While talking about his mission of conventional seed conservation, at a meeting in Sambalpur on Sunday he said, "Through my 15 years experience I have developed several species of indigenous seeds that are giving high yielding in all weather conditions. Farmers do not have to run after chemical fertilizers and pesticides as the indigenous seeds grow well with conventional fertilizers like cow-dung and manure".
Organized jointly by the Sambalpur Krusak Surakhya Samiti and Water Initiative Orissa, the programme was meant to create awareness among the farmers about the importance of the indigenous seeds. According to Raghuvanshi, farmers of Maharashtra, UP and Haryana and Punjab are already getting the benefit of using his seeds. "When yielding will be high at less cost of production, number of farmer-suicide cases will come down drastically," he said.
Saroj Mohanty, farmer leader of Sambalpur said, "The time has come to adopt the indigenous seeds that do not need chemical fertilizers which make the soil hard."
"We have decided to create awareness among the farmers against the use of seeds prepared by the MNCs," said Lingaraj, eminent farmer-leader.