Saving what was slipping away
Sathyanarayana Beleri’s work saves a kind of biodiversity that could have quietly vanished under the pressure of modern farming. He was born on 15 June 1973 and comes from the Nettanige area of Kasaragod. His official Padma citation calls him a farmer-turned-paddy conservator.
His collection includes pre-Independence landraces from Kerala and Karnataka, medicinal rice varieties, and many local seed lines.
One meeting, one seed
A single meeting changed his direction. After meeting Cherkady Ramachandra Rao, a Gandhian organic farmer from Udupi, he began conserving with one seed: Rajakayama rice. Then he travelled across Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu collecting traditional varieties.
Slowly the hobby became a mission, and the collection passed 650 paddy cultivars.
Rice in bags
His land was undulating laterite, not suited to ordinary paddy plots. So he adopted a polybag method, growing, harvesting, drying and storing each variety in a small space. According to his citation, he conserved 650 landraces in about 200 square metres.
He shares the seed free with research institutes, agricultural universities and farmers. That is what sets his work apart: the conservation does not stay locked in a museum; it goes back to the fields. He also keeps knowledge of arecanut, nutmeg, pepper, jackfruit, bee-keeping and grafting.
Sources
- Padma Awards 2024: official citation
- President of India: Padma Awards 2024 citations
- Interview on rice conservation
- padmaawards.gov.in/Document/pdf/CitationsForTickets/2024/202434.pdf
- presidentofindia.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-05/padma_awardees_citation_compressed.pdf
- youtube.com/watch?v=r1tj5wcOgso