A workshop on “Circular Economy” was jointly organised by BAIF and Environmental Management Centre, Pune on March 13, 2021. This concept aims at redefining growth while focussing on positive benefits to the society. It rests on the belief that this sort of an economy will reform the management of resources and residues in the interest of economy, livelihoods and the environment.
International Women’s Day was celebrated with active participation of women at Angul in Odisha with focus on empowerment of women and enterprenuership to enable them to improve their economic status and to enhance the scope of their involvement in various micro enterprises.
International Women’s Day has become a special day in the lives of women for more than 3 decades. On this day, women revel in their strength which is the strength of the community and the society at large. This day is celebrated all over the world with enthusiasm and hope. BAIF too has been celebrating this day with various events across all its locations in 12 states.
In view of the forced change in lifestyle of everyone over the last one year, this year’s International Women’s Day was virtually celebrated with a special talk on this important topic. A special talk on “Promoting well-being of women and family during and post Covid-19 pandemic” by Dr. Sukhada Chimote Consultant Psychiatrist and Centre Head, Institute for Psychological Health, Pune was arranged on March 10, 2021 which enlisted a very encouraging response from BAIF staff from across 12 states. The talk concluded with an interactive question and answer session related to the overall well-being of women and their families.
On this occasion, 22 women farmers from 4 clusters of 14 villages in Yavatmal and Amravati districts of Maharashtra were also felicitated for promoting kitchen gardens with organically grown vegetables for nutritional security as well as an additional source of income. These women have truly demonstrated women power as an international power!
This important event was also celebrated in other BAIF locations. In Madhya Pradesh with women champion farmers from Satna, Betul, Mandla, Jhabua, Dindori; in Rajasthan by organising a farmers’ fair with farmers participating from 12 villages; in Jharkhand in Khunti, Dhanbad and Giridih and farmers’ fair at Maithon, Dhanbad; in Odisha in all cattle development clusters and Jal Samrudhhi project apart from celebration of 75 years of Indian independence) by all the clusters; in Karnataka in Rangainkoppalu village, Hunsur, Mysuru district and in Andhra Pradesh in Katamvaripalli, Prakasam district.
March 2, 2021
Under the Integrated Livestock Development Programme being implemented at Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh, use of mangers is being promoted for better utilization of cattle feed and fodder and to ensure hygiene and cleanliness in the cattle shed. 12 participants were provided cattle mangers under the project.
January 12, 2021
Under the Integrated Sustainable Livelihood being implemented in Satna district in Madhya Pradesh, with the support of Birla Corporation Ltd. a one-day training programme on Biogas Model was organised at Naina village.
December 25, 2020
A calf rally was organized at Naguli village under Naguli Cattle Development Centre in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh under the ITC-supported Mission Sunehra Kal Programme.
December 2-3, 2020
Proposed activities under the Samriddhi Project being implemented in 22 peripheral villages of the Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd. plant at Beena in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh were launched.
“Mantra (ways, means and solutions), Tantra (technology), Disha (direction) and Gati (speed) are the wheels of planned development apart from participatory and community-led planning and implementation”, stated Mr. Girish G. Sohani, President and Managing Trustee, BAIF Development Research Foundation. “Adoption of these elements for ecosystem and economic well-being, thrust on decentralised employment and enterprise development and considering the village as the unit of development, can further strengthen the rural economy”, Mr. Sohani added.
Mr. Sohani was speaking at the virtual forum of the 2nd Rashtriya Sarpanch Sansad (National Village Heads’ Parliament) organised by the MIT Institute of Governance, Pune, on December 2, 2020. He further emphasised the role of every Sarpanch in consolidating the Seven Pillars of Development namely, Youth Power, Resilience, Sustainability, Green Economy, Enterprise Promotion along with Goal setting and clearly defined Milestones. There is a need to catalyse the process of development, so as to tackle climate change effects, ensure optimum use of renewable resources and promotion of new age enterprises based on renewable energy, ICT, and appropriate technologies such as polyhouses and small holder farm mechanisation. “Development should focus on new age ‘green enterprises’ in rural areas and creation of jobs around such enterprises for rural youth who may be reluctant to engage only in farming”, he further added.
He also highlighted the important role of Sarpanch/Village Heads during these challenging times of COVID and Climate Change-related disruptions and shared the Best Practices demonstrated by BAIF in the form of a cadre of over 5000 self-employed youth and community functionaries such as e-Dosts, rural technicians and service providers. He also assured handholding support from BAIF while planning for village development.
He announced the launch of Samruddha Gram Abhiyan, an ambitious participatory programme with the active involvement of local youth as the vehicle for grassroots development and invited the Sarpanch and Village level catalysts from various villages across the country, to register for this novel programme at https://manibhaiunnatgram.baif.org.in/ “This programme will be based on the learnings of BAIF’s rural livelihood programme and various successful development projects implemented by BAIF and will be implemented through Gram Panchayats, Farmer Producer Organisations and Watershed Development Committees to showcase various interventions which can be introduced with BAIF support at the village level”, he concluded.
