Prof. Sosamma Iype

Prof. Sosamma Iype

Prof. Sosamma Iype received a Padma Shri award for animal husbandry from President Kovind. She serves as the Director of Projects for the Vechur Conservation Trust, an NGO that promotes the preservation of the Vechur and Kasaragod cows, two of Kerala’s native cattle breeds.

Who is Sosamma Iype ?

Sosamma Iype was born in 1941 at Niranam village in Thiruvalla of present-day Pathanamthitta district. She was a Professor and researcher at Kerala Veterinary University (formerly Mannuthy Veterinary College). Sosamma is a Ph.D. candidate at the National Dairy Research Institute in Karanal, Uttar Pradesh. worked as the Kerala Veterinary University’s Head of the Genetics and Animal Breeding Department. In 2001, she left her position as Director of the National Bureau of Animal Genetics at Kerala Veterinary University. Sosamma still participates in the Vechur Conservation Trust, an NGO established for the conservation of domestic animals and birds in Kerala State, despite having retired from public life.

She had no concept of the difficulties that would arise when Dr. Sosamma Iype took the initiative to conserve the extinct Vechur breed of cows in the 1980s. He had to cope with numerous issues, including traveling from village to village searching for cows, explaining to the farmers, facing criticism from his own people, and cows that died prematurely. But she persisted in fighting and did not give up. The most appropriate and realistic acknowledgment of his struggles is the Padma Shri award he received most recently.