Gauri Sarin visited Chattisgarh to understand the ground realities. Here's her report:
Thoughts on my visit to Chattisgarh
- I visited the Agriculture Institute in Raipur and met several agripreneurs who are playing a marvellous role in agriculture in Chattisgarh.
- While there were a lot of challenges, there were some positives. Women entrepreneurs like Namrataji, the “Mushroom Queen”, Shaliniji who is converting forest produce into marketable medicines and many others.
- It was disheartening to see that the 30,000 varieties of rice that Chattisgarh has are slowly disappearing. Maintaining this rich variety and marketing them needs to be done.
- The government policies while being supportive have resulted in the farmer being disengaged from further growth of the ecosystem; alcoholism is rampant and the huge amount of subsidies are not helping the agriculture sector. Chattisgarh’spotential as India’s rice bowl remains untapped.
- I stayed in a village near Bilaspur and did the Art of Living natural farming course.
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