Padma Shri award to farmers
Out of twelve awardees, 4 are farmers who used traditional methods of farming to bring change.
- Kamala Pujari got for conserving hundreds of local varieties of paddy and promotes organic farming.
- Rajkumari Devi has been popular for her expertise in assessing soil quality to ensure a successful harvest. She is popularly known as ‘Kisan Chachi’ and hails from the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.
- Babulal Dahiyaa, a farmer from Madhya Pradesh’s Pithaurabad village and one of the awardees, has been growing 110 traditional varieties of crops within two acres of land.
- Hukumchand Patidar from Rajasthan is a farmer who has been practicing organic farming on a 40-acre piece of land. His produce is exported to over seven countries.
- Venkateswara Rao Yadlapalli, who has been awarded for using technology mixed with other farming methods, has developed an app called Rythunestham.
- Ram Sharan Verma, who has been awarded a Padma Shri for introducing ‘hi-tech agriculture’ in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district.
- Bharat Bhushan Tyagi from Uttar Pradesh has also been awarded a Padma Shri under the same category.
- Vallabhbhai Vasrambhai Marvaniya, who was reportedly the first person to sell carrots in Gujarat in 1943, when he was just 13 years old. He later found a variety, known as the madhuvangajar, which he started cultivating in 1985.
- Kanwal Singh Chauhan from Haryana was awarded for innovation in baby corn and mushroom.
- Jagdish Prasad Parikh was awarded for growing jumbo variety of cauliflowers.
Under the animal husbandry sector, Sultan Singh and Narendra Singh hailing from Haryana state were awarded for their work in fisheries and dairy breeding respectively.