Agripreneur helps revolutionise farming in North East

In an attempt to revolutionise farming in the northeast, Samir Bordoloi, a graduate from Assam Agricultural University is teaching budding farmers and small entrepreneurs some innovative farming and food techniques.

Bordoloi, who holds a mission to promote organic farming, believes that the region has the potential to make its farmers "Independent self-sustaining entities"

He runs a Society for Promotion of Rural Economy & Agricultural Products (SPREAD) in the northeastern states with an aim to get local people to eat local food from local resources.

The agripreneur said, "I started this journey studying in agri-clinic in Jorhat. I got a government job as an agricultural extension officer, after which I worked in the corporate like TATA's. Finally, I thought I should start something for our farmers where I can directly connect to them and not just give them inputs"

Bordoloi has been holding three-day camps up on a hill in Sonapur. This camp is called Farm Learning Centre that gives youngsters hands-on training in organic farming. This is one of the six model organic farms created by him that consists of a fishery and food forest.

"We have started an ecological farm learning centre in Sonapur where we bring youths from different parts of the north-east and train them as green commandos. If you can see the classroom backside we have all the tents where they come and stay," he said.

Apart from this, he has centres in Jorhat and Tinsukia in Assam, Dimapur and Jaluki in Nagaland and Imphal in Manipur.

Ittisha Sarah, a green commando said, "We learnt to manage organic waste, composting and ecological farming. Then I started taking this concept to our urban spaces where I tried to link it with rooftop gardening and urban waste management. Moreover, we also realized that we are eating unhealthy food."

Bordoloi later went on to implement these programme in many Government schools of Assam through NGOs like Dhriti and Farm Food 2 Foundation with the support from the Assam Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. He has also created farmer cooperatives and adopted schools to help the farming community in the region.

Bordoloi won the 'Aagripreneur of the country' award in 2017 conferred by MANAGE Hyderabad and the Government of India.

He is presently working in all the states of Northeast India and other states like Karnataka and Rajasthan with more than 5000 farmers. He has more than 1500 green commandos which mostly includes women.