Chintan Shah, of Radhey Krishna Farms Devapura, Anand in a one to one talk with the Editor, AW, Dr. Lakshmi Unnithan shares how he has been influenced to take up Organic farming and how he is been inspired by his fellow farmers and how he is helping communities to grow. He wants to ensure that his farm is here for his Children and so when he decided to take up farming, he knew for sure that he wanted to focus on chemical and pesticides free farming. Having no previous experience in farming he set out on this wild adventure.
Chintan Shah professionally did an MBA from NMIMS, Mumbai and he worked in several retail chains, starting from a coffee shop chain to his father’s textile business and so on. Knowing the difficulties and the challenges in the textile business his father was very reluctant to let him continue in the textile business. Chintan Shah always knew his father’s lifelong passion for agriculture and then they decided to take up organic farming. In the meanwhile, his brother planned to pursue his Masters in organic agriculture in the Netherlands and so they came into contact with a lot of people who were already into organic farming. The exposure and information that they gained gave Chintan a positive outlook towards organic farming and motivated him to pursue farming.
The first big challenge he says was regarding the farmland that had an uneven terrain. He had to employ heavy earth moving machines to level the farm. Thereafter, his first foray was into farming was cultivating banana. Later, he planted turmeric rhizomes and ginger. Generally, people undergo training before they set out for farming, but his father wanted him to have on-field training and to learn from personal experiences and failures and its fair share of successes! In the meanwhile, he says he met many people who were already into tuber’s plantation. He also came across members of Madhya Gujarat Sajiv Kheti (MGSK). For each crop, there was an expert guide present within the group who were available for guidance and help. In a short duration, he learned plantation patterns and techniques along with effective and efficient land-use in order to continuously improve his soil. Most of the MGSK members were far from my farm so he had to travel frequently to meet them.
The majority of farmers in his village and the surrounding area were either growing vegetables or tobacco. Growing turmeric and ginger was an alien concept to them. Therefore, he had to train himself as well as helpers so that they could avoid mistakes. During the first 2 years, due to the small area of the plantation, harvesting was done manually. It was time-consuming and expensive because there was no equipment available in the surrounding area.
In the meanwhile, he also started enquiring about prices of fresh turmeric and ginger, in various mandis but prices were so low that he couldn’t even cover his input costs. Therefore, he started gathering knowledge about the post-harvesting process from various sources to improve his products. He finally had decided to take the plunge of undertaking value addition of turmeric and ginger and sell his farm produce directly to the customer. He began performing post-harvest processing of both ginger and turmeric at the farm. Turmeric was first cleaned meticulously, then boiled and further processed to obtain fresh turmeric powder. The ginger powder was also processed at the farm as well.
Initially, in the first year, it was difficult to sell because it took time to gain trust. Instantly switching over from established brands also took time for customers. To gain the customer’s trust he says he started giving them free samples. He was pleasantly surprised that nearly 95% of customers that he gave samples to, came back to buy turmeric powder. Chintan Shah says he found mouth-to-mouth publicity as a reliable method and positive experiences amongst existing customers helped him increase his sales. The customers told their relatives, who forwarded the good word within their circle and so on!
Chintan Shah says he was always honest and open about and invited his customers and their relatives to visit the farm if they wish. This has helped to create goodwill and a positive reputation with the customers. Over 2 years, he says he realized that a farmer needs to diversify and offer multiple products so there is more that they can offer to the customers. Until mid-2019, he was selling the produce without a Brandname and he also realized that the customers were always curious to know the origin of the products, which over time becomes associated with the trust and quality of the product itself. Since then he has been selling his farm produce under the brand name of “RADHEY KRISHNA FARM”.
A profile has been created with the same name on google business and that provides customers with snippets of the background process and contact information too. Being in continuous connection with one's customers is a must says Chintan, and he also has started participating in exhibitions to showcase his products and increase his customer base. He also has begun to send his produce throughout India via courier.
At present, he has increased the acreage of turmeric and also dedicated an acre for pulses and vegetables. He grows seasonal vegetables and sells them to customers in Vadodara. Instead of selling fresh lemongrass in mandi, he chops them into small pieces and dries them. After which they are dried, packaged, and sent out for delivery. Every year he makes sure he takes up tree plantations which are of medicinal purpose and some of them to create biodiversity along the periphery of my farm.
Soil is strengthened by composting with FYM, treating with beneficial fungi and bacteria. Jivamrutha, Amrapali, seaweed extracts, gau Krupa amrutam bacteria are also used. Fellow farmers were also very gracious enough to share BD500 which is also used in this fermentation mixture.
Value addition helped him earn more income and so he also has tried encouraging and convincing farmers to take up value addition so that it will fetch them more money. His farm has yet to reach the desirable level of production which is attained by many established farmers but at present his focus is is to achieve higher production so that his farming becomes profitable.