Promoted organic farming all her life, Padma Shri Kamala Pujari dies at 76

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi and Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik, during whose tenure Pujari was nominated as the state planning board’s member, expressed their condolences.

“Pained by the passing away of Smt. Kamala Pujari Ji. She made a monumental contribution to agriculture, particularly boosting organic agricultural practices and protecting indigenous seeds. Her work in enriching sustainability and protecting biodiversity will be remembered for years. She was also a beacon in empowering the tribal communities. Condolences to her family and admirers. Om Shanti,” Modi said in a post on X.

Majhi spoke to Pujari’s son over the phone. The state government announced her funeral will be held with full state honours.

Born to a poor tribal family, Pujari held a fascination for traditional paddy varieties. She had been a leader in the participatory research programme started by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Koraput in 1994, which led to breeding of the high yielding and high-quality rice variety, ‘Kalajeera’. She has preserved rare varieties of paddy like ‘Tili’, ‘Machakanta’, ‘Ghnatia’ and ‘Phula’.  Pujari also motivated hundreds of tribal women in her locality to shun chemical fertilisers in farming. Due to her efforts, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared Koraput a globally important agriculture heritage site (GIAHS) in 2012.

Koraput was also selected by the UN for the Equator Initiative Award, which was presented to Pujari during the Earth Summit held at Johannesburg in South Africa in 2002. For her contribution to agriculture, she received the prestigious Padma Shri award in 2019 from then President Ram Nath Kovind. The Odisha government had honoured her with Best Woman Farmers award in 2004, while a girls’ hostel of Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology was named after her.