It is said that we should always be thankful to farmers because if you ate today something, it just because of a farmer’s hard work and the sweat that he sheds in the fields. But what if the farmer himself becomes the diseases distributor instead of food!

Today, chemical farming has become a trend to boost the agricultural yield. Agriculture has more become a business rather than fulfilling the basic food necessity. Producers and consumers of food, both have forgotten the basic purpose of farming.

In this situation, a well-said line by a famous agriculturalist- Masanobu Fukuoka explains the true purpose of farming-

“The ultimate goal of farming is not growing crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”

By going through the same situation, a woman- Kanta Desta, realized that how she has become a disease distributor and then she made the wisest decision of her life by switching to organic farming.

Kanta Desta from Samala Village was a common farmer who use to grow vegetable and fruit and many time she used to distribute it among her relatives, neighbours and friends. But one day, she came to know about the harmful effects of crops grown by using chemical fertilizers and pesticides and then she felt very bad. From that day, she decided that she will stop using chemicals and will adopt organic farming.

To make her step towards organic farming more effective she joined a program which was being run by Morarka Foundation and the Agriculture Department in 2004. She started growing many types of fruits, vegetables, grains and spices like apples, pears, Plum, peach, Japanese Apricot, kiwi fruit, nuts, peas, beans, eggplant, cabbage, radish, coriander, red pepper, onion, wheat, maize, urad, barley, beans and Baladi crops are also grown.

Her switch to organic farming positively affected her income and it was increased to 4 to 5 lakhs annually. Not only this, but with the help of Morarka Foundation, Kanta Desta created a group of women in her village and provided them with knowledge about Organic Farming, and also got them registered under the same foundation.

“I believe that providing knowledge to people in a group is better because it costs less and we can impart knowledge to more people at a time.”

Today her name come across the list of successful organic farmers. She has 31 bighas irrigated land through which she is being productive and is earning the profit in lakhs. Later she also visited NONI University, Delhi, Jaipur and Banglore to get more information about Organic Farming. And for her fervent effort, she has been honoured twice with state honours by the Himachal Pradesh Government. Other than this she has been awarded as the Best Farmer Award in Shimla on 15 August 2008 and she also got appreciated and awarded for her contribution in the field of organic farming on 13th June 2013.

Despite getting so much appreciation on a huge level, this woman never takes the whole credit to herself and she believes that all the credit for her success goes to Morarka Foundation and the Department of Agriculture who guided her on the right path.

Other than farming, Kanta also rears 2 cows and 3 buffaloes and use their dung and farm residue in small vermicomposting plant established in the area of 30x8x10 at her farm. She also use herbal spray aperture wash, jivamrit and NSDL in the place of pesticides, to improve the land conditions and reduce the expenses.

Now, Kanta feels happy and privileged while distributing vegetables and fruits among her relatives and friends, because she knows that what she is growing and giving to her closed ones is free of harmful chemicals and they will stay healthy by eating this.