Satnam Singh owner of brand "Brar Farm Rajiana Nursery" recently published his video on FTB. He thanked Krishi Jagran for providing a platform to express his views and concerns. He said Krishi Jagran has allowed people to learn about him and him to learn about other farmers. He hopes that his views will be heard by thousands of farmers.
He starts to tell us about himself. He started farming in 2016. He owns huge land but due to labour shortage, lack of experience and difficulties in managing such huge farms he has started on a small scale. His nursery provides seedlings (paneeri) and is established over land of 1.5 acres. Seedlings of onion, cauliflower, capsicum and of a number of other vegetables are provided by the nursery. He is associated with hundreds of other farmers. Any farmer interested in any vegetable seedlings can contact him.
There is not much government support and we have to manage everything on our own. He said his seedlings are of good quality and will grow into good vegetables or vegetable bearing plants. He is growing his seedlings organically and without pollution, taking mother nature's concerns into account. Although he started farming in 2016, his farm gave results in 2019. He said the reason for this delay in results was due to poor quality of soil. It also took him some time to arrange irrigation facilities for his farm. He is looking forward to growing pumpkin seedlings.
Apart from seedlings he also grows onions. He first tills the land and uses organic manure to grow these. He says organic farming is something that he looks forward to. You need to observe your crops regularly to make sure that they are healthy.
He usually gets good rates for his cauliflowers and he always sells his parali (crop residue). He believes that you need to market you produce well and as a farmer its best to do it yourself. But you will not be able to decide the rates of your produce and will have to follow the mandi rates. The rates also increase as the products go from the farm to the retailer, who needs to charge extra to make profit. Of course it will be more profitable if customers could buy my produce directly from me as it happens sometimes when I advertise on social media.
Nothing is difficult and you can learn everything and with experience you will grow. Our work with seeds and seedlings is now well established. In this business you learn how to face people. He urges his farmer brethren to keep farming and farm anything, any vegetables like tomatoes, cucumber and stay financially independent.
Satnam Singh is physically handicapped, something he mentioned clearly to us.