PATNA: A 35-year-old cultivator of cauliflower has won the prestigious National Grassroots Innovation Award. He is the first person from Bihar to win the award.
Sanjiv Kumar, who matriculated from a government school in Chakwara, has developed a special variety of high-yield cauliflower seed named as the Sanjiv-Selection (SS) after years of in-field experiments at his village.
The National Grassroots Innovation Award was conferred upon him by President of India, Ram Nath Kovind in Gujarat on March 15 for his extraordinary works in the fields of cultivating seeds for cauliflower, without any kind of formal education in the concerned field.
Kumar has been motivating the farmers of Chakwara village in Vaishali district since 2005. He set up the Andata Kissan Club in a room of his thatched house that year.
He took the villagers to fields and motivated them to start seed cultivations in order to improve their economic condition.
“Initially, many of my villagers did not take me seriously, but when some them succeeded in cultivating cauliflower seed and got good prices from traders, all other villagers joined me in it,” Kumar said.
Kumar added that between 2005 and 2018, around 100 farmers have produced cauliflower seed in bulk quantity and supplied to other states such as Punjab, Haryana, UP, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states including the J&K.
“Now, Chakwara with a population of 1,000 farmers has everything of comfort available in the houses of each farmers just because of earning made through seed cultivations,” Kumar said.
Impressed by the success stories of Kumar and his villagers, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had made a visit to this village and met all farmers including Sanjiv Kumar in 2010. Kumar had served the CM a special dish made of cauliflower, called-Fulgobhi ka Halwa (porridge of Cauliflower) and he had tasted it with officials.