Indian Institute of Spices Research Receives ‘Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award’

ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research in Kozhikode has been awarded the ‘Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award’ for the year 2021. The award was presented to C. K. Thankamani, Director of the Institute, by Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in New Delhi.

This award was given based on the institute's performance over the last five years. It consists of a Rs10 lakh cash award, a citation, and a plaque.

This award is given to institutes based on several criteria, including significant output/outcome from research activities, the number, and quality of research publications, technologies licensed/commercialized, infrastructure developed, and capacity-building efforts. This is the third time that the IISR has received this honour.

"The award is a timely recognition for the institute's hard work and dedicated efforts in developing several cutting-edge technologies for advancing spice farming and addressing the real challenges faced by the spice farming community," Thankamani said.

Bindu Joseph, a young Kozhikode farmer, was awarded the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Antyodaya Krishi Puruskar. The award honours the contributions of marginal, small, and landless farmers to the development of integrated and sustainable agricultural farming models.

About ICAR- Indian Institute of Spices Research

The Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR), Kozhikode (Calicut), is a major Institute devoted to spice research and is a constituent body of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). It began as a Regional Station of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI), Kasaragod, engaged in spice research in 1976.

In 1986, the former Regional Station of CPCRI in Kozhikode and the Cardamom Research Centre in Appangala, Karnataka merged to form the National Research Centre for Spices, with headquarters in Kozhikode, Kerala. Recognizing the significance of spice research in India, the Research Centre was renamed Indian Institute of Spices Research on July 1, 1995.