Centre for Fruitful India (CFI)

A partnership between the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and the Fruitful India Fund established the Centre for Fruitful India (CFI) in 2020. Building on decades of fruit-tree expertise in India, CFI’s vision is to apply a nature-positive solution for food and nutrition security that will increase low-income families’ access to, and consumption of, a wide diversity of fruits while improving local ecology for planetary health. CFI will act as research catalyst for promoting the cultivation of fruit-tree for healthy people and planet by creating synergies and coordination among multiple stakeholders and funding and backstopping research and development initiatives. CFI outcomes will ultimately catalyze long-term positive change to the Indian food systems, people’s food security, nutrition status, and health while mitigating climate change and restoring fruit-tree biodiversity for local and global benefits. 

• Catalyze, coordinate, promote, and allocate for innovative, cross-disciplinary research to fill gaps in understudied areas of tree-based fruit cultivation and consumption. The project seeks to provide nature-positive solutions that maximize the availability and affordability of nutritious fruit for low-income families and to improve local ecosystems. 
• Establish a multistakeholder platform to identify priority research thematic areas through consultation processes and for the exchange of research and outputs through conferences, workshops, policy papers, and communication products. 
• Promote and disseminate CFI and lessons learned to improve the general public’s and policymakers’ awareness of how both people and planet benefit from the cultivation and consumption of diverse nutritious fruits. 

Other Project Members

• Disha Sanwal, Programme Coordinator - day-to-day CFI activity coordination: [email protected]