Tag: Banana

Amitesh Tripathi and Arunesh Tripathi

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Two Brothers Fulfilled their Dreams by Continuing their Father’s Profession of Banana Farming

It is said that a person can do anything if he has his family’s support, either it is about starting something new or taking an old work to new heights of success.

One such story is of two brothers who made their own mark in the society with their hard work and gained success by taking their inherited banana farm to new heights.

Continuing their father, Hari Sahay Tripathi’s occupation of banana farming, the two brothers worked hard and made their father proud of their achievements.

Being a resident of Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, father of Amitesh and Arunesh was the head of the village and he used to do banana cultivation along with conventional farming in his 65 bighas of land.

Mr. Tripathi was the first farmer to start banana cultivation in his village and at that time both of his sons were studying. Amitesh (elder son) studied B.Sc in Agriculture and used to work in a private company and Arunesh (younger son) was preparing for SSC exams along with that pursuing B.Sc degree in Biology. During this time Mr. Hari Sahay Tripathi passed away.

In those difficult times both brothers returned to their village to support their family. As their father was the village’s head, the villagers decided to make Mr. Tripathi’s elder son Amitesh as the new head of the village. And along with that both the sons decided to continue their father’s occupation of banana farming.

But during this time, a storm came in the village and destroyed the entire banana crop. In those difficult times, Tripathi brothers didn’t lose their hope and courage and after trying hard they were compensated by the government for their affected crops.

After this incident, both decided to start a new beginning with the compensated money they received from the government. Animesh and Arunesh planted all the nine varieties of banana that were earlier planted by their father. They started banana farming in 30 bighas of land and in the rest of the 35 bighas they continued conventional farming.

During this time, whenever we faced any difficulty, we resolved it by consulting the experts of banana farming. – Arunesh Tripathi

As a result of the new beginning, the crop production was very good and the income was around 1 lakh per bigha. Quality of the crops grown by Tripathi brothers was excellent, resulting to which many companies started contacting them directly to do business with them.

As banana is an evergreen and nutritious fruit, so while marketing the crops we didn’t face any hurdles as the merchants directly visited our farm to buy it. Along with bananas we also grow wheat in large quantities. – Amitesh Tripathi

Both the brothers fulfilled their dreams by taking their father’s business of banana cultivation to new heights with their hard work and understanding. Apart from being a farmer, Amitesh is also the village’s head and also has some duties & responsibilities towards his village which he manages honestly. And due to this reason, both the brothers are quite famous among the good farmers of the city.

Future Plans

In the coming time, the two brothers want to prepare banana plants by setting up their own factory together and become a successful farmer like their father.

Message
“If we do something different in the field of agriculture along with following conventional farming practices, then also we can earn good profit from farming. The young generation should come up with new discoveries in the field of agriculture with their understanding and skills, so that they can earn great benefits & profit from agriculture which is also commonly known as the deficit deal.”

Karamjeet Kaur Danewalia

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HOW A WOMAN PURSUED HER PASSION OF FARMING AFTER HER MARRIAGE AND IS LIVING THROUGH IT SUCCESSFULLY

Generally, in India, when daughters are married away and sent to their husband’s home then they get so busy in their life after marriage that they forget to think about their interest and hobbies, they just get bounded to the household chores. But one such woman who pursued her passion even after marriage and outliving it is Mrs Karamjeet Kaur Danewalia. Instead of just becoming house woman she chose to step outside the house and pursue her hobby of orchard farming.

Mrs Karamjeet Kaur Danewalia is a woman who was born raised in a typical Punjabi farmer’s family of a small village. As coming from a farming background, Mrs Karamjeet was always fascinated towards farming and had an interest in helping his father in the fields. But she never get a chance to be a helping hand to her father before marriage.

Soon she was married to Mr Jasbeer Singh, to a business class family. She never thought that after marriage she would get an opportunity to fulfil her dreams and pursue it as her profession. Just after few years of marriage, in 1975, with the support of her husband, she decided to start with the fruits orchards and give a chance to her interest. With the help of leveller machine and workers, she levelled 45 acres of land and prepared it for orchard farming. She planted kinnows in 20 acres, Plums, pear, peach, java plum, banana, naak pears on 10 acres and in the rest of the 5 acres she planted wheat in winter and cotton in summer.

