Bhubaneswar: An agro-processor and model farmer from Odisha, Jayanti Pradhan, was conferred with the ‘Women Transforming India’ (WTI) Award in New Delhi on Sunday.
She received the award from Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Jayanti’s Gopal Biotech Agro Farm, after her father, in Bargarh district deals with preparing, packaging and marketing value-added mushroom products such as mushroom pickles, nuggets, papad and dehydrated mushroom powder.
A graduate in Botany, she has also set up a lab to breed seedlings to sell to other farmers across India. Her farm has also expanded to breed goats and honeybees, as well as developing organic fertilizer from goat waste and the earth worms that populate her mushroom farm, and which she distributes free to poor farmers.
Jyoti has also been educating women in her community and equipping them with the tools and knowledge of mushroom farming to enable them to become financially independent.
WTI Awards are NITI Aayog’s initiative to recognise women entrepreneurs who are challenging the status quo and breaking stereotypes through businesses and enterprises that are providing innovative developmental solutions to build a dynamic New India. This was the fifth edition of WTI Awards.
