Seed conservation

In the middle of October a 3-day Botanical Gardens of India Networking Workshop was held at the Auroville Botanical Gardens. This event was supported by Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) with most of their partnered botanical gardens attending the workshop, and over 30 participants from 19 organisations across India attended.

Deepika Kundaji is known in India for her work in seed-conservation and land regeneration. She is regularly called on to conduct training for farmer groups and to speak about her work.

Last month the dried plant collection of the Auroville Herbarium moved to a new dedicated building in the Botanical Gardens. Funded by SAIIER, inaugurated this March, slowed down a bit by corona, its establishment marks a new phase in the work of preserving and classifying our indigenous flora.

Aurovilian Deepika Kundaji was one among 30 women and 9 institutions to be conferred the “Nari Shakti Award for 2017”, India’s prestigious award for women, by the President of India on the occasion of International Women’s Day at a ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President’s Palace, in New Delhi on March 8th.

Barely twenty years ago, around Puducherry, the staple food was fermented ragi and a particular variety of kambu (Bajra). That variety of kambu is now virtually extinct and today’s staple food is polished white rice.