This software professional turned organic farmer has preserved 450 varieties of rice seeds
Baparao Athota from Athota village, Andhra Pradesh, has preserved 450 varieties of rice seeds, which include kulakar, black rice, and others.
Agriculture, along with its allied sectors is the largest source of livelihoods in India. Seventy percent of rural households in the country still depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Despite the importance of this sector, it faces many issues, right from ground implementation to production management of the crops.
Farmers in rural areas face many difficulties and need new solutions to tide over challenges. Baparao Athota, a former software engineer turned farmer who moved from Hyderabad to Athota has introduced new methods where traditional farming has been given a new lease of life without fertilisers, insecticides or chemical aids for better productivity.
Baparao (Image: Efforts For Good)
Also, villagers in Athota are helping the urban-returned farmer to develop a seed bank to store indigenous seeds. So far, Baparao has preserved 450 varieties of rice seeds, which include Kulakar, Black rice, and many more, reports Enadu.
Over the course of his research, Baparao realised the crops are better grown in their natural habitat and don’t need much chemical aids to enhance growth. In addition, with the help of earthworms, his crop not only grew better but also enhanced the water table. It took him some time to have a similar yield through organic farming to meet the same magnitude of production through chemical-aided farming.
Image: Efforts For Good
He also advocates the importance of eating habits and insists that people eat according to their body requirements as mentioned in Ayurveda. Baparao’s priority is also to educate people on the benefits of eating healthy and going back to millets and other traditional foods. He also believes that these seeds are a rich source of high protein, starch, and oil reserves that support plants in the early stages of growth.
Now, people from across the state visit Athota to understand traditional practices and its implementation by various mandals.
He said, ““Health is wealth and food is the only true medicine,”reports Efforts For Good.
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