Her hobby changed into passion and she decided to continue it. In 1990 she build up a pond and stored rain water in it so that, she can irrigate her orchards with it. But later on, she started fish farming in it and used it for both purpose fish farming as well as irrigation. To expand the business to one level ahead she also started preparing seedling herself.

In 2001 she created a record of Kinnow production in India. And to make the kinnow orchards business more successful, she especially went to California in 2003 to take kinnow packaging and processing training. After coming back she implanted that training and gained a huge profit from it. Since she has started kinnow farming from that year her kinnow quality is always no. 1 in district level and state level, every year. And because of her growing popularity in kinnow production, Prakash Singh Badal (Former CM of Punjab) entitled her as the Kinnow Queen in 2004

For the farming purpose, she has every type of modern technological farming equipment and machinery at her farm. Her popularity in the horticulture field has made her member of many prestigious communities and recipient of many awards. Some of them are listed below:

• Awarded First Prize in State Level Citrus Show by Agriculture Minister S. Gulzar  Ranika (2001-02)
• Awarded Desh Seva Rattan Award by Ravi Chopra by Shahee Memorial International Seva Society, Ludhiana. (2004)
• Entitled by Punjab’s Former CM- Prakash Singh Badal as Kinnow Queen in 2004
• Best Kinnow Grower Award by Agriculture Minister by S. Jagjit Singh Randhwa in 2005
• Awarded 2nd prize in state level citrus show kinnow crop (2012)
• 1st prize at district level citrus show kinnow crop (2012)
• 2nd prize district level citrus show kinnow crop (2010-11)
• 2nd Prize in state level citrus show kinnow crop (2010-11)
• Best women kinnow grower awarded by agriculture minister- S. Such Singh Langhah (2010)
• State awarded as innovative women farmer at kissan mela by PWD Minister S. Shranjit Singh Dhillon & V.C PAU, Ludhiana (2012)
• Champion Female Farmer Award for excellence in agriculture at 7th National conference on KVK at PAU, Ldh. Presented by Mr. Sharad Pawar Minister of Agriculture, Govt. Of India. (2012)
• Award of Honor in progressive women farmer on 64th Republic Day at Amritsar presented by Chief Minister, Punjab, S. Parkash Singh Badal. (2013)
• Award of appreciation in innovative contribution to Indian agriculture at global agri connect (NSFI) IARI, New Delhi presented by Dr. R.R Hanchinal, Chairperson PPUFRA, Govt. Of India, Ministry of Agriculture. (2013)
• National Awarded as Best Kinnow grower of Punjab at NRCC (National Research Centre of Citrus Nagpur) (2012)
• Bharat Jyoti Award for Meritorious Service, Outstanding Performance & Remarkable role in Agriculture presented by Dr. Bhisham Narain Singh(former governor of Tamilnadu & Assam) (2013)
• Bharat Gaurav Award as in Recognition of contribution and dedication to worthy cause and your achievement in keeping the flag of India high presented by Justice OP Verma former governor of Punjab at New Delhi. (2015)
• Zee Punjab/Haryana/Himachal Agri Award as best farmer horticulture of her outstanding contribution as a horticulturist in adoption & promotion of kinnow farming presented by Agriculture minister S. Tota Singh and Cabinet Minister S. Gulzar Singh Ranika and Mr. Dinesh Sharma editor, Zee Punjab Haryana Himachal.
• Member of PAU Kisan Club,
• Member of Punjab AGRO,
• Member of Punjab Horticulture Department,
• Member of Mandi Board,
• Member of Changi Kheti,
• Member of Kinnow Utpadak Sanstha,
• Member of Co-operative Society,
• Member of Kisan Salahkar Committee.
• Member of PAU, Ludhiana Board of Management

Despite being a recipient of so many awards and appreciation, she is always curious to learn something new and that’s why she never misses any district level agricultural events or meetings. She also regularly visits farms of the farmers who are associated with PAU and Hisar Agriculture University to learn something new from there and gain knowledge.
Today she is harvesting 130 ton of kinnows per hectare and generating revenue of 1 lakh and 65 thousand from it. From the rest of the fruit orchards and wheat and cotton crops, she is making revenue of 1 lakh each in every season.

Behind all her success, she gives credit to his husband who supported her dreams also helped her in farming all these years. Other than farming she is also contributing to a very good cause for the society; she helps in poor girls get marriage by providing financial help and other marriage material also. Her future plan is to make agriculture a more profitable commercial business.

