Kesavan P C, Swaminathan M S
M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai, India.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2006 Aug 15;364(1845):2191-216. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2006.1822.
Extreme natural hazards, particularly the hydro-meteorological disasters, are emerging as a cause of major concern in the coastal regions of India and a few other developing countries. These have become more frequent in the recent past, and are taking a heavy toll of life and livelihoods. Low level of technology development in the rural areas together with social, economic and gender inequities enhance the vulnerability of the largely illiterate, unskilled, and resource-poor fishing, farming and landless labour communities. Their resilience to bounce back to pre-disaster level of normality is highly limited. For the planet Earth at crossroads, the imminent threat, however, is from a vicious spiral among environmental degradation, poverty and climate change-related natural disasters interacting in a mutually reinforcing manner. These, in turn, retard sustainable development, and also wipe out any small gains made thereof. To counter this unacceptable trend, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has developed a biovillage paradigm and rural knowledge centres for ecotechnological and knowledge empowerment of the coastal communities at risk. Frontier science and technologies blended with traditional knowledge and ecological prudence result in ecotechnologies with pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation. The rural communities are given training and helped to develop capacity to adopt ecotechnologies for market-driven eco-enterprises. The modern information and communication-based rural knowledge centres largely operated by trained semi-literate young women provide time- and locale-specific information on weather, crop and animal husbandry, market trends and prices for local communities, healthcare, transport, education, etc. to the local communities. The ecotechnologies and time- and locale-specific information content development are need-based and chosen in a 'bottom-up' manner. The use of recombinant DNA technology for genetic shielding of agricultural crops for coastal regions against abiotic stress (induced by the water- and weather-related natural disasters), strengthens the foundations of sustainable agriculture undertaken by the resource-poor small farm families.
极端自然灾害，尤其是水文气象灾害，正成为印度沿海地区和其他一些发展中国家主要关注的问题。这些灾害在最近变得更加频繁，给生命和生计造成了沉重损失。农村地区技术发展水平低，再加上社会、经济和性别不平等，使得以捕鱼、务农为生且无土地的劳工群体（他们大多不识字、无技能且资源匮乏）更加脆弱。他们恢复到灾前正常水平的能力非常有限。然而，对于处于十字路口的地球来说，迫在眉睫的威胁来自环境退化、贫困和与气候变化相关的自然灾害之间以相互强化的方式相互作用形成的恶性循环。这些反过来又阻碍了可持续发展，也抹去了在此方面取得的任何微小成果。为了应对这种不可接受的趋势，M.S. 斯瓦米纳坦研究基金会为面临风险的沿海社区开发了生物村模式和农村知识中心，以实现生态技术和知识赋权。前沿科学技术与传统知识和生态审慎相结合，产生了有利于自然、有利于穷人且有利于妇女的生态技术。农村社区接受培训，并被帮助发展采用生态技术开展市场驱动型生态企业的能力。现代基于信息和通信的农村知识中心主要由受过培训的半文盲年轻女性运营，为当地社区提供关于天气、作物和畜牧、市场趋势和价格、医疗保健、交通、教育等方面的特定时间和地点的信息。生态技术以及特定时间和地点的信息内容开发是基于需求并以“自下而上”的方式选择的。利用重组DNA技术对沿海地区的农作物进行基因保护以抵御非生物胁迫（由与水和天气相关的自然灾害引起），加强了资源匮乏的小农户家庭开展可持续农业的基础。
