The BAIF Development Research Foundation is a NGO based in Urali Kanchan near Pune in Maharashtra, India, that pioneers agricultural development. It was founded in 1967 by Manibhai Desai as the Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation. Under Manibhai, BAIF pioneered cross breeding of high yielding European cattle such as Holstein Freisian and Jersey with the sturdy Indian breeds such as Gir from Gujarat.Deore, P.A., Sidhaye, V.J., Rangnekar, D.V., Hegde, G.R. and Mangurkar, B.R., 1990. Manual on crossbred cows .Bhosrekar, M.R., 1990. Semen production and artificial insemination. BAIF Development Research Foundation. Later BAIF expanded the scope of activities to include animal health, nutrition, afforestation wasteland development, and tribal development.
In 1997, the organization received the Adivasi Seva Sanstha award from the State Government of Maharashtra.
History
Mahatma Gandhi stayed in the Urali Kanchan village near the city of Pune in 1946. At that time Gandhi had lost trust in western medicine and wanted to explore Nature therapy. For this purpose he nominated Manibhai as the manager of the newly established Nature therapy Ashram at Urali. The young Manibhai gave a pledge to Mahatma Gandhi to devote his life to uplifting of Uruli. Although Gandhian principles were central to Manibhai's work, he believed the rural poor can benefit from scientific advances During his work at the Nature cure ashram, Manibhai self-taught himself aspects of horticulture and cattle breeding. To take this work further, Bharatya Agro-Industries Foundation, was organised and registered in 1967 under the Indian Public Charitable Trust Act of 1950. The purpose of the foundation was to help rural communities to improve their socio-economic status by increasing food production along modern lines by making improvements to agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and other allied activities. Manibhai was appointed managing trustee and director of the foundation. Yashwantrao Chavan, then a senior cabinet minister in the Indian government and Vasantrao Naik, then chief minister of Maharashtra were chairman and deputy chairman of the organization respectively.Beresford, T., 1973. THE CASE OF URULI KANCHAN-A STUDY IN DEVELOPMENT: PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 24(1), pp.1-12
In early years the Foundation received aid from Western countries such as Denmark, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia as well as the Indian dairy cooperation. The British charity Oxfam donated farming equipment whereas the British milk marketing board donated semen from premium sires for artificial insemination program.
In the 1980s BAIF pioneered the "WADI" agroforestry model for creating fruit orchards in tribal areas of Gujarat with limited rainfall and marginal landholding.Keremane, G., 2021. Wadi Sustainable Agriculture Model. In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures (pp. 1-9). Cham: Springer International Publishing.Tripathy, S.N., 2020. Role of NABARD in the development of tribal farmers: With special reference to wadi project. Splint International Journal of Professionals, 7(4), pp.143-151. This program was later implemented in 21 other states.
Manibhai died in 1993. BAIF named Narayan Hegde as Manibhai's successor. Hegde ran the organization until 2009 when he was succeeded by his long-time deputy Girish Sohani.
In the year 2021, Bharat Kakade who had previously served the organisation in different capacities, took charge as President and Managing Trustre of BAIF.https://cfi-india.org/who-we-are/dr-bharat-kakade/
In September 2024, Tata Chemicals and BAIF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop bio-based agricultural solutions.
Activities The developmental activities of BAIF include animal husbandry, sustainable agriculture, horticulture, water resources management, and various rural non-farm activities for generating employment for landless families and Indian tribal communities.Ajwani-Ramchandani, R., 2017. Connecting the Base of the Pyramid to Global Markets Through E-commerce: A Case Study of BAIF (India). In International Business Strategy (pp. 441-465). Palgrave Macmillan, London.Ajwani-Ramchandani, R., 2017. Connecting the Base of the Pyramid to Global Markets Through E-commerce: A Case Study of BAIF (India). In International Business Strategy (pp. 441-465). Palgrave Macmillan, London. BAIF also tried digital marketing of its agricultural products by a tie-up with an internet marketing firm but that was a failure.[Ajwani-Ramchandani, R., 2017. Connecting the Base of the Pyramid to Global Markets Through E-commerce: A Case Study of BAIF (India). In International Business Strategy (pp. 441-465). Palgrave Macmillan, London.]
