About the Practice
Problem Statement:

Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi (60) is a small landholding farmer owning three and a half acres of agricultural land on which he cultivates wheat, paddy and pigeon pea. His village had no improved varieties and all farmers were dependent on costly hybrid seeds. In 1995, he started his efforts for the development of plant varieties for paddy, wheat, pigeon pea and mustard. Initially, he failed many times but he did not stop trying. Later Raghuvanshi borrowed money from banks & friends to carry out his experiments and started 'Beej Daan Mahadaan' campaign for distribution of indigenous seeds free of cost to the needful farmers. He struggled a lot but tasted success after he developed an improved paddy variety Kudart-5.

Detail:

Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi is a serial innovator who has developed several high-yielding plant varieties including Kudrat-5, an improved variety of paddy developed by using the recurrent selection method. The Kudrat-5 seeds are accessible, affordable and easily available. He is known for numerous varieties of wheat, paddy and pigeon pea. His contribution and work in improving crop varieties have been widely acknowledged. In 2007, he was awarded by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF). He also received the "Plant Genome Savior Recognition Certificate” from PPV&FRA for the year 2010-11. More recently, he received the 'Lifetime Achievement Award’ conferred to him by the NIF at the 10th National Grassroots Innovation and Traditional Knowledge Awards’. Prakash Singh has received financial and technical support from the NIF to promote improved crop varieties and develop a sustainable business model. His work was recognized by Aarti Seeds and Research Agritech Pvt. Ltd., a private company based in India, who went on to produce and market three of his Kudrat varieties in the states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, on a mutually agreed license fee on a non-exclusive basis. He has also received encouraging feedback from farmers in 15 states in the country. His seed varieties, Kudrat-5 paddy, Kudrat-1 paddy, Kudrat-9, 17 wheat,Kudrat-3 pigeon pea, and Kudrat Geeta mustard have shown promising results in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, and Jharkhand. As on date, morethanonelakh farmers across India are believed to have benefited from these improved varieties. He began developing high-yielding improved varieties of paddy, wheat, pigeon pea and mustard in 1995. He also launched the 'Beej Daan Mahadaan' initiative for distributing local improved seeds free of cost to farmers across the country. Currently, he is focused upon conserving over100 varieties of crops such as paddy, wheat, mustard, pigeon pea, green gram, and bottle-gourd.


About the Innovator

Knowledge Provider / Innovator: Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi
Address: Tandia, Po Jakhini, Varanasi
City: Varanasi
State: Uttar Pradesh
PIN Code 221305
Email: kudaratraghuvanshi@hotmail.com.
Contact No: 964885672.0

Practice Details

Link: It can cover three ft width of 10 - 15 cm thick bed of paddy or oil seeds consuming 0.5 liter of fuel per hour. The same machine can also be used for spreading oil seeds, millets, coriander, etc., which need to be spread for sun drying.
Manufacturing Capacity: b) Design Support, d) Licensing, e) Franchising
Photo Links:

Problem Scale: 1) India
Blog Link 5:


GIAN Reference: GIAN/UAL/144
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