MSS & MSSRF at Kuttanad
07/03/2025
Mankombu village in Kuttanad is known to the world through Dr Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan, whose family has been preserving the paddy granaries of Kuttanad since the 1880s. In the year 2013, he brought another laurel to the land through the recognition of Kuttanad as the second Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) in India.
It was in November 2006 that the Government of India invited Dr Swaminathan and his Foundation to take up a study of the sustainable development of the Kuttanad Wetland Ecosystem. In 2007, the Foundation submitted a 200+ page report titled ‘Measures to Mitigate Agrarian Distress in Alappuzha and Kuttanad Wetland Ecosystem’. By investigating the wetland system from agricultural, ecological, economic and sociological perspectives, the report presented an insightful vision and action plan for the development of the region, which later the Government of Kerala took up as the basis of the well-known ‘Kuttanad Package’. Dr Swaminathan wrote that we must create a Kuttanad Regeneration Symphony with all the actors playing their part in harmony with each other, and hoped that the report would be of help in initiating a new Kuttanad Renaissance Programme. The International Research and Training Centre for Below Sea-level Farming at Kuttanad (IRTCBSF), a Government of Kerala initiative, was also part of his recommendations.