UTTAR PRADESH: Amrendra Pratap Singh was content with spreading the light of knowledge among the children of a primary government school of Lucknow. He had invested nearly a decade in the endeavour when during the 2012 summer vacation he thought of utilising his time more constructively and identified his love for farming.
Without losing time, Amrendra went back to his roots to explore the prospects of farming at his ancestral land in Daulatpur village of Barabanki, about 30 km from the state capital.
“I was a full-time teacher in the school and lived in Lucknow with my family. During the 2012 summer vacations, I decided to start farming in 30 acres of the land owned by my family,” Amrendra said.
The part-time pleasure turned into a passion for Amrendra Singh when he started reaping the harvest which took his earnings northward. “So much so that the earnings from farming are many times the monthly teaching income,” says Amrendra. He now earns close to Rs 30 lakh every year.
This teacher-farmer has not only mastered the skills of farming, but is also inspiring and guiding others to prosper through farming.
If he had any experience in farming and pat comes the reply that it was YouTube and online tutorials which came handy in his 12-year long journey as a farmer for Amrendra started off with banana cultivation over one acre of land.
“It was not a cake walk. I was thinking of making the optimum use of time which I was investing in farming. The traditional way of growing wheat, cereals and sugarcane was not serving the purpose as those three crops do not help earn much but takes a lot of time,” says Amrendra. He substantiates by saying that a sugarcane crop takes at least two years to earn money. Similarly, the other two also do not help much in improving the finances.
“As I wanted to increase my earnings, I started off with bananas and reaped benefits gradually. Next year, I tried the inter-cropping of ginger, turmeric and cauliflower with bananas for even better results,” Amrender said.
Though the results with ginger were not encouraging enough, turmeric provided better results to Amrender. “The earnings from turmeric crop covered the amount invested on bananas. The earnings from banana selling were complete profits,” he adds.
He then experimented with watermelon, muskmelon and potato. He increased his online sessions to learn better farming techniques and eventually included cultivation of strawberry, capsicum and mushrooms in his scheme of things.
Though he incurred initial losses but managed the profits later. “Now I plan the cultivation such that the waste from one crop serves as manure for the next crop securing the level of nutrients in the soil,” adds Amrender.
Amrender rotates crops between seasons and intersects inter-cropping techniques to get the optimum output. He had started off with just 30 acre of his ancestral land which has now scaled up to 60 acres of which 30 acres is self-owned, 20 acres is leased and he recently bought an additional 10 acres. The crops have also become more diverse. Now coriander, garlic and corn are also part of his yearly cultivated crops.
“Of the total land I have, 30 acres is used to grow vegetables and fruits while the remaining half is used to grow sugarcane, wheat and cereals. The total land helps to generate a business of Rs 1 crore a year and I make profits of Rs 30 lakh,” Amrendra claims.
“Initially, my relatives and friends found my decision to turn to farming weird for they believed that people give up farming to look for better income through jobs. But I was moving the other way around,” Amrendra says adding there were a few who appreciated his courage and supported him.
Amrendra’s success has inspired over 300 farmers, including some of his friends like Narendra Shukla, who have associated with him to change their traditional agricultural practices.
“Like Amrendra, I also decided to grow bananas in one acre in my farm in 2015 and learned all the techniques,” Narendra says. He also switched over to veggies and fruits to make a fast buck.Having won many accolades and awards by state governor, CM and other agencies in recognition of his efforts to make fortune by applying new farming techniques, this teacher-turned-farmer has not lost his love for teaching and is still continuing with the noble profession. He teaches at his village school for free whenever he gets time.