Tag: Jalandhar

Inder Singh

Read Full Story

Potato and Mentha Cultivation Is What Helping This Farmer Thrive In Agriculture Field with Success

Inder Singh, 67, hailing from Jalandhar city of Punjab, is a farmer who has kick-started his agriculture business by adopting Potato and Mentha cultivation.

In a tender age of 19, Inder Singh stepped in the soil and since then he has been following agriculture passionately. After dropping his study after 8th, he decided to grow potatoes, wheat, and paddy. But after putting continuous efforts for years in wheat and paddy, it doesn’t provide much profit and financial conditions were still hand to mouth. So, with the time to increase the profit inflow, he moved towards lucrative crops rather than sticking to the conventional crops. On the recommendation of an American Company – Indomit, he started growing Mentha for oil extraction alongside potato cultivation.

“In 1980, few of the workers of Indomit Company (American) visited our village and advised me to grow Mentha for oil extraction purpose.”

In 1986, when the head of Indomit Company visited India, he was very happy by seeing the mentha production by Inder Singh. Inder Singh grabbed the second position in mentha oil extraction of about 71 Lt from the harvest of one acre and was honoured certificate and a cash prize. Appreciation boosted Mr. Inder Singh’s effort and he expanded mentha cultivation into 13 acres.

Along with mentha, he was still cultivating potatoes. On the recommendation of two wise persons – Dr. Paramjeet Singh and Dr. Minhas, he started preparing potato seeds with different ways. Seeds prepared by him were so good in quality that now it is sold across Gujarat, Bengal, Indore and many other cities of India.

“Dr. Paramjeet Singh suggested me to prepare the potato seed when it is completely ripe and mature, and this technique helped me a lot.”

In 2016, Inder Singh got the license from Punjab Government for potato seed preparation.

Currently, Inder Singh is cultivating Mentha (Peppermint & Kosi Variety), Potatoes (Govt. Variety: Jyoti, Pukhraj; Private Variety:  1533), Maize, Watermelon, and Paddy. The profit he earned in his successive years was invested in machinery and best agriculture practices. Today, Inder Singh has all the modern agriculture equipment at his farm and for this, he gives all the credit to adopting mentha and potato cultivation.

Inder Singh is getting nice price for all his harvest as there is no problem in marketing because watermelon is sold from the farm, mentha is used for oil extraction which gives him an average return of 500/Lt, his prepared potatoes seeds are sold across many different cities in India.

For his tremendous efforts in the field of agriculture, he has been honoured by Punjab Agriculture University on 1st February 2018.

Future
In future, Inder Singh is planning to open his own potato chips processing plant.

Message
“Agriculture is becoming expensive day by day because of the increased rates of fertilizer, pesticides, and other agri-inputs, so farmer should focus on sustainable agricultural practices and methods to take out the best harvest.”

Dhada Goat Farm

READ FULL STORY

With The Troupe of These Four Futuristic Men, Goat Farming Is Getting Better In Punjab

Dhada Goat Farm – a farm run by four futuristic men (Birbal Ram Sharma, Jugraj Singh, Amarjeet Singh, and Manjeet Kumar), who saw the fledgling future market of goat meat and milk in Punjab at the right time and established a goat farmhouse where you cannot only buy milk and meat but you can also buy different breeds of goat for further goat rearing purpose.

Initially, the idea of establishing goat farm was of Birbal and his uncle Manjeet Kumar. Earlier working as a college supervisor Birbal was bored and had a desire to set up his own business. So before investing in anything, Birbal wanted to do a complete market research. He visited many farms in Punjab and also went to Delhi to analyse the market and gain some market knowledge.

After the analysis, Birbal found out that there are very few goat farms in Punjab and the demand of goat meat and milk is high. Manjeet Kumar, Birbal’s uncle was always a partner in the venture from the beginning. And this is how the idea of Dhada Goat farm came into reality. The other two main partners joined the venture when Birbal was looking for an empty plot where he can establish his goat farm and then he met Subedar Jugraj Singh and Amarjeet Singh. Both are military retired people. Coming to know about the idea of Goat Farm, Jugraj Singh, and Amarjeet Singh showed interest in the venture. Jugraj Singh gave his 4 acres land on lease for 10 years to Birbal. Finally, in July 2015 Dhada Goat Farm was established with the investment of 23 lakhs.

The farm began with 70 animals (40 female goats, 5 male goats, and 25 kids), later on with the time they bought 60 more. To give their business better management and protection, all the four members took 5 days goat farming training from GADVASU.

Well, the journey of Dhada goat farm was not that smooth, they faced many problems too. While buying goats in bulk they bought some goats from the local goat farmers without any proper vaccination. Which gave rise to PPR disease resulting in the death of many goats in some time. From this instance, they learned about their mistake and then they started proper vaccination of their farm goats from Veterinary Dr. Sarbjeet.

Dr. Sarbjeet helped them a lot in the establishment of a disease free healthy goat farm, he used to visit Dhada Goat farm every week and guide them. Currently, the count of the goats has exceeded 400. Beetal, Sirohi, Barbari, Totapari, and Jakhrana are the goat breed which can be found at Dhada Goat Farm. They sell breed, milk, and manure prepared from goat dung in the market. During Bakrid they also sell Bucks (male goats) to earn good profit.

