Midas of the Farmland

Midas of the Farmland

- Rahul Noronha

It was a desire to do socially useful, env­ironmentally sustainable work that made Akash Badave quit his job as a banker in Pune and come to Dantewada. Today, he works with more than 10,000 farmers—mostly tribals—helping them access markets for their produce while nurturing traditional agriculture. In 2011­12, he had applied for the Pradhan Mantri Rural Development Fellows (PMRDF) programme, asking to be assigned to Dantewada. Soon after, he realised that farmers needed to be organised and that traditional varieties of crops needed to be preserved. “Dantewada is home to more than 150 varieties of rice, whose crop cycles range from 60 days to six months,” he says. He encoura