The sugar which we consume in our homes is destroying our body from within. Most of the illnesses of our sedentary lifestyle such as hormonal imbalance, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity is one way or other related to sugar. While the solution to this problem is to consume a healthy substitute and i.e. Jaggery.

Naresh Kumar is a progressive farmer who lives in Kharak Ramji, district Jind, Haryana and owns a business of Organic Jaggery, Shakkar, Khand and 32 different products made by these three sole ingredients.

He started his career by studying Ayurvedic therapy, later through his knowledge of Ayurvedic herbs he made medicine for de-addiction of drugs back in 2006. He named this medicine ‘Wapsi’ which literally means to come back from the addiction. He shared this with the Apni kheti team that there was numerous allopathic medication for de-addiction but an ayurvedic medicine with the proven result was more significant. As Ayurveda is the oldest medicine and can cure mere impossible illnesses from ancient times.

In 2018 he moved his focus from medicines to food processing and introduced 32 varieties of different yet organic products. There are different types of Jaggery – jaggery for tea, for digestion, jaggery which includes Ajwain, Elaichi, Soonf, chocolate as per the consumer’s demand. Other products include Jagerry chutney of Carrot and Beetroot, apple, Pineapple, Amla and Jams.

The processing unit is on 4 acres of land. All these products are made by traditional methods making them 100% organic. When the Jaggery is made, the processed fruit and vegetables are added to it and are then stored in an earthen pot. There is no usage of water or sugar while making these products.

 Another product which he makes for cattle is Dudhwardhak Shira which increases their capacity of producing milk. This shira is a unique product for repeater cattle. He had the formulation of this product earlier itself therefore he thought of implementing what he had in his mind before but he also had second thoughts about getting it made by a third party but was afraid as there were chances that the chemical formulation could differ. As it is not easy to trust anyone what if the other person would make the product organically or adulterate it. The uniqueness of this shira is that it is made from the Rav of desi khaand.

KVK Pandu Pindara located in Jind and Harayana agricultural university helped him in his initial days of business. These two provided him with the technical knowledge that he lacked. He was guided by Dr Vikram who is the manager of marketing at the Agri-Business Incubation Centre (ABIC) at Haryana Agricultural University. This centre recently underwent a training and after which they could manage to grab 20 lakhs for expanding his product “Dudhwardhak Shira” under the RAFTAR scheme.

From 2015 Wapsi medicine has been there in the market and along with this he was also practiced agriculture. He has been selling this medicine directly to customers since 2015. He also has 20 distributors from majorly Haryana and some parts of Punjab. He faced difficulties in the beginning because every other product in the market was fake while his product being organic had higher prices and he had to face challenges when he started but then later customers got aware of the differences between organic and fake products and now his products are appreciated by the customers. He said it was not easy to explain to people that all other products had adulteration and weren’t good for the body. During the season he gets a profit of 3 Lakh rupees monthly.

In the season when there is more work, he hires 15 labourers which are generally 5 in number in the off-season. Although he cultivates sugarcane due to huge demand the quality falls short so he has to buy sugarcane from the farmers who practice organic farming and are a member of Pillukhera jeevak Utpadak Samho (FPO) where he serves as a Director.

•Awarded with the title of progressive farmer by Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University in 2019.

Naresh kumar wants to take his business to new heights and increase the production of Jaggery and its products at larger scale.

He wants to encourage other farmers to start processing of the crop they produce as there is more margin in making a whole product rather than selling a raw material. A farmer who sows wheat should start a processing unit of wheat flour, the one who sows sunflower should take oil out of the seeds and such processing is possible for all other crops.