Father-daughter duo from Odisha awarded Padma Shri

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Jan 25, 2020 at 8:14 PM Updated On : Jan 25, 2020 at 8:54 PM

Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the 71st Republic Day, the Central Government today announced the names of Padma Shri awardees this year. Professor Radha Mohan and daughter Sabarmatee of Nayagarh district were among the awardees.

Radha Mohan, a retired Economics Professor, and daughter Sabarmatee, a conservationist, were awarded Padma Shri in the field of Agriculture for their work in organic farming.

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The father-daughter duo started Sambhav, a resource centre for farmers across the country. Sambhav has successfully grown many vanishing food crops such as clove bean, jack bean, black rice and sword bean etc.

This apart, Radha Mohan and Sabarmatee transformed 36 hectares of degraded land in Nayagarh district into a food forest by soil and water conservation techniques. The forest has over 1,000 species of plants and 500 varieties of rice and supports a seed bank with 700 indigenous varieties of seeds.

They also run ‘Adopt a Seed’ initiative to give region specific seed varieties to farmers for free.