Spawn Archives - Progressive Farmers

Retired Soldier-Turned-Farmer Aiming Big Through Mushroom Cultivation

The Soldiers and the farmers are the two strong pillars of a country. Where the soldiers protects our land on the frontier, on the other hand, the farmers grows food for us on the same land. And that is why the slogan given by Lal Bahadur Shastri – “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” (Hail the Soldier, Hail the Farmer) is so popular and equitable.

This is a story about a soldier turned farmer – Vivek Uniyal based in Dehradun (Uttarakhand), who after honestly serving his motherland as an army man, returned to his roots to pursue farming and nurture the land with its love and care.

Vivek Uniyal got retired from the military after serving for a long time and then he joined the service of Uttarakhand Police for two years. Along with his police duty he also started farming in his free time. As his family members were still practicing agriculture, so Vivek’s inclination towards agriculture was natural and obvious. While pursuing his farming venture, once he got a chance to meet a mushroom farmer – Deepak Upadhyaya, who is also doing organic farming. And from this meeting, Vivek came to know about the different varieties of mushroom – Oyster, Milky and Button.

“Deepak Upadhyaya helped me initially in setting up the mushroom farm. And whenever I faced any difficulty he always assisted with his advice from his past experiences.” – Vivek Uniyal

After meeting Deepak, Vivek’s interest in mushroom farming took a big turn. He talked about this with his family, and even his sister Kusum also showed interest towards it. The duo of brother and sister together decided to start mushroom farming with their family’s consent. They started farming in a room after purchasing seeds of oyster mushroom from Solan (Himachal Pradesh)

To improve his mushroom farming skills and knowledge he also took training. The venture which he started within in a small room was well appreciated by the customers in the market after buying the product and profit was good too. Seeing the yield and the payback, Vivek decided to extend the level of the mushroom farming from one room to four rooms & he also started growing Milky and Button mushrooms. Along with it he also established a composting plant for the mushroom farming, which was inaugurated by the Agriculture Minister of Uttarakhand.

Along with mushroom farming, Vivek is also focusing towards organic farming from the last two years.

“Like we care and serve our mother, in the same way we should also understand our responsibilities towards mother nature. Farmers should focus towards organic farming and leave chemical farming.” – Vivek Uniyal

Vivek visits many villages time-to- time to convince and influence other farmers towards mushroom and organic farming. Till now he has established 45 mushroom plants collaboratively with other farmers. Students from agriculture university visits him to take his advice. And he also feels very fortunate to have the opportunity to help them.

“Mushroom farming is a business which provides employment to the whole family.” – Vivek Uniyal

Future Plans
In the coming time, Vivek is planning to produce products made up of mushroom such as Pickles, Biscuits, Papads etc. and sell them in the market.

Message
“Farmers should adopt allied-agri activities along with farming to increase their income. But in the beginning, they should start it on a small level, so that the business’s profit or loss will be known in advance & there would not be any difficulty or harm in the future.”

How This Bihar Based Farmer Amazed Everyone With His Progressive Farming Skills

Earlier, farmers used to think that we should follow the same agriculture practices that have been followed by our ancestors. But today’s youngsters believes in the passion of trying & implementing something new, which is good as it could influence others farmers towards progressive farming.

This is a story about a farmer who used to do something additional along with conventional farming.

Baijulal is a Bihar based young farmer, whose father used to cultivate paddy and wheat in 3-4 acres of land and rear cattle including 2 cows and 1 buffalo for dairy farming purpose. After graduating in B.Sc. Physics, Baijulal started helping his father in the fields, as his family’s financial conditions were not good. But he always wanted to do something different, so in the free time he used to watch agriculture videos on YouTube. One day, he came to know about mushroom farming and this is how it started.

To gather more information about mushroom farming he contacted a few mushroom producers, and this is how he gained more interest and enthusiasm towards it. But when Baijulal discussed this with his family, they disagreed with him, as no one has ever done it before in their village. But Baijulal had thought that he would do something unique because of his strong will power.

“No one accepted my decision of mushroom farming. Everyone was suggesting me that I should not try something about which I have no knowledge or skill.” – Baijulal Kumar

To begin with the mushroom cultivation, he brought 5 KG spawn from PUSA University and for this he started boiling the waste stubble. Seeing Baijulal doing this, villagers started making fun of him. But he never cared about anyone and even started working harder.

“After seeing this work of mine, villagers use to call me mad and even asked me to leave it. But my decision was definite to do something different from the villagers.” – Baijulal Kumar

For farming information he took help from YouTube videos and sometimes he used to ask the experts for their advice. With the time when he harvested the mushroom, then his hard work was really appreciated by everyone. His relatives tasted the mushrooms produced by him and everybody liked it.

When Baijulal sold his produce for the first time in the market, even the customers also admired the quality of the mushrooms and gradually the demand increased. Achieving this milestone inspired Baijulal to start mushroom farming of larger extent.

To become successful, one has to do struggle and the result of this struggle is success. Similarly, after getting success due to hard work, Baijulal started his company named as “Champaran The Mushroom Expert Pvt. Ltd. Company”.

Presently, he is farming Milky and Button mushrooms and is making good profit from it. Now Baijulal has become proficient and skilled in his work and he also provides training to the other men and women. He provides 2 Kg Spawn, PPC Bag, Formalin, Bevastin and Spray Machine to the farmers who get training from him for Mushroom Farming.

Apart from this, Baijulal also purchases fresh mushroom from the Mushroom farmers that are not sold, dries them and prepare their products such as Soup Powder, Mushroom Pickle, Mushroom Biscuit, Mushroom Peda, etc.

“The people who used to call me insane, now appreciates and inspire me to do good work.” – Baijulal Kumar

Future Plans

In the future, Baijulal wants to form a group of farmers and sell products made using mushrooms on a larger extent.

Message

“Instead of burning stubble, farmers should use it in the mushroom cultivation or animal feed. And farmers should do other agri-allied activities with conventional farming to gain more profit.”