Environment and Sustainable Development/Centre for Ecology and Rural Development (CERD)  Recognizing the need for engaging with communities for trying out incremental approaches to help gain experience with new approaches to organizing people around livelihoods and sustainable development the PSF and TNSF jointly set up a technology centre. Such an organization could generate and implement projects that addressed these questions as well as support a team of professional who would be full-time long-term commitment as is needed for such work.  This organization was called the Centre for Ecology and Rural Development (CERD). CERD was created as a joint R&D organisation with the Tamil Nadu Science Forum (TNSF) to carry out meaningful and sustainable interventions in Natural Resource Management, Health & Sanitation, energy & livelihoods, Women’s empowerment etc. CERD was initiated as a trust in 1994. It carried out a serious of experiments after PSF carried out a couple of successful interventions in Sericulture, Vegetable Leather Tanning et- not all of them sustainable, even though there were significant learning’s. In the next generation of its experiments. 

Objectives

Healthy Villages and Cities, Employment and Equity, Water conservation, Waste management and Biodiversity, community based natural resource management

Activities

Tank Rehabilitation Project of Puducherry (TRPP): As part of CERD’s partnership with government for promoting participatory natural resource management, CERD played a major role in establishing  democratic Tank User Associations which are grassroots farmers’ associations skilled with managerial and technical training to manage the irrigation tanks. These associations have now been empowered that they have been taking up various issues related to common property resources and their protection, effectively engaging with the state government in avoiding unsustainable environmental projects as well as constructive suggestions  and technological alternatives also.

Agro-ecological farming: created an organic farmers’ association: In continuation to CERD’s work on the All India BIOFARM program, this farmers association continues to function taking up many issues related to sustainable farming.

Natural resources based local enterprises. In its initial phase CERD experimented with setting up enterprises that would use primary agricultural products into employment generating, democratically managed manufacturing enterprises. These included a relatively successful effort in silk reeling, which eventually had to close because the local production of silk cocoons, on which it was based did not materize.  Another less successful effort was in eco-friendly Vegetable Leather Tanning. A much more successful effort that lasted over two decades was a horticulture based manufacturing unit for fruit-based products.

Kalanjiyan Centre: Located at the Rice Bowl of Pondicherry, Bahoor, Kalanjiyam Centre provided a number of faciltieis to support sustainable agicultural practices. These included a Soil and Water Testing Laboratory, a Decision Support Systems for farmers in soil fertility management and Pest control measures and a Microbial fertilizer Production unit which produces Azetobacter, Phosphobacterium, Rizobium, Psuedomonas etc. of high quality. The centre also offered training facilities for women and farmers on Bio Resource Integrated Farming systems (BIOFARM). In Azolla Culture and training for the same for use of Azolla as high quality high protein fodder and nutrient for crops and a demonstration cum Training Facility for Vermi Composting systems. Kalanjiyam team also provided consultancy and Production systems for high efficiency, wood burning stoves with the technical collaboration of the Centre for Sustainable Technologies, ASTRA, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and sanitation systems for high water table coastal areas. It also functioned as a Support Centre for Fodder Resources as part of the All India Coordinated Project on Fodder, for Paddy culture techniques like System of Rice Intensification (SRI), Direct Paddy Sowing Systems (DPS), and for kitchen garden systems for farmers. One of its last and most important initiatives was a Women’s Technology Park as a Support and Resource Centre for small and micro enterprises for SHG women and women of weaker sections.

Recognition to PSF as a Centre of Relevance and Excellence (CORE) group under the Department of Science & Technology in the year 1996 was another mile stone to PSF in its growth path. This sustained till year 2016.  At its peak CERD had programmes in Tamil Nadu. These included fruit processing units (Vellore), Watershed Programme (Thadayampatti Watershed Project in Sedappatti Block in Madurai District), and Oorani Development Project in Ramanathapuram to mention a few.

During the COVID pandemic, the CERD and its Kalanjiyam centre ceased to function. This was partly because of funding issues, and partly because of the human resource constraints. However the experience of CERD continues in the form of the Environment and Sustainable Development working group, which is taking up a number of issues related to coastal development, water and tank irrigation management and urban planning.

For More Details– see its Recent Annual Report- 2024-25

 

See PSF’s Big Four Achievements: