Global agriculture firm Corteva Agriscience is slowly making inroads to push its hybrid paddy seeds and other products in Bihar and Jharkhand, where it has trained about 90,000 women pravaktas or village leaders on growing hybrids along with agronomic practices and post-transplantation care.
These rural women were growing inbred rice, a self-pollinated home-grown rice, in a traditional way. Now, they are trained to grow hybrid seeds even by using the Direct Seed Rice (DSR) technique.
Now, they have become ambassadors of early adopters of the new technology and advocating the same in their villages to have a multiplier effect, thereby creating demand and market for hybrid seeds and crop protection products.