Statement of Purpose

The Community Agro-biodiversity Centre (CAbC) was established by MSSRF in 1997 to cater the livelihood and food security needs in a gender oriented manner of the poor families of Wayanad district of Kerala through sustainable management of bio resources.

Mission

By adopting economically viable, ecologically sensitive and socially inclusive approaches in research and development, the Community Agro-biodiversity Centre to work for achieving sustainable livelihoods and food security of local communities by ensuring gender equality and equity in the hill area habitations of Malabar Eco-region of Western Ghats, India Programme

Vision

Prof. M.S. Swaminatha, the founder of the CAbC, evinced that the Centre was “born to serve as a temple of knowledge” in the area of conservation, and the sustainable and equitable use of biodiversity, specifically agro-biodiversity. CAbC was responsible for delivering a major portion of MSSRF’s Community Biodiversity proramme, and has chosen Wayanad district, in Kerala, in the Western Ghats- a global biodiversity hotspot as the area of operation.

Type of Work and Service

Social profit making by way of undertaking sustainable science and technology oriented interventions in three Key Areas of Action (i) Conservation; (ii) Education, Communication & Training, and (iii) Sustainable Livelihoods and Food Security.

Years of Experience: 12 years; (CAbC opened its office in a rented building in Puthurvayal village on October 2, 1996, the Gandhi Jayanthi Day and launched its first project on the New Year Day of the following year)

Principal Service line

1. Participatory Demonstrations of sustainable livelihood, food security and conservation methods
2. Field Research in the area of Ethno botany; Ecology; Conservation; and Angiosperm Taxonomy of high priority plant species
3. Policy Advocacy in the area of sustainable natural/bio- resource management and biodiversity conservation
4. Capacity building programmes in sustainable agriculture with a focus on local community development.

Targeted resources include,

1. Biological resources like plant diversity of socio-economic, ecologic and cultural value, which are available in-situ and on-farm
2. Natural resources like soil, water, and habitations such as mountains, forests and wetlands and
3. Traditional Knowledge of tribal and rural communities pertains to the above two areas.

Service Model- The Framework

We believe our success rate in the interventions we have engaged in the last 12 years is comparatively high. This, we believe because of the service model -a Combination of 4 Cs in the PGR management expertised by us, which being proved as an emerging model for achieving many of the objectives in the sphere of community agro-biodiversity management (see Fig.1). The 4C comprises of (1) Conservation, which includes enhancement and sustainable use of biodiversity and comprises in situ, on-farm and ex situ conservation involving seed bank, cryogenic community gene bank, in vitro cultures in the case of vegetatively propagated species; (2) Cultivation that promotes low external input, sustainable agriculture based on principles of organic farming; (3) Consumption that covers food security and nutrition, revitalization of traditional food habits including the use of underutilized crops and tubers, survey of prevailing macro and micro nutritional deficiencies; and (4) Commerce that creates an economic stake in conservation for concurrently addressing the cause of conservation and livelihood security through self-help groups. Since the 4 Cs are closely linked, progress in one ‘C’ is possible only with progress in other three C’s. Using this 4C framework, it found easy to develop location specific strategies and targets in biodiversity management and community development.