A rising number of rural youth are migrating to urban areas from villages in search of better employment as well as a better life. They are migrating towards cities due to limited resources, weak infrastructure, and unemployment in rural areas. But there are still young ignited minds in cities who dare to go back to small cities for farming and we are referring to Yash Padhiyar, who completed his postgraduation from Singapore but back in his town in Gujarat for Organic farming. Practicing organic farming is a turning point for him. Mr. Yash who is a research scholar (pursuing a doctorate in organic farming) has traveled a lot to understand farming practices from various places in India as well as overseas. He also has reached out to many farmers all throughout India and he learns the best practices from them.
His Inspiration for turning into organic farming was his mother (who is a cancer patient). He believes in the simple philosophy of serving something back to the society where we all belong to. His sincere efforts will definitely make organic food affordable for everyone. Also “Trust” is something very important for him as he belongs from a business family involved in diamond trading and thus he keeps the transparency with his present customers to let them visit anytime they want for ensuring his farming practices. He also tells us about how good is it to know the source of what one consumes, giving the example of a layman consumer who buys the vegetables for his family from vendors selling the vegetables without knowing the source; the source here is how much amount of pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc is used to produce that vegetable.
Organic farming according to him is very simple and easy if you are educated it adds value to understand it much better. He allows his customers to visit and buy directly from his farm and also gives them a chance to involve in farming activities like U-Pick concepts by selling the experience. He also has an organic store in Palanpur. Yash is selling his produce mostly online via the Facebook page “Heer organics”, which he has been operating for quite a long time. Not only he believes in selling the produce but also educates his customers about organic farming. One values the goods if he/she receives a proper briefing. Yash is also working on the digital traceability option for the customers and giving 100% transparency by showcasing all that he does at his farm to ensure trust.
He believes that the urban people have a fantasy of knowing how certain vegetables are cultivated and how the agricultural activities are carried out. He says “Heer Organics” is the place for them to learn all this. Farming is something common in the entire human race but just is that in this fast-moving and concrete jungle we have forgotten our roots. It’s a high time we made our villages prosperous and the only way is organic agriculture. Yash also adds on to say that Mother Nature has given us a troop working for “FREE” and the team consist of microorganisms, bees, earthworms, ants, butterflies, etc (working unconditionally and are never time-bounded) who over the time we humans for our greed have killed them knowingly or unknowingly by adding pesticides and chemicals.
He has been working with many policymakers, politicians in Gujarat and is working towards policies to promote organic farming in Banaskantha. He wishes to pass the legacy of organic farming to his daughters Heer and Kavya and wishes to continue the noble work along with him.
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