This Annual Report comes to you at a historic moment: a global pandemic has affected the lives and livelihoods of millions, with the greatest burden falling on the poorest households. Over the past few months, the staff at MSSRF have stepped up to the challenge, engaging in immediate relief and health education, analysing the impact of the lockdown due to the pandemic on the rural economy and proposing solutions to revive rural livelihoods in the varied sites where we work.I turn to some of the highlights of the past year. The Coastal Systems Research programme area, the first one to be started at MSSRF, got a boost with new premises for a village resource centre in Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, with the generous support of Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan. The completion of 10 years of the Fish for All Research and Training Centre at Poompuhar was celebrated with an award for the Fisher Friend Mobile Application – the Mini Innovation Challenge Award from Global Resilience Partnership, Kenya. Mr R. B. Udhayakumar, Minister for Revenue and Disaster Management and Information Technology, and Mr R. Doraikannu, Minister for Agriculture, Government of Tamil Nadu, released the PANNAI (Pest disease Advance Notification and Need-based Agriculture Information) app., developed to provide GIS-based forewarning for pest management in agricultural crops, and a dedicated GeoAgri portal.
The PANNAI app. has already connected 10000 farmers with agricultural scientists. The Biodiversity programme area continued to expand. Ten new seed villages were established in Wayanad, Kerala, to promote on-farm conservation of traditional aromatic paddy varieties. The M.S. Swaminathan Botanical Garden (MSSBG) launched a project to promote ex-situ conservation of the genus Humboldtia (with only nine taxa globally and all from the Western Ghats) in partnership with the Botanic Gardens Conservation International. Botanists at MSSBG described a new species of Sonerila (named Sonerila sulpheyi); with this, the number of new species described by colleagues now stands at 20. In the dryland and tribal areas of Kolli Hills, a multiyear NABARD-funded multi-storey mixed farm project was initiated among 500 marginal and small-farm families. The objective is to enhance incomes, improve supply of nutritious foods locally and ensure environmental sustainability. For the first time, the turnover of the Kolli Hills Agri-Bioresource Producer Company Ltd. FPO, crossed Rs 1 crore. In Koraput, Odisha, three new farmer producer companies were established: two for quality seed production and one for increased millet production. Over 3000 plants belonging to 27 species were propagated at the Biju Patnaik Tribal Agro-biodiversity Conservation Garden at MSSRF’s regional centre in Jeypore. Studying salinity tolerance in crops continued to be the major focus of the Biotechnology programme: salinity tolerance of 43 rice landraces, including Kagga paddy grown in estuaries of Karnataka, were evaluated at the seedling stage, and they demonstrated high correlation with Na+/K+ ratio. The Ecotechnology programme continued its efforts to transform livelihoods, working with over 13000 women and men farmers in three different agroecosystems. Of high relevance to the situation today, the programme has expanded e-agricultural extension services to over 60000 farmers using a diverse set of information and communication technology (ICT) tools.
The six-year research programme on Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA), the first partnership to be led by an institution outside the UKI, ended in 2019 with an A+ rating from UKAid. The feasibility of a Farming System for Nutrition approach tested under LANSA is now being demonstrated in collaboration with Krishi Vigyan Kendras in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
The climate change programme was reactivated in early 2020, with the addition of a Senior Fellow, member of the government of India’s delegation to the 52nd Plenary session of the IPCC in Paris, and a group of young scientists. The first project taken up by this group is ‘Equity and CBDR&RC in the Context of 2 Deg Global Warming – Implications for India,’for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The issue is being studied with reference to climate change and agriculture, specifically through yield gaps in agricultural production.
MSSRF has instituted this year, the Mina – M.S. Swaminathan Doctoral Fellowship that will fund one doctoral student to work at MSSRF on issues of sustainable agricultural development. I am happy to announce that Mr. Manjeet Patel from Madhya Pradesh has been selected as the first Mina – M.S. Swaminathan Doctoral Fellow.His research will focus on effects of climate change on the livestock sector.
MSSRF continued to convene interdisciplinary events during the year, starting with the MSSRF@30 International Conference in August 2019, focused on achieving Sustainable Development Goals and strengthening Science for Climate Resilience. Nature, the international journal of science, turned 150 last year, and MSSRF, in collaboration with the Nature Research Group, marked this occasion with an event in Chennai featuring six short, agenda-setting talks by leading Indian scientists from different disciplines. MSSRF instituted the Dr C. Gopalan Memorial Lecture to honour the pioneering nutrition scientist, and the first lecture was delivered by Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO, on ‘The New Nutrition Reality’. The government of Tamil Nadu has renewed the lease of land where the MSSRF headquarters is situated in Taramani, Chennai, for another 30 years. We are very grateful to them and commit ourselves to working towards the goal of a hunger-free India through sustainable agriculture.
Going forward, I welcome our new Executive Director, K. S. Murali, who takes charge in July 2020.
I thank all our staff and scholars for their hard work and commitment. I am very grateful to our Trustees for their advice and to our many well-wishers and donors for their continued support.
G. N. Hariharan, R. V. Bhavani, V. R. Prabavathy, R. Rengalakshmi and B. Jayashree coordinated the preparation of this annual report. Suni Ann Sebastian edited the content, and the printing was done by AMM Prints, Chennai. We are bringing out a web version of the Annual Report for the first time. The design has been done by R. Srinivasan and K. Dileep. I record my appreciation to all of them.