From Nursing Patients To Nurturing Crops, Pathar Kanya Nabanita Das' Incredible Journey As An 'Agripreneur'
Working as a nurse at the Jorhat Medical College and Civil Hospital, Assam, Nabanita felt something amiss in her life till she took to agriculture
Published : May 5, 2025 at 12:23 PM IST
Jorhat: The call of the greens was too tempting for Nabanita Das to resist. Just one training programme on Horticultural crops she attended in 2014 organised by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Assam changed her course of life. A nurse by qualification and profession, Nabanita chose to traverse a road much diverse than the one she had first opted for.
With a zeal to do something different that would make her self-reliant, Nabanita from Patia Village, left a well-paying job of a nurse at the Jorhat Medical College and Civil Hospital and took a plunge into the agriculture fields she owned. Usually a male-dominated arena, where women mostly work as farm helps, Nabanita led an agriculture revolution where she dirtied her hands in all stages of farming - from plowing to sowing, choosing crops and fertiliser and harvesting to marketing.
It took her a decade or more to be recognised as a successful agriculture entrepreneur. "It was not an easy a call to leave a full fledged government job and get into agriculture. But I was always keen on being self-sufficient and also wanted to create job opportunities for other. I had one option which would not need anything more than my hard work and dedication and that was farming. In 2010, I got into agriculture and started with a mere Rs 5,000. But with my team of fellow farmers, today I earn a profit of lakhs of rupees annually. So here I am," explains a smiling Nabanita standing in the midst of a bumper pumpkin harvest from her fields.
Today, markets in Assam are selling vegetables and paddy from Nabanita's fields. For her success, she earned the title of 'Pathar Kanya' which means daughter of the paddy field.
When she started 'Nabanita Organic Farm' her focus was to use everything natural in the fields. "Fertilisers with heavy doses of urea and other chemicals affect crops and also health of people who consume it. So my priority was to grow crops that did not use anything chemical. The crops had to be purely natural. We also converted the water hyacinth into fertilizer," she emphasises.
She is cultivating various improved varieties of paddy including joha and black rice, chilies, bottle gourd, pumpkin and seasonal crops on over 63 bighas of agricultural land. "On 42 bighas of land in the Nimati area of Jorhat, Chilli and capsicum are being cultivated, while on four bighas, cucumber, bottle gourd, and ash gourd are planted. Several other crops are also being cultivated over 3.30 bighas of land and seasonal agro products like pumpkins grown on 8 bighas of land," she informs.
Nabanita has also been involved in fisheries and animal husbandry parallelly. She has a large pond covering 5 bighas of land next to her house where various species of fish are grown and subsequently sold in the market. "Fisheries and aquaculture I started two years back. We made concrete tanks and focused on the indigenous species like Channa punctata, walking catfish and Heteropneustes fossilis," she adds.
She nurtures ducks, different breeds of chickens, goats, cows etc and is also benefiting immensely.
"I am planning to export pumpkins to Vietnam and already in talks with the state agriculture department. I have sent black rice, joha rice produced in my agricultural fields to Delhi and Mumbai and King chili (bhot jolokia) to Bangalore.”
Her relentless work in agriculture and animal husbandry have earned her accolades and appreciation from various quarters. She was awarded by the Vice-President of India, 2018 at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat for her outstanding contribution to agriculture. Among other awards she has received are Innovative Rice Farmer Award by Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Patna in 2018 and Progressive women farmer award in New Delhi on the occasion of Mahila Kisan Diwas 2018. She has been felicitated by the Governor and Chief Minister on various occasions.
Nabanita also got an opportunity to visit Vietnam to know about innovative cultivation practices along with other progressive farmers of the state, sponsored by Government of Assam in 2019.
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