"ASPEE" & the "Farmer" have always been an inextricable part of each other. ASPEE owed much to the farming community who helped catapult it to its present position. Hence, ASPEE felt it a boundant duty to repay this debt to the farmers, to give back something in return for what ASPEE earned through them. This saw the birth of "ASPEE Agril. Research & Development Foundation". It aimed a conducting scientific research for the extension of knowledge in the field of Plant Protection. To encourage excellence in Plant Protection prizes & awards were given to Agriculture Graduates and Progressive Farmers. With a sponsorship of Rupees One Crore contributed by ASPEE, its employees, their distributors and associates, the foundation was set up with the basic intent of encouraging many of the budding Agriculturists of the country to better the standard of Agriculture. In the quest of Mr. L.M. Patel's vision of motivating youth to go back to farming, he instituted scholarships for studies leading to M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees. From the inspection of the Foundation, Junior Fellowships have been awarded for studies leading to M.Sc. and Senior Fellowships for studies leading to Ph.D. have been awarded with Gold Medals to boost sprits of youth. Crop competitions were sponsored for various crops on an All-India basis. Rice, Jowar, Ground-nut and Onion growing competitions were held to encourage farmers to use improved methods of agriculture and produce higher yields and better quality crops. The winners were awarded and were given publicity by publishing their efforts in the form of interesting literature. All this for one basic intent - to promote a Greener, Self-sufficient India.
Some of the Research projects undertaken were,
- Tur Improvement Swarming Catepillars and False Smut on Rice
- Influence on the Spraying System of efficiency of Insecticides against Bollworm of Cotton
- Testing of Air Carrier Spraying System against Hoppers infesting Mangoes in Konkan region
- Crop loss estimation due to spidermite on cotton
- Effect of Organic Manure and Green Manure on the performance of Rabi-hot weather Groundnut
- Biological control of Rhizocionia rot in cotton by Fluorescent Pseudo Moneds