Nurpur: Progressive farmer grows off-season vegetables

Rajiv Mahajan

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Nurpur, February 2

After obtaining a degree in hotel management and serving in reputed hotels, Chetan Thakur switched to farming as vocation at his native place in 2010.

Hailing from Indpur village in Indora subdivision in Kangra district, Thakur has set an example of making good earnings by growing off-seasonal as well as seasonal vegetables.

Inspired by his father Yashpal Thakur, a retired sub divisional soil conservation officer in the state agriculture department, Chetan Thakur started farming and motivated five local farmers to start cluster farming with him to produce off-season vegetables round the year.

After receiving technical guidance and farm training from the state Agriculture and Horticulture departments, he started growing vegetables by setting up a poly house on 1-acre agriculture land by availing benefits of the Integrated Horticulture Development Mission (IHDM) programme. Thakur also motivated other farmers of the area to join cluster and protected farming of vegetables and presently he and his five farmer friends are growing vegetables on 4.5 acres in polyhouses. Approval for additional polyhouses on 2.5-acre land is still under process.

Thakur asserted that by growing vegetables through cluster farming, all beneficiary farmers could share their experience in farming besides saving input farming cost in transporting their farm produce to the markets, buying and transporting seeds and buying of fertilisers and other farm equipment. As per information, he has been provided with 85 per cent subsidy by the Horticulture Department for setting up a polyhouse under IHDM programme.

Apart from this, 80 per cent grant has been provided on installation of automatic irrigation facility in 16,000 square metre area, 50 per cent grant on power tiller, Rs 2.50 lakh grant on grading machine, 50 per cent grant on water storage tank and other agricultural equipment.

Apart from this, the government is also giving 80 per cent subsidy for changing polyhouse sheets after every five years. This progressive grower is producing 80 per cent organic vegetables and yielding cucumber in the polyhouse from February to September and red-yellow capsicum in the season from August to June.

In a season, he produces 1,600 quintals of cucumber from two acres of land and 500-500 quintals of red and yellow capsicum from two acres of land. Apart from this, during the winter season, broccoli and lettuce are produced in the unoccupied space between the polyhouses.

Thakur told The Tribune that initially he had suffered a lot of hurdles in starting cluster farming and marketing farm yield but now he had an established marketing chain in selling farm yield in the wholesale vegetable markets in big cities of Punjab.

“Our cluster farming’s annual income is around Rs 6 lakh per acre per year. We import expensive vegetable seeds from the Netherlands. We impart technical guidance of growing off-season vegetables free of cost to the small and marginal farmers of the area,” he asserted. Today, Chetan Thakur has become a source of inspiration for the youth of the area.