Dr. Narayan Chawda
Founder Breeder, Chairman & Mentor
A strong votary of Sustainable Agriculture and Balanced Farming, Krishi Pandit Shri Narayan Chawda, with more than 50 years of experience of growing crops in all 3 segments namely, Vegetable, Cereal and Fruits successfully transformed his passion into plant breeding. Narayan bhai is one of the foremost researcher in the field of sustainable agriculture. Following the footsteps of his father, he started off as a farmer and now is the founder breeder of an organization that has pioneered into researching and developing several advanced and hybrid variety of seeds. His dedication and curiosity towards releasing advance and better variety of seeds and in return help the farmers secure their future, makes him a visionary par excellence. Being a farmer himself, he understood the challenges and difficulties faced by a farmer and focused his attention and efforts towards the welfare of farmers.
From the beginning of time
Born in a small village Simga of Chhattisgarh to a modest family, it was Narayan bhai’s interest in farming, that made him enrol at Allahabad Agricultural Institute in Uttar Pradesh. The first graduated farmer in his family, then popularly known as “degreewala kisan” he joined his father on the fields in 1964 and later, set up his independent farming venture in Gomchi. Narayan bhai has always been a farmer with progressive mindset. It was during this period that he decided to bring technology to agriculture field so as to actualize the knowledge of academia and apply it to practical farming. Narayan bhai is a firm believer of the idea of balanced farming, where both organic manure and inorganic fertilizer are used in predefined proportions. Being an early adapter and exploratory farmer, he practiced and achieved successes in concepts like seed plot technique in potato cultivation and crop rotation in vegetables and field crops. With an aim of tackling the constant problem of poor quality and mixed variety seeds which were being purchased back then, he decided to solve this problem through selection and then multiplication of the best identified seeds from his fields.
Crossing borders to quench the knowledge thirst
With the intention to gain an understanding of the varied and latest technology used world over, Narayan bhai started travelling beyond the boundaries of a typical farmer. Any country that was offering him an alternative scientific concept or innovative style of farming, Narayan bhai, wished to visit. He set foot in Japan in 1970 to study improved paddy cultivation, which he successfully replicated in his own fields. It was for this very reason among many others that lead him to prove his mantle and induce him to participate in All India Paddy crop competition. Narayan bhai cultivated an unbelievable 119 quintals of grains against variety potential of 80 tonnes per hectare, he came first in the competition and was honoured by then, deputy prime minister Babu Jagjivan Ram with the title of ‘Krishi Pandit’ in 1976-77. As a part of his study tours, he visited many countries with different objectives, like Israel in 1990 to study Drip Irrigation System and Green House Technology and South Africa in 2009 to learn and study micro-propagation techniques in Guava. From among the innumerable conferences that Narayan bhai attended as delegate across the globe, later due to his vast achievements in agricultural research, he is being invited to present research papers – one such is a paper presentation at the International Symposium of Vegetable Grafting in 2011 in Viterbo, Italy.
One seed at a time
After traveling around the world, gaining knowledge and implementing the know-hows, Narayan Chawda started working towards making the situation back home better. Using the knowledge, he had gathered he was able to concentrate on research and after five years of breeding effort, Narayan Chawda developed Sem, a variety of bean that were thermo and photo insensitive and hence was grown across the seasons. The variety was named as Gomchi Green. This was a big breakthrough and established his interest in breeding. Following the success of Sem, Narayan Chawda started developing several new and high yielding varieties of vegetables. When his son joined him he shifted all of his focus from farming towards plant breeding research and as a result, a wide range of F1 hybrids in different vegetable crops were developed. A number of varieties were released in crop segments like brinjal, chilli, gourds etc. Narayan Chawda developed several varieties out of which Chilli-F1 VNR-332 (Rani), Brinjal VNR-51 (Khushi) heat resistant, Brinjal F1 VNR-218 wilt resistant got identified and notified by the All India Co-ordinated Research Project (AICRP). Staying true to his position of being a researcher and innovator as far as better yield, high quality and taste are concerned, Narayan Chawda, developed the biggest guava of India—VNR-Bihi after decades of research with an objective of achieving good keeping quality, small seed cavity, juicy and balanced sweet taste. This variety is a front runner and most popular innovation in the Guava fruit segment.
Feathers in his cap
Narayan Chawda has been part of agriculture societies which were instrumental in working for the benefits of farmer community – he has been the founder president of Naveen Beej Utpadak Sahkari Samiti Maryadit at Raipur.
Narayan Chawda has earned many laurels, awards and recognition in the field of agriculture. Due to his immense contribution at regional and national level, Pt. Ravi Shankar Shukla University, Raipur (C.G.) awarded Narayan Chawda with D.Sc. (Honoris causa) “Doctor of Science’ in 2007.
In 2015, Dr. Narayan Chawda was awarded with Agriculture Leadership award for High Tech Horticulture by Union home minister Shri Rajnath Singh at New Delhi.
In 2016, Dr. Narayan Chawda was conferred with prestigious “Honorary Fellowship” of Horticultural Society of India by Shri. S.S. Ahluwalia, Hon’ble Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers welfare at IARI, Pusa Campus, New Delhi during 7th Indian Horticultural Congress.
In 2017, Fellowship conferred by Indian Society of Vegetable Science.
Fellowship of International Society to Noni Sciences.
Dr. Narayan Chawda has received many awards and some of them have been mentioned above.
Spreading the knowledge
Following the massive success that Dr. Narayan Chawda garnered because of his dedication to the field of agriculture, he continued to be the modest and humble person, as he was when he graduated from college. He wrote articles on paddy, potato, vegetable cultivation, vegetable grafting and balanced farming practices, and would often also be a part of the All India Radio and Doordarshan Krishi darshan programs to share his abundant knowledge with fellow farmers.
A book that details out Narayan Chawda’s journey as a farmer who struggled to gain knowledge, implement scientific principles and one who adapted latest technology in agriculture to build a legacy for future generations of farmers to follow. The biography, “Pragatisheel Krishi ke Swarnakshar—Dr. Narayan Chawda” by Rajeev Ranjan Prasad, is a rare sight as there are not many books listing out the struggles, achievements or life of a farmer like this one does.
Working towards imparting as much as he could about his research and breeding, he also delivers lectures on several topics of current advancement in agriculture. Some of these lectures are on topics such as Vegetable-grafting delivered at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, at the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru, and at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU), Coimbatore etc.