Community Agro-biodiversity Conservation Awards 2024

Mr. Prakasan Koloor

Mr. Prakasan Koloor and his family belong to the Mullukuruma community, one of the settled tribal agricultural communities. They cultivate and conserve a rich diversity of crops, livestock, and allied biodiversity on their farm. Their farm serves as an ideal model of integrated and mixed farming, demonstrating high resilience to price volatility and extreme weather events. The family cultivates 4 varieties of rice, 5 varieties of tubers, and 15 varieties of vegetables, along with native livestock and chicks. Mr. Prakasan and his family are an inspiration to the younger generation seeking to build sustainable livelihoods in the agriculture sector.

Mr. Babu Kundaramoola

Mr. Babu Kundaramoola belongs to the Kurichia community, one of the settled tribal agricultural communities of Wayanad. He is the head of the Kundaramoola joint family, under whose leadership 20 nuclear families jointly cultivate and conserve 19 acres of land, including 6 acres of wetland. The family cultivates 2 traditional varieties of paddy, 20 types of vegetables, 5 tubers, 9 medicinal plants, and maintains livestock. The Kundaramoola family’s sacred grove is home to numerous rare, endemic, and threatened plant species of the Western Ghats, reflecting their strong commitment to biodiversity conservation.

Mr. Subramanian Mattapara

Mr. Subramanian Mattapara and his family belong to the Ooralikuruma community and reside in Mattapara, a rocky hill-surrounded village in Ambalavayal Panchayat. He cultivates 5 varieties of bananas and 5 varieties of tubers, and maintains a rich diversity of native fruit species. In addition to his own 1 acre of cultivable land, he has taken 2 more acres on lease to cultivate various crops, demonstrating his strong commitment to agriculture and agrobiodiversity conservation.