The authors gratefully acknowledge the guidance, support and encouragement extended by M.S. Swaminathan, Mina Swaminathan and P.C. Kesavan and helpful comments from R. Gopinath. The material presented in this paper is drawn from several projects funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Ford Foundation, the Summit Foundation, the Hindustan Lever Research Foundation, the International Development Research Centre and GTZ. This work would not have been possible without the cooperation, support and sharing of ideas and material of the tribal and rural women and men of Jeypore, Orissa, the Kolli hills, Tamil Nadu, and the Wayanad region of Kerala. Their contribution to the conservation and enhancement of agrobiodiversity has so far remained unrecognized and unsung. We wish to record our sincere gratitude to them.
This paper was presented at the expert consultation on "Agrobiodiversity Conservation and the Role of Rural Women" jointly organized by FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO-RAP), International Potato Center-Users’ Perspectives With Agricultural Research and Development (CIP-UPWARD), and the SEAMEO Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO-SEARCA) held in September 2001 at Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines.