BAIF and Sakal Media Group jointly organized an online training programme on “Ethno Veterinary Practices for treatment of Mastitis in milking cows” on December 2, 2020. Dr. A.B. Pande, Group Vice President, Scientific Research and Livestock Development Programmes, highlighted the significance of Ethno Veterinary Medicine for improvement of milk quality while emphasising on the residue free milk – antibiotics and chemical residues. Mr. S.D. Nimbalkar, BAIF, delivered a talk on the use of Ethno Veterinary Practice as an alternate system of medicine for control of Mastitis and shared the BAIF experience in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Dr. Amul Wagh, BAIF Institute for Sustainable Development, Gujarat, briefed about the symptoms, cause and precautions for control of mastitis in cows and the encouraging mastitis cure by use of Ethno Veterinary Medicine at farmers level in Gujarat. 28 participants comprising of veterinarians, youth and farmers attended this programme.
BAIF in partnership with the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog, Government of India, organized an online webinar on “Ethno Veterinary Practices” on October 28, 2020 which was chaired by Dr. Vallabhbhai Kathiria, Chairman, Rashtriya Kamdheny Aayog. The webinar focused on importance of Ethno Veterinary Medicine in Goshala and among livestock keepers in rural India. A talk on “Use of Ethno Veterinary Practice for Mastitis in cows – BAIF experience” was delivered by Mr. Sadashiv D Nimbalkar, BAIF. The other speakers included Prof. Punnaimurthi, TANUVAS, Tamil Nadu, Dr. Balaram Sahu, Odisha and Dr. Bankim Patel, MD. Homoeopath, Bubaneshwar More than 250 participants comprising of Government Officials from Veterinary Department, Veterinary Collages, NGOs and farmers attended the online meeting.
The BAIF family celebrated their 53rd Foundation Day on August 24, 2020 virtually. In a way, the virtual celebration was very memorable for over 200 BAIF field officers from 12 states who came together to make it a special celebration.
“With women having taken the drivers’ seat, the field programmes are in an expansion mode’ stated Mr. Bharat Kakade, Executive Vice President of BAIF in his opening remarks. The programmes are now benefitting more than 50 lakh families in 12 states. Livestock development programme, the flagship programme of BAIF, has reached out to 44 lakh families, through 4700 AI technicians operating through their cattle development centres across the country and enabling our farmers, mostly marginal and small holders to produce milk worth Rs. 15000 crores. Every year about 10 lakh new progeny of high genetic merit are born at the doorsteps of small farmers. The Central Research Station at Urulikanchan has been producing embryos from its state-of-the-art OPU and IBF laboratory and for the first-time streamlining genome sequencing. Construction of climate smart bridges have been the outcome of the climate change adaptation and mitigation programme,’ Mr. Kakade further added.
Mr. Girish Sohani, President, BAIF, dwelled on the survival mechanisms adopted by BAIF to support farmers and to continue their farming activity and revival of the rural economy against the COVID 19 challenge.
Shri. Hrishikesh Mafatlal, Chairman, BAIF, listed the challenges ahead of BAIF to meet the knowledge, skills and values and to help others in society. He also emphasised on the strong value system of the organisation and its unique technologies, which are helpful to encash new opportunities and to minimise the difficulties. Shri. Kishor Chaukar, Trustee, BAI F, spoke about the need for phenomenal changes in the mind set at BAIF as well as in the society. Technology will be the strong pillar for upliftment of the poor. Shri. Sunil Lalbhai. Trustee, BAIF, highligted the need to be self-reliant and develop insights into the emerging needs of the people at the bottom of the pyramid in the birth centenary of the Founder of BAIF. He defined the five learnings for growth of the organisation which will lead to a continuous learning organisation.
Dr. Ashok Pande, Group Vice President, Scientific Research and Livestock Development, appreciated the role of the field team in strengthening the livestock development programme of BAIF through applied research, input production, genomics, animal nutrition and field research for the benefit of the farmers. Viewers were taken to the world of conventional semen laboratory established in 1975 followed by the world of a sophisticated sorted semen laboratory, and goat semen laboratory established in 2018 at Wagholi through screening of short duration videos as part of the virtual celebration.
Dr. Rajashree Joshi, Chief Thematic Programme Executive, BAIF Programmes, highlighted the feminisation of farming practices and the shift in the role of women who are now change makers and climate smart farmers. These were highlighted through short duration videos. Enterprise promotion through silage development at the farms itself, was highlighted by Mr. V.B. Dyasa, Regional Director, Western Region and Programme Director, BAIF. Digitalisation of programmes through epayment, elearning, mobile based telephony and edost was highlighted by Mr. Ramprasad while new programmes such as LMS and Cloud telephony services were presented by Dr. Alok Juneja with inputs from Ms. Nirali Shah and Ms. Pooja Majgankar with the focus being on replicability of digital initiatives. The Regional Directors of all the four Regions highlighted the growth of BAIF’s programmes in the midst of the pandemic, apart from record sale of 1.3 crore doses of conventional frozen semen, 1.5 lakh doses of sorted semen and 260 tons of mineral mixture. Mr. Shrinivas Kulkarni, Group Vice President, Finance, highlighted the social and financial capital aspects of BAIF with technology becoming central to BAIF’s horizon and the support from corporates becoming the trigger for strengthening rural India. Mr. Sujit Gijare, Group Vice President, Human Resources and Administration, emphasised on the human resource capital which ensured stability inspite of overnight sweeping changes brought about by the pandemic.
