She has worked for the preservation of hundreds of native varieties and the encouragement of farmers to grow traditional crops. She has also made it a life goal to raise awareness about organic farming, agro-biodiversity, and wild food resources.
Popere is a 52-year-old tribal farmer from the Mahadeo Koli Tribal community of Komblne village in the Akole tribal block of Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. Due to poverty, she was unable to attend school and began supporting her family via agricultural work in agro labour and cow rearing when she was 10 years old. At the age of 17, she married Soma Popere, who was also uneducated.
Agriculture provided a living for the entire family. Despite her lack of formal education, she learned about agro biodiversity, wild food resources, and traditional culture via practise and experience.
She became an expert in the SRI paddy cultivation method, improved tomato and hyacinth bean cultivation practises, introduced participatory seed selection, organic farming techniques (vermicomposting, vermiwash, natural pest repellents), nursery establishment, and trained over 3500 farmers in Ahmednagar district.
