In a fast-moving world where cooking is often deemed cumbersome, ‘ready-to-eat’ food items are the way to go. Along similar lines, a farmer from Telangana is cultivating magic rice, which only needs to be soaked in hot or cold water before it’s ready to be eaten.
“I come from an agricultural family, and soil is my first mother,” Srikanth Garampally (38), who hails from Karimnagar district, tells The Better India.
Srikanth has been a farmer for 30 years. “Apart from magic rice, I also have a collection of 120 rice varieties, including navara, mappillai samba and kuska,” he says. Besides, he also cultivates 60 varieties of paddy and organic vegetables on his 12-acre land, which he has taken on lease.
A quick trip to Assam
Srikanth’s tryst with magic rice began two years ago, during a temple visit in Orissa. “There, I met a person who was standing with me in the queue to collect prasad. We struck up a conversation, and I introduced myself as a farmer. When I told…