Local rice varieties resist onslaught of Tsunami

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=95108

ASHOK B SHARMA
OUR ECONOMY BUREAU
Posted online: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 at 0003 hours IST

NEW DELHI, JUNE 28: In some cases locally traditional varieties of crops are
found to successfully resist the onslaught of natural calamities. Experts have
recently found that six locally grown traditional varieties of rice in Tanjavur
district of Tamil Nadu could escape the wrath of Tsunami during the last Samba
season (August-December). Tanjavur district is one of the rice bowl of India.

These local rice varieties are: Kundali, Kuzhivadichai, Kallurundai,
Soorakuruvai, Vellakudavazha and Kalhakoonvale.

Noted agriculture scientist, Dr MS Swaminathan disclosing this to the
mediapersons in Capital said: “there is a need to carefully study these
varieties for developing such saline resistant varieties for other parts of the
country.” He said that the damages done to the soil composition along coastal
coastal India will be set right after a round of heavy monsoon showers in the
current season. Only Tamil Nadu has to wait for North-East monsoon which begins
around mid-September as it is under rain shadow in the current South-West
monsoon season.

Dr Swaminathan alongwith the ICRISAT director-general, William D Dar and IRRI
director-general, Robert S Zeigler was briefing the media about the global
‘Healing the Wounds Initiative’ relating to Tsunami mitigation.

He (Dr Swaminathan) said : “wounds, hitherto, are unfortunately likely to be
frequent. This may be due to several factors like climate change, natural
calamities like floods, droughts and cyclones. We need to be prepared to meet
these situations. The apex research body in the country, Indian Council of
Agricultural Research (ICAR) should incorporate this in its research agenda.” He
praised role of gene banks in possession of global research institutes under the
Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He said that
seeds stored in these gene banks were multiplied and used to rehabilitate
agriculture in different parts of the globe after severe natural and man-made
calamities.

ICRISAT DG William D Dar said his organisation is developing saline resistant
groundnut for the coastal region. The IRRI director-general, Robert S Zeigler
called for putting in place a permanent machinery to deal with natural
calamities.

Dr Swaminathan said that the rehabilitation programme in the Tsunami-affected
regions at the global scale was coordinated by the Malaysia-based WorldFish
Centre which is one of the 15 CGIAR institutes. He said that there were mobile
workshops to review the situation. Other CGIAR institutes including ICRISAT,
IRRI, IWMI participated in the programme.

Regarding the problems of small fishermen on the coast, he said "they have
been given boats, but but number of catches have not improved due to various
reasons. Sometimes the mechanised trawlers illegally penetrate and fish in
the areas marked for small fishermen." He said there is a need for providing
additional livelihood to affected farmers and fishermen. He said that
knowledge centres can play an important role in dissemination of information
and it is proposed to have set up 100 knowledge centres along the coast by
the end of this year.
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