Ahmedabad hosts Saatvik to conserve agro-biodiversity

Sattvik, the traditional food festival being organised by Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies (SRISTI) for the past fourteen years, aims to provide market-based incentives for conserving agro-biodiversity.

The creation of demand for rarely or less-cultivated nutritionally rich crops and varieties may stimulate their cultivation.

The paradox of development is that the food that the rich eat is often of poor quality, while the food that the poor grow in poorer regions is of a richer variety.

In regions that have less rainfall, soil minerals don't leach much and thus crops grown there like millets, sorghum and pulses etc., are richer in nutrient value.

This festival aspires to put the lesser known but nutrient-rich food from various areas on the plate of urban communities, helping them to adopt healthier food habits and lifestyles.

The festival also hopes to encourage farmers to grow such crops and augment their incomes.

Sattvik also hosts an innovation exhibition by National Innovation Foundation, and Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network.

"This year's Sattvik will witness many new features. The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development has sponsored 50 food and craft stalls from different parts of the country. You must patronise them to make them feel that Ahmedabad is place which nurtures innovations and enterprises, small or big. We gratefully acknowledge the proactive step taken by the WCD ministry," said IIM professor Anil Gupta.

"An added attraction of this year is that we will be exhibiting 200 varieties of rice of which dishes of 20 varieties of rice will be available for tasting. Another interesting feature of the Sattvik 2016 is that we will be offering traditional recipes of food from North eastern states such as Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh," he added.

Keeping with demonetisation, Sattvik has made provisions of Paytm and swiping machine for credit/debit card holder to facilitate cashless payments, in view of the demonetisation (no transaction will be possible with old Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes)

For the last 14 years, the festival has been organised at IIM-Ahmedabad. However, due to space constraints because of the ever increasing size of the festival in terms of number of stalls and foot falls, this year organizers had to shift Sattvik to other location.

"Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institution (SRISTI) is extremely grateful to the management of IIM-A for extending their wholehearted cooperation to Sattvik and permitting us to organise 13 Food Festivals at IIM-A ground. We gratefully acknowledge their contribution and continued support in making Sattvik such a great success," Gupta added.