For five years, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) and its Centre for Research on Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development (CRSARD) have been conducting research and training programmes in integrating environmental and equity dimensions in rural and agricultural development
programmes. During these years, the emphasis has been on the promotion of a job-led economic growth strategy in villages, rooted in the principles of ecology and gender equity. The increasing paucity of jobs in the organised sector stresses the need to look at employment in rural areas, not in the traditional manner of creating jobs, but more in terms of generating multiple livelihood opportunities.
This approach, tested in the biovillage project in Pondicherry, has shown that the livelihood and nutrition security of resource poor families can be strengthened through new skills and income-earning opportunities. In view of the increasing feminisation of poverty, priority was given to skill and information empowerment
of women belonging to landless labour households.
