Innovative Farmers In India Who Have Proven How Lucrative Smart Agriculture Can Be
Farmers are the soul of the nation. Agriculture is the only means of living for almost two-thirds of the employed class in India. Farmers produce crops, pulses and vegetables which are needed by everyone.
With the help of modern technology, many farming communities in India are boldly taking risks in increasing productivity and also adopting new methods of agriculture.
Modern equipment allows farmers not just to yield better crops but also to grow new ones that have a significant medical and market value.
From Uttar Pradesh¡¯s famous 'Mango Man', whose 120-year-old mango tree produces over 300 varieties of mango, to UP¡¯s banana king who used tissue culture to earn Rs 48 lakh a year, India¡¯s 77th Republic Day witnessed the Union Government conferring the fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, for the extraordinary farming.
1. India¡¯s Mango Man
82-year-old Kaleem Ullah Khan walks over a mile every day to see his 120-year-old mango tree, which he has coaxed into producing more than 300 varieties of the beloved fruit over the years.
Since 1987, his pride and joy have been the 120-year-old specimen, the source of more than 300 different types of mangoes, each with their taste, texture, colour, and size, he said.
¡°This is my prize of toiling hard in the scorching sun for decades,¡± Kaleem said in his orchard in the small town of Malihabad in Lucknow.
2. 121 Varieties Of Mangoes
If you're residing in UP's Saharanpur, it'll be a treat for you because a single mango tree in that district has 121 varieties of fruit growing on it.?
The 15-year-old tree has become quite a popular attraction in the district since Saharanpur is already famous for its mangoes.
The tree is growing in the district's Company Bagh area. This unique tree was part of an experiment which was initiated by horticulturists five years ago with the aim to develop new varieties of mangoes and experiment with their taste.
Among the varieties of mangoes found on this tree include Dussehri, Langra, Chaunsa, Ramkela, Amrapali, Saharanpur Arun, Saharanpur Varun, Saharanpur Saurabh, Saharanpur Gaurav, Saharanpur Rajiv, Lucknow Safeda, Tommy at King's, Pusa Surya, Sensation, Rataul, Kalmi Maldah Mango, Bombay, Smith, Mangifera Jalonia, Gola Bulandshahr, Laranku, LR Special, Alampur Benisha, and Asojia Deoband are also growing on the tree.
3. World's most expensive mango
In 2021, a couple in Madhya Pradesh hired four security guards and six watchdogs to protect their most prized possession, Miyazaki mango trees which bear the "world¡¯s most expensive mangoes." When the two saplings were planted years ago, the couple named Rani and Sankalp Parihar had no idea the tree would bear ruby-coloured Japanese mangoes. Local thieves had broken into their orchards once and tried to steal saplings after word spread about the exotic fruit, triggering the security beef for the rare fruit.?
Last year, the couple?deployed four guards and six dogs to protect the rare mangoes that cost Rs 2.7 lakh per kg. The couple has currently cultivated seven mangoes, which are rarely grown in India.
4. Anil Balanja
Using advanced technology, many farmers in India now grow fruits such as dragon fruit and mangosteen. In fact, the cultivation of such fruits began as a hobby by a few passionate farmers years ago.?Anil Balanja, a young farmer from Belthangady taluk of Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka, is one such passionate farmer. For him, growing foreign fruits is a continuous research and development activity.
As per a new?report, Balanja has planted more than 700 varieties of fruit plants from across 40 countries on 30 acres in the last two decades. All of them did not yield because of the climatic conditions here. However, he was able to grow fruits in around 40 per cent of those planted.
5. Dr Prabhakar Rao
Dr Prabhakar Rao and his family run a 2.5-acre natural farm in Bengaluru, wherein they grow vegetables that are indigenous and native to India and yet are not grown or found anywhere in the country anymore.
Dr Rao, who holds a PhD in plant breeding and genetics, has spent his entire professional career practising architecture all over the world. While travelling, he collected 560 native indigenous seeds of endangered vegetable species from the oldest generation of farmers.
The procured seeds were typically open-pollinated, heirloom seeds, which means that new seeds can be prepared from the mother seeds, unlike the hybrid and genetically modified seeds which last for just one season.
6. Amarpreet Singh Hira
As per reports, a builder-turned-farmer in Punjab is growing black wheat, a variety of the foodgrain developed by the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) based here, for health benefits and better earnings.
Amarpreet Singh Hira, who is a builder by profession but has a passion for agriculture, is growing black wheat on his farm in Saifalpur village of Ropar district.
According to Amarpreet, the variety of black wheat is in great demand in the market.
7. Vallabhbhai Vasrambhai Marvaniya
Vallabhbhai Vasrambhai Marvaniya from Gujarat¡¯s Junagarh was the first to introduce carrots to the palate of Gujaratis because until 1943, locals did not consider carrots suitable for consumption.
Vallabhbhai was 13 years old then. He dropped out of class V and started helping his father on his five-acre farm where pulses, grains, and groundnuts were grown, while maize, jowar (sorghum), rajko (alfalfa), and carrots were cultivated as cattle feed. Two sacks of carrots earned him Rs 8, a big amount at the time. Shocked and amused, his father decided to support him, and they started cultivating carrots.
8. Jagdish Prasad Parikh
Jagdish Prasad Parikh may have never gone to school, but this Padma Shri farmer from the village of Ajitgarh in Rajasthan. Jagdish Prasad Parikh also made his way to Limca Book of Records for producing one of the world's largest cauliflowers ¨C the Ajitgarh Variety - weighing 25.5 kg through organic techniques at his farm. Now his record was broken.
His agro-innovations through traditional methods earned him laurels. In 2017, he received an IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) for his high-yielding and pest-resistant innovative crops.
9. Ram Saran Verma
Ram Saran Verma grew up 30 km away from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh¡¯s Barabanki district, in the village of Daulatpur. In 1988, he became one of the first farmers in the state to introduce tissue culture for banana farming. A 1-acre plantation yielded 400 quintals of bananas. For a cost of production of Rs 1 lakh, the farmer earned a profit of over Rs 4 lakh!He also grew red bananas, which against Rs 15 per kg for the regular variety, were sold at Rs 80-100 per kg.
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