A State-level workshop on ‘Conservation of Rice Diversity and Marketing of Organic Rice for livelihood Improvement of Smallholder Farmers’ was organised by NIRMAN, a body working for sustainable agriculture and conservation of agro-biodiversity here.
Agriculture and Food Production Director Dr RS Gopalan, former Joint Director CRRI Dr JK Roy and rice conservationist Natabar Sarangi inaugurated the workshop. NIRMAN executive director Prasant Mohanty said over 60,000 distinct rice seed varieties have been collected by Indian agricultural research centres. He raised concern for the promotion of hybrid rice variety when traditional variety has the high yielding potentials.
Sarangi shared his experience of cultivation of rice in organic way and conservation of rice diversity by his farm field. He emphasized that organic farming and cultivation of indigenous rice is the only solution to save farmers, consumers, water and environment.
Syed Ghani Khan of Karnataka shared his experience of conservation of 250 varieties of rice in his own farm and was awarded as a farmer breeder for developing new variety.
Rice scientist Dr Jafran Keshari Roy said it is the wisdom of our farmers for which today the traditional rice diversity is existing. Debalu from Sanjeevani, Araku Valley, Andhra Pradesh too shared his experience.
Gopalan informed that he has made efforts to get several traditional varieties of rice registered by Protection of Plant Variety and Farmer’s Right Authority (PPV & FRA), New Delhi. Krishna Prasad, Director of Bangalore-based Sahaj Samruddh promoting organic farming and conservation of local variety shared how the organisation successfully created model for marketing of organic rice variety.
The workshop came up with a follow-up plan of organising an Organic Mela in Bhubaneswar to provide platform for organic farmers to sell their produce in next two to three months.