Nabanita Das
Nabanita Das receiving award from Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Monday in New Delhi. Image - Twitter (Mowsom Hazarika)

On the occasion of Women Farmers’ Day on Monday, two progressive women farmers from Assam – Jorhat’s Nabanita Das and Goalpara’s Deepika Rabha – were awarded in New Delhi.

The women farmers from Assam along with several other women farmers across the country were awarded during a function at Pusa in New Delhi by the Government of India.

The award was handed over to the farmers by Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.

October 15 is also observed as the International Day of Rural Women by the United Nations, and the day was declared as National Women’s Farmer’s Day (Rashtriya Mahila Kisan Diwas) in India in 2016.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare decided to acknowledge the role of women at every stage in agriculture and their contribution to the food basket. Women contribute nearly 60 to 80 per cent of the food and 80 per cent in dairy.

Nabanita Das, who is a nurse by profession, left her job to take up farming as she was inspired by the growing of fruits and vegetables at Elengmora, where one of my sisters is married.

From No 2 Charigaon Chapori, a sand bank of the river Brahmaputra located near Borsolla Beel to her six bigha organic farm at Potia Gaon near the Brahmaputra, Nabanita’s has toiled to make the paddy field a fertile ground for growing all kinds of vegetables, flowers and now even black rice.

Nabanita’s produce is totally organic. She fends of pests with mixtures of neem and other shrubs as well as variations of Trichoderma.

In 2016, the Indian Council of Agriculture and Research (ICAR) presented her the Best Farmer Award at the Assam Agricultural University and this year on February 22, ICAR, Patna awarded her again after she was selected by the University along with 10 other progressive farmers of the region.

On Republic Day, she had been jointly feted by the Paradise Group and Small tea Growers Association here.
In May she and a few other progressive farmers were taken to Vietnam by the State government for an interaction with agriculturists of that country.

Smita Bhattacharyya is Northeast Now Correspondent in Jorhat. She can be reached at: [email protected]