MESSAGE TO FARMERS-
“
Farmers have to start maintaining their expenses properly and stop showing off what they don’t have. Today, agriculture field needs more attention, so young kids even daughters should also be involved and taught about this field. And everyone should remember one thing that every human being in the field of agriculture is a farmer first and then a businessman.
”

Harbant Singh

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Father-Son Duo Moving Towards Organic Farming By Making Internet their Research Weapon

Farming is one of the most important ingredients of human civilization and with the advancement in technology and living, farming has also been transformed over the years. But still, many farmers in India are stuck to the conventional farming method. But one such farmer or we can say a pair of a father-son duo who made the internet as their research weapon to progress in the field of farming are Harbant Singh (father) and Satnam Singh (son).

Like other farmers, Harbant Singh was also into conventional farming until his son came up with the idea of orchard farming organically. Yes, it was Satnam Singh who after his 1 year of research, approached his father to start dragon fruit farming.

It all started just one year ago when Satnam Singh came in contact with a person (Vishal Doda) in Gujarat through one of his friends. Vishal Doda is doing dragon fruit farming in 15 acres of area. Satnam Singh researched everything about dragon fruit plant and discussed it with his father. And when Harbant Singh came to know about dragon fruit farming and its benefits, he very happily encouraged his son to start it, no matter how much investment they have to do. Soon they visited Gujarat, bought dragon fruit plants and took some guidance from Vishal Doda about its farming.

Today, this father-son duo is the first one who started dragon fruit farming in Punjab and now the plant has started bearing fruits also. They have planted 500 seedlings of dragon fruits in one and a half bigha of land. One plant gives 4-20 kg of fruit in 4 years. They especially cast and prepared a cement structure with a wheel mounted on the pillar to support this plant. Whenever they need help related to dragon fruit farming either they search the internet or they consult Vishal Doda.

Well, dragon fruit farming is not the only thing that they are doing, they have also planted Sandalwood seedling on their farm. The idea of planting sandalwood came when Satnam was watching a news channel where he came to know that a minister gifted a sandalwood tree trunk in a temple that was worth in lakhs. At that time, the thing that struck his mind was to make the future secure and more profitable in both the terms- environmentally and financially. So he invested in sandalwood farming in July 2016 and planted 200 seedlings in 6 canal area.

Both father and son are very actively involved in the farming and are well aware of the plant characteristics. They know that sandalwood is a hemiparasite plant, so they have planted split red gram seedlings, lemon plants and cauliflower along with sandalwood. They are doing diversified farming so that they can generate profit both in present and future also.

According to Harbant Singh, the farming pattern that they are following is preparing them for the future. Because both dragon fruit and sandalwood need less water (can also be irrigated through rain water only) and don’t need any special type of manure or fertilizer. Moreover, they are well aware of the fact that in the coming time paddy and wheat farming will get disappear from Punjab because of the depleting level of ground water. And orchard farming will become the need of the coming time.

Harbant Singh is strictly following organic methods for dragon farming and sandalwood farming and slowly with the time, he will reduce the chemical use in his other crops also. The thing that encouraged Harbant Singh and his son towards organic farming is the increasing diseases and ailments in the society. They want to make the environment healthy and liveable for the future generations, as their ancestors left the atmosphere for them. There is one more reason that Satnam Singh chose organic farming after completing his engineering and that is his interest in farming from the beginning.

Today Satnam Singh is making full effort in helping his father in farming with mechanized ways. They prepare jivamrit and manure at home by using cow dung and Gau Mutr (cow urine). They avoid using pesticides and fertilizers. Harbant Singh is also working on water management in his village and is teaching other villagers about it, so that, they use less tube well water. He himself has only one tube well for 12 acres of land. Other than usual crops he also has guava, banana, mango and peach tree at his farm.

Satnam especially did one year of research before starting sandalwood and dragon fruit farming because he wanted to invest in a crop that needs less irrigation and has a plethora of health and environmental benefits. He wants other farmers to do the same and adopt a farming crop that is eco-friendly and has various benefits also.

Future Plans
His future plan is to grow garlic and mahogany tree. He wants other farmers to recognize the potential and start investing in it for their better future.

Message to farmers
“Harbant Singh and his son both want other farmers to start organic farming and save the environment for the future generation, only then they can survive and make earth a better living place.”