Dr. Awasthi tweeted “Congratulation to Sh.Guru Prasad Tripathi, Chairman, Dr.K G Wankhede, CEO & the entire hard working team of #Indian Farm Forestry Development Coop.”
MD proved prophetic as he expressed confidence and tweeted to wish good luck to IFFDC last week after it was short-listed in the environmental category in The Times of India Social Impact Awards, as carried in these columns.
The prestigious award is aimed at recognizing the work towards saving the environment and empowerment of the people. Indian Farm Forestry Development Cooperative has done a lot in the field of Farm Forestry, Revival of salt affected area and water logged lands.
The fact that the award was announced on the auspicious occasion of International Women’s Day made the event special as expressed in MD’s tweet” This year’s #Social Impact Award by @timesofindia for #IFFDC has become #Womens Day Spl for us. To all Farm & Coop Women.”
“Women in cooperatives” has been is the theme of in majority of cooperative seminars. IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi used the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8 to reiterate the urgency of involving more and more women in the cooperative movement.
Dr Awasthi tweeted “ On #InternationalWomensDay #IFFCO reiterates it’s commitment to involve maximum women coop members in its # Representative General Body.”
Enumerating its reasons behind giving this award to IFFDC, the website says IFFDC’s cooperative forests hold significance because revival and regeneration of 26,000 hectares of salt-affected ravines and waterlogged wastelands of which 12864 hectares have been developed through cooperative efforts.
These changes were made by the small and marginal communities of Uttar Pradesh, who are as much the drivers of the ecological change as much its beneficiaries. The website of Social Impact Award also mentions the number of persons who have benefitted from the activities of IFFDC in past 3 years as more than 39 thousand persons.