Adding social responsibility to spirituality, two US-based Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) have come forward to supply as many as 365 indigenous varieties of organic rice to Vijayawada Kanaka Durga Temple for the preparation of ‘healthy prasadam’-the food offered to the presiding deity that is distributed among devotees.Hyderabad natives K Mounika Reddy and Sirisha Reddy, who are based in the US, recently came to know about a farmer named Bapa Rao of Athota village in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, who has been cultivating indigenous rice varieties based on the zero-budget natural farming method promoted by agriculturist Subhash Palekar.
Reddys decided to source organic rice from Rao and offer 50 kg of produce per day to Kanaka Durga temple every year.