area 100 Coastal Systems Research ............................................................. 013 Programme Area 200 Biodiversity and Biotechnology ..................................................... 034 Programme Area 300 Ecotechnology ................................................................................. 069 Programme Area 400 Reaching the Unreached ................................................................. 092 Programme Area 500 Education, Communication, Training and Capacity Building ........ 109 Programme Area 600 Special Projects .............................................................................. 129 Publications..................................................................................... 132 About the Foundation ..................................................................... 145 The Foundation Staff ...................................................................... 149 List of Donors ................................................................................. 159 Sources of Project Support ............................................................ 161 List of Acronyms ............................................................................. 164 ANNUAL REPORT 2003-2004 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Chairman’s Introduction The work done under the six major Programme made the following observations in his Areas of MSSRF during the period 1st July Presidential Address to the Academy in 2003 to 30th June 2004 is summarised in this Washington on 19th April, 2004: Report. At the outset, I wish to record our gratitude to the State Government of Tamil “The State Bank of India is now intimately Nadu and the Government of India, as well as involved as a partner with the M S Swaminathan to the various organizations and bilateral and Research Foundation in each of the village multilateral donors listed at the end of the projects that we helped to inaugurate. Some report, for their generous encouragement and of the projects were dairies, as before, but other financial support. I also wish to record our groups of villagers had set up small production indebtedness to all who have contributed to plants for biocontrol agents. the corpus fund of MSSRF. The interest from In one example, a group of villagers had the corpus fund and from the various special established a factory to produce the small endowments helps us to ensure the continuity parasitic wasp, Trichogramma, which deposits of our core programmes. The corpus fund also its eggs on those of larger insects and destroys helps to build and retain a team of dedicated and distinguished core staff. With interest them. Some of their product is being used in rates declining, the need for an adequate their own village to replace pesticides and endowment fund cannot be over-emphasized. increase plant yields – thus bringing both health This is why we are particularly grateful to all and economic benefits. The remaining product who have contributed to the corpus and is being sold in the market to generate income. endowments. And the women involved had begun to train new groups in neighbouring villages. Here was Thanks are also due to Dr Geeta Mehta and a perfect example of the type of science- the Friends of MSSRF, Tokyo, for their invaluable based franchise for sustainable development contributions to MSSRF’s Sustainable Self-Help that I had been seeking. Group (SSHG) Movement. SSHGs depend upon 4 essential components for their Is this public service activity, subsidized by economic and social sustainability. These are: the government? To my surprise, I learned that technology, credit, management and market. the answer is no. These cooperatively held loans Unless the micro enterprises supported by are being made to so-called “Self-help Groups” micro credit are market driven, they will each composed of 10 to 20 villagers who had collapse. After studying the MSSRF learned to work together. They are among the methodology in this area, Dr Bruce Alberts, bank’s best-performing customers, with 95 President, US National Academy of Sciences, percent of repayments being made on time. 4 CHAIRMANíS INTRODUCTION ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ The bottom-up development generated by loans activities relating to the creation of opportunities to cooperative groups of the rural poor is a major for remunerative self-employment. movement encouraged by the Indian The United Nations has declared 2004 as the government. It is being stimulated, guided, and International Year of Rice (IYR) since “rice is monitored by India’s National Bank for life” to over two billion members of the human Agriculture and Rural Development, which family. The IYR activities of MSSRF include provides guidance on the establishment and the organisation of grassroot awareness evaluation of Self-Help Groups as well as many generation programmes relating to medicinal other informative details.” and aromatic rices in Orissa and Kerala, The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the other Tata discussions on the gender dimension of rice Trusts have helped MSSRF to establish the J farming systems and the role of molecular R D Tata Ecotechnology Centre which is now breeding in shaping the future of rice. Both the spearheading the SSHG revolution. 2004 is Eastern Ghats region and the NE region are the birth centenary year of the late Bharat Ratna being given particular attention in programmes J R D Tata. MSSRF is commemorating the life designed to stimulate community conservation and message of this great Indian by organising and womens’ technological empowerment. two interdisciplinary dialogues – one dealing with Since its inception in 1989, a major activity of sustaining and strengthening the SHG MSSRF has been in the area of restoring movement and the other, with the pre-requisites degraded mangrove wetlands along the east essential for fostering a happy India. The latter coast of India and in promoting participatory dialogue is designed to give shape to J R D mangrove forest management, involving local Tata’s wish that India should be a happy country communities and personnel of the Forest even if it does not become a super-power. Departments. Much of this work came to an The importance of a New Deal for the Self- end in 2004, following the completion of the employed through facilitating a SSHG revolution work in Tamil Nadu (TN), Andhra Pradesh (AP), will be evident from the findings reported in the Orissa and West Bengal under a project MSSRF – WFP Atlases on food insecurity in financially supported by the India Canada rural and urban India. The analysis reveals that Environment Facility (ICEF). The ICEF- the main cause of endemic hunger in India supported programme resulted in the restoration today is lack of adequate purchasing power for of over 1485 ha of degraded mangrove balanced diets among the poor. This again wetlands in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and arises from inadequate opportunities for gainful Orissa since 1996. In addition, it helped to foster employment or sustainable livelihoods. With a sustainable livelihood occupations to mangrove population exceeding a billion, a majority of forest dependant communities. Above all, it whom are young, over-riding priority must be helped to spread an understanding of the given to research, training and capacity building importance of healthy mangrove forests to the 5 ANNUAL REPORT 2003-2004 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ecological and livelihood security of coastal rice strains tolerant to 150 mM of Nacl will be communities. Detailed documentation of the multiplied. When the material reaches the stage work done, including three Atlases of the of large scale trials in farmers’ fields, based on mangrove forests of TN, AP and Orissa, resulted approval by the Genetic Engineering Approval from this project. We are grateful to H E (Ms) Committee (GEAC) of the Ministry of Lucie Edwards, High Commissioner of Canada Environment, participatory breeding with farm to India for releasing the three Atlases as well families will be undertaken in order to develop as an integrated Atlas, and to Shri Ujjwal several rice strains combining adaptation to Choudhary, Project Director, ICEF and Dr Jaya local growing conditions and consumer Chatterji, Senior Project Officer, for their preferences with tolerance to salinity. This will interest, advice and support throughout the probably be the first case of an integrated duration of this 7 year project. molecular pre-breeding and farmer-participatory breeding methodology in the world. This will MSSRF’s work on the isolation and use of not only help to de-mystify GM technologies, genetic factors from mangrove species in the but will also help to combine genetic