Stories of Agripreneur

In this series, we will share with you stories of successful agripreneurs who have achieved a new milestone in the field of agriculture through their start-ups.
Here we will know about their beginning, their new thinking, their working methods or in other words, about their start-ups. By reading their stories, you may get an idea for your own start-up.
So let's read the first story of this series...
Editor- The Better Farming

Mr. Sahilendra Awasthi
(Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh)

SRI brings Miracle in Paddy

Mr. Shailendra Awasthi is a young agripreneur in Asmanapur village, located remotely in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh state. He has grown an astonishing 125 quintals of rice on one hectare of land by using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and is leading a silent agricultural revolution in the area. Mr. Awasthi was trained under the Agri-Clinics and Agri-Business Centres Scheme from SMGGS-Varanasi and started consultancy in agriculture. During training he became conversant with SRI technique for paddy cultivation. Instead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings, Awasthi started planting young seedlings (10-15 days old) by maintaining a distance at 25-cm intervals in a grid pattern. In the first trial, Awasthi got a yield of 120 quintals/hectare. The surrounding farmers visited Awasthi’s field and were astonished seeing the boost in yield. In the second season, when the crop was in harvesting stage, the District Collector of Bahraich visited the plot and in his presence harvesting and weighing was done. The crop produced weighed 125 quintals/hectare. The District collector honoured Mr. Awasthi with Rs.10000. The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh invited Mr. Awasthi and honoured him on Kisan Sanman Diwas. Promoting innovative/progressive farmers across India, Global Agriculture Summit-2013 was organised by the Narendra Modi government at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, to felicitate progressive farmers. The target of the programme was to felicitate at least one farmer from each of the 671 districts in India. Teams of officials were dispatched to each and every state in India to select a farmer from each district. Recognising the production of bumper yield through SRI technique Mr. Awasthi from Bahraich district was invited to the Summit at Gandhinagar. Prime Minister Modi honoured him with an award of Rs. 51000/- a memento and a certificate.