pro-poor, pro-nature & pro-women.
| Gaining in Strength : 1994 to 1997 |
| The highlight of this period of growth in MSSRF's history was its being awarded the 1996 Blue Planet Prize. On 5 June 1996, World Environment Day, the Foundation's staff members received the news with great pride and joy. This prize was instituted by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan on the occasion of the UN Conference on Environment - and Development held at Rio in June 1992. It was a recognition of the efforts by MSSRF to promote sustainable livelihoods in rural areas and conservation of natural resources. MSSRF is the first and only institution in Asia chosen so far for this prize. |
| Research projects continued to be undertaken. Memoranda for short and long term projects were signed with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), Wasteland Development Board of the Government of India, Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the Hunger Project. International backing came from SIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Darwin-Initiative (U.K.), FAO-Rome, UNDP, and the Norway International Developmental Agency (NORAD), among others. |
| Funding was received from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of U.S.A. for the preparation of training modules for enabling grassroot-level democratic institutions to prepare socio-demographic charters. The same Foundation also gave a grant for a period of three years to promote conservation and commercialisation in tribal areas in a mutually reinforcing manner. |
| Under the World Bank-assisted Tamil Nadu Agriculture Development Project (TNADP), a grant was received° for the development of multi-media data bases on Intensive Integrated Farming Systems in the five major agro-ecological zones of Tamil Nadu. IDRC, Canada, approved a grant for assisting MSSRF's Mangrove Ecosystem Information Service to strengthen its capacity to support the work of the Indian Sustainable Development Network as well to enable participation as an important node of the Network. A Coastal Wetland-Mangrove Ecosystem Project was financed by the IndiaCanada Environmental Facility (ICEF) to standardise technologies and management practices in coastal wetland areas. This is the largest project of its kind in India, covering the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, and West Bengal. |
| Some of the other interesting outcomes: |
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| The Foundation was host to the Science Academies' Summit on Uncommon Opportunities for a Food Secure World. It also organised the Workshop on Science & Technology for Asia/Pacific Women Scientists for Sustainable Development. The concept of an All Women Biotechnology Park was the result of this meet. Two other important consultations that took place under the aegis of MSSRF were: |
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| The International Dialogue on Methodologies for Recognising and Rewarding Informal Innovation in the Conservation and Utilisation of Plant Genetic Resources was held in 1994. Attended by 54 experts from 12 countries, this resulted in the formulation of draft legislation for adoption by governments. This draft act was the first to convert the universally agreed concepts of breeders' and farmers' rights into an administratively implementable legal document. It evoked widespread interest in the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, as well as international organisations connected with this issue like FAO and the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Crop Plants (UPOV). |
| The 1995 Dialogue wad on a New Deal for the Self-employed: Role of Credit, Technology and Public Policy. The Dialogue received wide support from agencies at home and abroad since it proposed a methodology for linking the formal credit system with community banking systems operated by rural se-if-help groups. Economically and ecologically sustainable micro-enterprises are linked to low transaction-cost microcredit systems. |
| In 1996, under the Dialogue series, the Foundation hosted the Asian Regional Workshop on Ecotechnology and Shaping the Future. This laid the framework for the Asian Ecotechnology Network, a regional component of the Ecotechnie Programme of UNESCO and Equipe Cousteau. The participants worked together to foiimulate a plan of action for the Network's mission of catalysing the development and dissemination of ecotechnologies regionally. The conference also marked the inauguration of an UNESCO-Cousteau Chair at MSSRF with the announcement by Professor Federico Mayor, DirectorGeneral of UNESCO, that the first holder of the chair in Asia will be Professor M. S. Swaminathan. |
| In 1997, the Dialogue was an international meet on Building Partnerships for Sustainable Food and Livelihood Security. The participants came from a variety of organisations and backgrounds, reflecting the belief of the Foundation that they should result in a broadbased coalition. This year saw the start of public forums organised to help the public and the student community share their views with some of the distinguished thinkers who attend the Dialogues. |
| Phase I of the Biovillage Programme started by the Foundation earlier in three villages of the Union Territory of Pondicherry with the support of the Hunger Projects of Japan and Sweden and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Rome, was successfully completed. Phase II of the project covering 19 villages received support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) till the end of the decade. An Integrated Intensive Farming Systems (IIFS) study was initiated with support from FAO. Detailed case studies were undertaken to highlight prevalent farm practices in the country and on the possibilities of their wider adoption in future. Six other Asian countries were selected and the studies culminated in a workshop at the Foundation in February 1995. |
| Within MSSRF, the J. R. D. Tata Ecotechnology Centre was established to research, develop, and diffuse environmentally sound technologies including horticulture, ecoaquaculture, integrated farming systems as well as seed and pulse villages. The ICAR funded, under a National Professor, an Integrated Pest Management Centre to develop and promote the use of low-cost integrated pest management systems in cotton, groundnut, soyabean, and rice. A resource centre for agri-business and entrepreneurship was established with an endowment given by the, Venkateshwara Hatcheries Group in the name of the late Dr. BY. Rao, the prime mover of India's poultry industry. The major aim of this centre is to foster sustainable food security in areas characterised by chronic under- and malnutrition. The Venkateshwara Group also funded the Uttara Devi Resource Centre on Gender and Development for working on gender issues in development and mainstreaming gender in all the activities of the Foundation. With the help of an endowment grant made by MAHYCO (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Co. Ltd), a chair was established in the name of B. R. Barwale, a doyen of the seed industry in India who is also a World Food Prize Laureate. |