Validation & Value Addition
SADBHAV-SRISTI SANSODHAN LABORATORY: DEFINING NEW STANDARDS IN VALIDATION & VALUE ADDITION OF PEOPLE'S KNOWLEDGE
Erosion of people's knowledge is perhaps a greater threat to sustainability than the erosion of the resource base itself. One reason why knowledge erosion (both traditional as well as contemporary) takes place is because of the low value attached to it. Most herbalists share their knowledge generously within and outside their communities without much charges or monetary compensation. It is as if their superior ethical values become responsible for their continued poverty. Young people around these herbalists may admire the spirit and the knowledge systems of their elders but seldom want to pursue the profession held by their preceding generation and perfecting it. One of the many reasons for their lack of interest lies in the absence of any assurance about a worthwhile future professional opportunity, which could ensure a higher standard of living. With rising aspirations in life, most young people would expectedly like to have some assurance of higher quality of living. One way to ensure this would be to add value to this knowledge base, to generate commercial as well as non-commercial returns and to ensure that people have a reasonable stake and share in the income so generated. Unless some value addition takes place locally, the trickle down of the benefits is generally low. In addition, if the providers of knowledge and conservators of resources do not have a stake in the institutions, which add value to their knowledge and creativity, it is unlikely that their gains will be durable and substantial.
Value addition and commercialization by linking formal and informal knowledge systems based on their strengths and assets will spur innovations to build sustainable technologies of the future. Often simple characterization of natural products adds value and creates demands or meets the existing demand in more cost effective manner than otherwise available. Therefore, converting local innovations into marketable products through on-farm, and state of the art lab research will help in addressing the issues of value addition for local populace and develop meritocratic benefit sharing agreements with innovators and conservators of a vast plant and genetic resource.
One way to make sure that this happens is to establish a laboratory, which is dedicated to add value to local knowledge, resources, and institutional structures. Hence, came up the Sadbhav-SRISTI Sanshodhan Laboratory, which converts the local knowledge and resources into value-added products with simultaneous development of processing facilities in the rural region where resources exist. The lab was established with the capital grant from the Sadbhav Trust, Mumbai.