An Indo-Swiss centre devoted to basic and applied research on sustainable land use and management of bio-resources is proposed at the Pondicherry University.
The proposed International Centre for Land Use and Bio-resources (ICLUB) envisages a multidisciplinary role as a nodal centre to undertake research that is relevant in a nation where gaps in food security persist in spite of agriculture being the livelihood for two-thirds of the population most of whom are small are marginal farmers.
The proposed centre would work in close collaboration with Puducherry Government, especially the departments of Agriculture and Fisheries to reach out to the farming society of Puducherry.
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According to University officials, two premier Swiss institutions, the University of Basel and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, have agreed to collaborate and ink MoU to set up a state-of-the-art research centre.
“The MoU formulation is in process and is due to be signed soon,” said Prof. N. Sakthivel who heads the Department of Biotechnology.
The broad focus of the centre would be to develop innovative sustainable and organic solutions in agriculture, he said.
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The idea for an Indo-Swiss research centre was mooted during discussions Prof. Chandra Krishnamurthy, Vice-Chancellor, Pondicherry University, had with Swiss collaborators during a recent visit to Switzerland.
The proposal was formalised at a recent stakeholder consultation hosted by the Pondicherry University under the Indo-Swiss Collaboration in Biotechnology (ISCB) with a focus on ‘bio-fertilization’ and ‘bio-irrigation’ for sustainable mixed cropping of pigeon pea and finger millet.
The ISCB is a long-standing and well-established research and development programme, jointly funded and steered by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of Switzerland.
The overall goal of ISCB is to contribute towards food security in the Indian context through innovative life sciences and biotechnology approaches, supporting sustainable and climate resilient agriculture.
The BIOFI network comprises five Swiss institutions and six Indian institutions, including Pondicherry University.
The network has been advocating a combination of bio-fertilization and bio-irrigation as a novel biotechnological approach with a particularly high promise for stable, sustainable yield increases, even under conditions of drought. The goal of the BIOFI network is to deliver a ‘package’ of carefully selected plant cultivars and biofertilizer strains, together with the know-how of mixed cropping.