Sabarmatee along with her father (Late)Prof Radhamohan is credited for transforming a degraded piece of land into a vast “food forest” using only organic techniques in the Nayagarh district, Odisha. The land had no topsoil left to sustain farming and most locals believed that it was impossible to grow anything there. But the duo made it possible by reviving the land using soil and water conservation methods.
Today, that land houses over 1,000 species of plants, three rainwater harvesting ponds, yields more than 100 varieties of vegetables and more than 50 varieties of fruits. They turned a lifeless land into a habitat for plants, insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and other animals.
The father-daughter duo co-founded Sambhav, which means “possible” in Sanskrit, Hindi, and several Indian languages, is a resource center for farmers all over India where they can come to exchange seeds and learn organic farming. The nonprofit has successfully grown vanishing crops like clove bean, jack bean, black rice, sword bean, and more.
Sambhav is committed to address environmental and gender issues in Odisha. Gender issues include supporting community action, providing information, technical support to women and children in distress and prevent child marriages. It has made a deep impact in the fields of woman empowerment, forest conservation, water and sanitation, food, nutrition, energy and technology issues.
Popularly known as ‘Tiki apa’, she, along with her dedicated small team, has played a pivotal role in pioneering, implementing, and advocating for organic farming and the preservation of biodiversity in Odisha.
Sambhav conserves and grows more than 500 indigenous paddy varieties using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technique which maximises yields, uses less water, and according to Tiki makes the labour process easier for women working in the paddy fields. Many of these seeds are hardy varieties adapted to harsh climatic conditions like drought or flooding. When Odisha was hit by cyclonic storms in 2013 and 2014, 34 varieties of paddy managed to withstand the damage.
She started ‘Adopt a Seed’ and ‘Buy Food and not Disease’ initiatives to involve the local community in saving indigenous seeds and adopting organic methods of farming. “Adopt a Seed” initiative provides region-specific seed varieties to farmers for free, with the added caveat that they conserve, protect, propagate and popularize them.
Anyone can be a seed-savior, Sabarmatee says. “Whether you live on the fourteenth floor in an urban apartment or in a remote tribal area, you can adopt a seed of your interest: It could be a seed or even a breed. If 1,000 people adopt 1,000 varieties, then 1,000 varieties can be conserved.”
In 2018, Sabarmatee was honored with the Nari Shakti Award, India's highest civilian award for women, by the President of India for her work. In 2020, she was conferred the Padma Shri alongside her father, India’s fourth-highest civilian award, in recognition of their decades long promotion of conservation and organic farming.