CHANDIGARH: 20 August 2009: Women and sustainable agriculture form the theme of the Shastri Indo- Canadian Institute (SICI) Project awarded to Dr Karanjot Kaur Brar and Professor Smita Bhutani of the Department of Geography, Panjab University. The research team includes Dr. Elizabeth Finnis of the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada as the Canadian Collaborator. She has been at the Department of Geography since 6 August, actively interacting with the team members of the project. The faculty and students also interacted with her. Her discourses on qualitative methodologies went down very well with the scholars at the department.
As part of the project two workshops were conducted at villages Ghoh and Dunera of Gurdaspur district, Punjab, on 14th and 15th August. A total of 200 local women took part in the participatory exercises which elaborated the tenets of sustainability in agriculture. The women responded well to the efforts of the team in explaining the degradation of rural environment and associated problems. Climate change and its implications were avidly discussed in this rural setting. The exposure of the women to such an interaction was mutually beneficial. The workshops form a major component of the project which has a tenure of one year.