Feed is the most important thing of which they take proper care. In summer they prefer to give green grass and leaves, grinded mixture of Green Chickpea and Green Gram plants, and in winter they give Berseem, grass of Mustard, Guar, and Peanut. There are two permanent workers which help in managing the goat farm. All the fodder is grown in-house for better feed preparation. Taking proper care of the goat’s needs, they have also left 4 Kanal area clear for the goats to roam there freely. Deworming gun, machine to grind the fodder, medical kit and medicines are some necessary things that Birbal and his other members use to make their goat rearing process easier and smooth.

Average profit of around Rs 750000 is made annually which is divided in between all the four members of the Dhada Goat Farm. Even after running such a good goat farm business, no member of Dhada Goat Farm brags about their success and whenever any farmer calls or visit their farm for guidance they help them with their whole heart.

For their success in goat farming, Mr. Jugraj Singh was also received Mukhyamantri Award on 23rd March 2018 on the behalf of Dhada Goat Farm.

Future Plans:

In future, the futuristic men of Dhada Goat Farm are planning to expand their goat numbers up to 1000.

Message
“Goat farming is an allied activity which any farmer can follow along with crop cultivation and can earn good profit from it. Farmers should be aware of the leading edge of this business and its profit.”

Today the main thing that the agriculture society has to understand is that there is an advantage in staying together. These four men understood this thing very well, which helped them in running a successful business. For any goat farming related queries you can contact Dhada Goat Farm and take guidance from them. Read more interesting stories by downloading Apni Kheti mobile app from Google Play Store.

Davinder Singh

Read Full Story

How a farmer made diversified farming his path of success and is inspiring others through it.

One of the successful diversified farmer Davinder Singh from Nakodar (District Jalandhar) discussed with Apni Kheti Team that how he was motivated towards diversified farming and what other inventions he did in the field of farming to reap good profit from it.

Davinder Singh is a firm believer of the thought that – “The work done by self is important only” and today whatever he has achieved is by his hard work and hunger to do more in the field of farming. As coming from a farming background he started farming after completing his 10th and didn’t go for higher studies. He started farming with vegetables like an ordinary farmer. He already had 1.8 hectares land of his own but he also took 1 hectare on rent. The income he was generating from farming was enough to satisfy the present family needs but not that enough to think about the better future for his family.

In 1990-91 he came in contact with Punjab Agriculture University and learned about some new farming techniques which could help in generating good profit from farming without expanding the farming area. And the reason which motivated him to implement those new techniques on his farm was that it doesn’t include any hi-tech machinery or chemicals.

To expand his area of expertise he also took beekeeping training from KVK- Noor Mahal, Jalandhar and started beekeeping. This venture made him good profit and he continued it. By implementing new farming techniques like bed farming and tunnel farming, he started diversified farming.

Well, many people are doing diversified farming in Punjab, but they are limited to few crops only. Davinder Singh let his thought of wild horses run and he experimented by intercropping cabbage and onion together. This initiative of diversified farming gave him a very good yield and he harvested 375 quintals of cabbage and 125 quintals of onion in that season. Many agriculture experts got help from his farming ways in their research. He was also the first one who inter-cropped “onion, tomato, coriander” together and after that, he also inter-cropped “onion, cucumber, capsicum” and “cabbage, marigold” together.

All the crops pairing done by him for diversified farming was a great success and he made a great profit from all these inter-cropping patterns. He also received Jain Adviser State Award for his “Papaya-Eggplant & Cabbage-Onion” inter-cropping patterns.

Education never became a barrier between him and trending new farming techniques. His inquisitive mind always wanted to learn, and to satisfy the needs of his mind, he also fed his mind with appropriate knowledge. He always visited many progressive farmers of Maler Kotla to learn basics of vegetable farming and he also attended every type of meetings and camp organized by Punjab Agriculture University or Horticulture Department.

Davinder Singh’s farming ways were so better and productive that he was also awarded Surjit Singh Dhillon Award by PAU in 2010 for Tunnel Farming. He also became the member of PAU Kisan Club and Agriculture Technology Prabandh Agency- ATMA Governing Body (Jalandhar).

Well, the key to scale success in the field of farming while moving from a beginning stage is to keep your creative/innovative edge alive and Davinder Singh also did the same. He implemented drip irrigation and shower irrigation in his farm better water management. He also started using Tensiometer for paddy farming and Jantar to increase the yield of the soil.

Recently, he has started diversified farming of cucumber and water melon and is expecting great profit returns from it also. Many farmers visit his farm to see and learn from him and he also open-heartedly shares his learning with them. He wants to experiment more with diversified farming and spread his learning with other farmers so that they can also take benefit of it.

Future Plans:
For the future, he has great ideas aligned in his mind and very soon he will be implementing those also. 

Message to Farmers:
“Our land is gold and to cultivate gold out of it we have to do hard work and smart work both. We just need good farming techniques to harvest gold on our own. If we have skills then we should share it with others.”