Animal husbandry
For the last five decades starting in the late 1960s, the main thrust of BAIF activities has been animal husbandry. This has principally involved artificial insemination (AI) of indigenous Indian cattle breeds with semen from bulls of high milk yielding European cattle breeds such as Jersey and Holstein Friesian.Hegde, N.G., 2018. Impact of crossbreeding and upgrading of nondescript cattle and buffaloes on livestock quality and income. Indian J. Anim. Sci, 88, pp.606-611. The organization maintains its main research facilities at Uruli Kanchan with a large group of scientists, veterinarians and technical staff. Urali Kanchan also serves as the major semen production station in India. In 2015, the Urali facility produced over seven million doses of semen.Rath, D., Kasiraj, R. and Siddiqui, M.U., 2016. Changing scenario of bovine semen production in India. Indian Dairyman, p.62. Over the decades, BAIF has established AI centres in 16 Indian states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka etc. The organization offers door-to-door breeding services to farmers by employing and training local youth as Artificial Insemination Technicians (AIT). By 2018 the organization had helped nearly six million farmers with improved animal husbandry. The cattle improvement programme has enabled farmers to generate higher income by selling surplus milk and animals.Shapiro, R.A., Mirchandani, M. and Jang, H., 2018. Pragmatic philanthropy: Asian charity explained. Springer Nature. The organization also has programs to improve the quality of water buffalo breeds to obtain better milk yields. Murrah has been the preferred indigenous breed for this program. In arid and semi-arid areas of India such as Rajasthan, BAIF has initiated programs to improve the quality of goat breeds for milk as well as for mutton.Hegde, N.G. and Deo, A.D., 2015. Goat value chain development for empowering rural women in India. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences, 85(9), pp.935-940. The organization also conducts surveys with farmers on best practices for cattle management.Sharma, L., Khadse, J. and Pande, A., BAIF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH FOUNDATION-CENTRAL RESEARCH STATION, URULIKANCHAN.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lata-Sharma-3/publication/335291965_Calf_Management_Practices_followed_by_Dairy_Farmers_in_Kopargoan_Taluka_of_Ahmednagar_district_of_Maharashtra/links/5d5ce73d299bf1b97cfa3105/Calf-Management-Practices-followed-by-Dairy-Farmers-in-Kopargoan-Taluka-of-Ahmednagar-district-of-Maharashtra.pdf|
Horticulture and the Wadi program In the 1980s BAIF pioneered the "WADI" agroforestry model for creating fruit orchards in tribal areas of Gujarat with limited rainfall and marginal landholding. The success of the program led to it being implemented in the neighboring state of Maharashtra followed later by introduction to 21 other states of India.Doshi, P., Brockington, J. and Brook, R., 2015. Assessing agroforestry adoption in tribal areas of Maharashtra, India. Agriculture Development, p.12. This model involves establishment of multi-purpose trees around the field periphery along with fruit and/or nut trees in the field. The wide spacing of trees allows continued cultivation of annual crops. The tree planting also involves soil and water conservation measures such as trenches and bunds on the plot. BAIF and allied organizations offer support to the farmers for five years which involves free planting and construction materials, technical assistance, financial compensation for establishment and aftercare in the first three years of the fruit trees, and marketing assistance through farmer cooperatives.
Micro-insurance
BAIF introduced the idea of self-help groups (SHG) to make insurance facilities available for rural communities. An SHG usually has 109-20 members and works as a financial intermediary. BAIF operates many SHG where conventional insurance facilities are difficult to obtain.Gupta, P. K., Venkataramani, B., Singh, A. S., & Ambarkhane, D. (2015). Challenges of effective implementation of microinsurance in India: A case study of Bhartiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF). Annual Research Journal of Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies, 176-187.
Sources of funding
From the very beginning, Manibhai relied on government support as well as support from International governments as well as NGOs to fund the activities of BAIF. This is still the main source of funding for BAIF. Organizations that have funded BAIF activities include KfW, the German German state-owned investment and development bank, the Indian National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development or NABARD, and private charities such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Ratnakar, R., 2016. Indian Agriculture: Role of Extension in the Changing Agriculture Scenario. International Journal of Economic Plants, 3(1), pp.16-22. In addition, the organization also receives significant income from farmers for the cattle semen and insemination services.
VAPCOL VAPCOL(Vasundhara Agri-Horti Producer Co. Ltd.) is a for profit organisation promoted by BAIF for improving the agricultural Value chain for the farmers in taking their produce to the consumer.[Joglekar, A., 2016. Farmer Producer Companies in Maharashtra. Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.] It was registered in 2004 as a farmer producer company (FPO)under the Indian company law. Unlike cooperatives in India, VAPCOL is able to operate across different states. VAPCOL has a membership of 55 producer organisations and a membership of 41,000 farmers. It was started by BAIF to help farmers under the Wadi scheme to be able to process and take their produce to the market. It is regarded as second tier farmer organization for procurement, grading, marketing, selling, the export of farm produce. Products marketed by VAPCOL include primary farm products such as cashew, mango, amla, flowers, milk, tomatoes and vegetables as well pickles, pulp, jam and juice. The products are sold under the brand name, Vrindavan. VAPCOL has its own independent website, Facebook page and sales through distribution network as well as online sales.Kumari, S., Bharti, N. and Tripathy, K.K., 2021. Strengthening agriculture value chain through collectives: comparative case analysis. International Journal of Rural Management, 17(1_suppl), pp.40S-68S. The company has branches in Nasik, Vansda (Gujarat), Udaipur (Rajasthan) and Raipur (Chhattisgarh).
Challenges and opportunities Some critics of BAIF argue that the emphasis on imported breeds of cattle has been instrumental in the decimation of Indian breeds. P. Sanath in the Hindu argues that cross-breeds give higher yields, but require more feed and are not suited to Indian conditions. BAIF believes that Innovation in agrarian technology still remains under-financed, and therefore provides an opportunity to the organization to continue its research and development activities and provide services to rural communities across the country.Neha Mahavar, Karuna P. Salve and Bhaskar Mittra Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)(2016)
Turf encroachment