Activities within the grant and expected impact:
In 2009, the Trusts collaborated with ILRI leading to the development of the Tata-ILRI partnership programme, called ‘Enhancing livelihoods through livestock knowledge systems (ELKS)’. The programme primarily focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of the Trusts' partners in various initiatives under the Rural Livelihoods & Communities portfolio; by providing backstopping support, filling technical knowledge and skill gaps.

Planned as a four-year programme, ELKS carried out a series of activities during its first year (phase-I) to plan for the subsequent three years. Key achievements during this phase are:

	Conducting two rapid appraisal studies of the livestock sector in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram and identification of specific livestock-based interventions to be undertaken in phase-II
	Conducting a study to assess the hazards to human health associated with pig production in Nagaland and sharing the findings with the state government for mitigating the risks of disease.
	In Uttarakhand, ILRI worked out a strategy for breed development whilst identifying scope and limitations of breed improvement in hilly areas. A fodder adaptation trial was also carried out, which identified Congo Signal as a promising fodder species and short-listed three varieties of pigeon pea as dual purpose crop suited to Uttarakhand. The short-listed crops would be promoted amongst farmers in the subsequent phase-II
	In Jharkhand, ILRI carried out a secondary analysis of the livestock sector to identify areas for detailed scientific studies for designing specific livestock interventions, besides organising a stakeholder discussion, which identified target species (pigs and goats) and geographic areas for piloting in phase-II. Moreover, ILRI organised a series on meetings with state government officials in all five states and developed rapport with key government department and staff members.

ILRI’s present three-year project is towards ELKS phase-II, for continuing to provide technical backstopping support on livestock development to the Trusts' partners within the North East Initiative (NEI), Himmothan Pariyojana (HMP) and Central India Initiative (CInI). Under NEI, pilots in 150-300 villages would be carried out through implementing organisations on:

	Pig value chain development
	Local resource-based pig nutrition
	Integrated service delivery model
	Control of swine fever.

These are expected to:

	Enhance farmers’ income by up to 75% from Rs5,800 to Rs10,000 per annum
	Scaling up of models developed, which would benefit around 3,000 households over the next three years.

	Dual purpose food-feed crops like pigeon pea
	Comparative analysis of nutritional technologies and identification of best technology for the Central Himalayan Region
	Breed development in hilly regions
	Sustainable goat production projects.

	Pilot models for goat development
	Develop piggery models, which are expected to enhance livestock focused income of about 800 households from Rs6,000 per annum to about Rs15,000 – Rs20,000 per annum at micro-level and this would be further scaled up across Jharkhand and other states to cover 10,000 households.