Sexagenarian farmer MV Prakash Rao from Manchale village in Sagar taluk of Shivamogga district has been awarded plant genome saviour award for his work in conserving endangered medicinal plants.
The 65-year-old Prakash has conserved more than 200 medicinal plants in his small tract of land. Plant Genome savior award, is instituted by the Union ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.
He divided his agricultural land into different plots and reserved a plot for a medicinal plant where he developed a nursery. He has grown hundreds of tubers and creepers naturally. Prakash used the multi-crop method to replicate Western Ghats forest.
Amruth Balli, Shatavari, Shanka Pushpa, Ondelaga, Hippali, Chavya, Ganape, Agnishike, Jaali are popular among them. He has been actively working from the past four decades propagating the multi tier and multi crop agro forestry model.
Experts identified nearly 3,000 medicinal plants in Western Ghats forests, particularly Malnad region. Most of them were on the verge of extinction. I have tried to cultivate some of them in my land. Thirty varieties are now available in my nursery and 200 varieties are preserved in the farm, which I need to graft and develop. As we are living in the forest, it helped in my experiment, Prakash told team Rainland. Many agriculturists have visited my farm and were inspired. I am personally proud about my research on forest turmeric varieties. I have identified four such turmeric from Western Ghats, Prakash explained.
Dr Ullasa MY, the assistant professor at the Keladi Shivappa Nayaka University of Agriculture and Horticulture sciences, who helped Prakash prepare the report to submit an entry for the award, said the progressive farmer has conserved nearly 200 varieties of medicinal plants. He developed 30 endangered species which are of commercial value. He grows it using a natural farming method, he stated.
