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fest showcases rich harvest of success stories ­ Times of India

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Farm fest showcases rich harvest of success stories

TNN | Mar 14, 2015, 03.25 AM IST

GURGAON: At the three-day Haryana Agri Leadership Summit, 2015, it was women farmers like Panipat's 50-year-old Nikko
Devi who stole the show. A part of the progressive farmer pavilion, the wife and mother of daily wage labourers showcased her
harvest of mushrooms, which she had farmed in her two-room house, and which added substantially to the total income of the
household.

Flagged off at Leisure Valley Park grounds on Friday by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the first-of-its-kind agri summit in
the city is expected to be a launchpad for successful women farmers of the state.

Thousands of farmers have brought their produce directly for retail here. The government, in fact, announced its intent to give a
brand name to market the products. Launched by Khattar and Union minister Nitin Gadkari, the brand - 'Haryana Fresh' -will be
registered in the name of farmers. Speaking on the occasion, Gadkari said such events are very crucial for the development of
farmers. Inaugurating the event, Khattar announced a proposal to set up a dry port, for which the government would allot land
near any railway station. This, he said, would benefit farmers like Nikko, whose agriculture produce would be dispatched across
the country through the dry port.

Farming is now no more about tilling the land, but adopting latest techniques. Many leaders in various areas of agriculture
shared their success stories at the summit.

"I live with my family - husband and a son - in a two-room mud house. Initially, the idea of using precious space to farm
mushrooms in one of the rooms was unthinkable. Besides, I had never eaten mushrooms, nor did I know how to cook them.
But we were poor and the prospect of extra income was attractive. So I started farming, and my life changed. Now I am more
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12/26/2016 Farm fest showcases rich harvest of success stories ­ Times of India

than a homemaker. With my earnings, we have managed to rebuild our house with bricks," Nikko told TOI.

Like a majority of women in the state, she has spent most of her life running a household with the meager income of a daily
wage labourer. Her life, though, received a Midas touch in 2009 when the horticulture department approached her with the idea
of growing mushrooms. Nikko is part of a group of progressive farmers who are the face of change that button mushroom
cultivation has brought to landless labourers and women in the state. "Traditional mushroom cultivation is a time-consuming
outdoor method involving composting. It takes about 3-4 weeks for each harvest. This new method allows growers to harvest
mushrooms in rooms with good ventilation and almost no investment and have become a huge success with women like
Nikko," said a horticulture official.

Others involved in this group at the summit are Seema from Karnal, who adopted organic farming and a post-harvest cold
chain that employs around 60 rural women.

Motivated by a relative, Manpal, from Malikpur village in Jhajjar, said he began rearing bees with 28 boxes and 280 colonies in
2002-03. Today, he produces 400 quintals of honey, earning him Rs 50 lakh a year. He said a several customers approached
him at the summit for his honey, which he claimed has medicinal value because unlike the unreliable honey available in the
market, his is pure. Today, Manpal's son Vinay helps him market his produce.

Graduate in agricultural science, Shakti Rajan of Chamanpura village, also in Jhajjar, said he has built a greenhouse on 8,000
sq m of his three acres. Chamanpura is from where exotic vegetables like cherry tomatoes, red cabbages, broccoli, squash,
which sell wholesale for Rs 100-150 per kg, are sent to markets across the country. Rajan produces 400 tonnes of such
veggies a year and earns Rs 1 crore from export. He has been to Israel and China to study new techniques. According to him,
greenhouse farming was cheaper than the traditional method, where one can produce crops according to market demand.

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Krishna Yadav of Bajghera village in Gurgaon recalled a time 20 years ago, when she was a poor vegetable seller. Today, she
owns 153 brands, four outlets and a processing unit employing 400 women, where she prepares pickles and candied fruit that
are sold from shopping malls. BTech degree hiolder and strawberry farmer Vikram Singh, from Mada in Hisar, is another.

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