SABARAMATEE
SOCIAL WORKER
“Women are strong, bold and patient at the same time”- is her simple sentence, while receiving The Nari Shakti Award, India’s highest civilian honour for women. Her message is very loud and clear just like her determination. Her father a professor of economics, was deeply passionate about agriculture, in adopting sustainable and organic practices was the first person to explain her about the need of conservation of land. That inspired her to become a conservationist and farmer.
Despite strong disagreements by the experts, she along with her father, with strong determination, transformed the barren lands of Nayagarh District of Odisha into a lush green forest. Their continuous and relentless efforts brought a massive change in the lives of thousands of farmers in the area. They spread the message of sustainable organic farming and educated the locals.
Sabarmatee, popularly known as Tiki Apa, has contributed to experiment, practice, and promote organic farming and bio diversity conservation. Sabaramatee and her team restored 90 acres of wasteland and converted it into a ‘food forest’. She later realised that globally around a billion people are engaged in rice farming and around half of them are women. So she adopted a technology to make it easier for women to work in farm lands. Now her organization has been successful in conserving and producing 452 indigenous varieties of rice.
Starting from a small patch of land, their journey to make green agricultural lands is still going on with the same enthusiasm as it was 30 years back. This father – daughter duo’s hard work, dedicated efforts for the ecological restoration work won them the most prestigious award – Padma Shri.
Sabarmatee, with the help of her dedicated work for conservation of land, and empowering the rural women engaged with rice cultivation, has changed the age old beliefs and practices of rice farming and the journey continues.
VARINDIA is proudly conferring this influential lady with the Crown Jewels of Odisha honour.
