Punjab farmer turns millet farming into thriving agri-business

Paramjit Singh Pannu of Katari village in Doraha experimented with millets on just a hectare. Little had he thought that his small venture would turn into a lucrative business one day. Initiating with organic farming of finger millets, he scaled it up to processing and marketing through social media platforms and found a place in the TIGR2ESS Flagship Project 4 Programme for farmer capacity-building run by the Centre for International Projects Trust (CIPT).

Paramjit had an ardent wish to make small farming a viable option for farmers. He cultivated millets on a small portion of his land and practiced mixed cropping on the rest. As he experimented with the new variety of millets, he began to process them to produce flour, biscuits and other instant food items under the brand ‘Farmative’ through a small retail store. Paramjit is now successfully entering into a contract with various national and international companies as a manufacturing partner.

“I began with millet cultivation in 2010. The journey was no doubt full of challenges as I had none to consult. But with grit and perseverance, the results were promising and there was no space to regret and look back. Since then, I have expanded my firm and now my team and I can now face the onslaughts of conventional sowing by remaining steadfast to millet cultivation and alternate rearing of crops,” Paramjit shared proudly.

As Paramjit met with favourable market response, he increased the area of his land under millets in kharif season. His millet produce goes to dairy farmers via arhtiyas. “Demand and supply determine the price. But with more and more people shifting to millets, the demand is bound to increase manifold, thus making millet cultivation a profitable venture,” he said.

He has also partnered with ‘Punjab Native Seed Growers’. The group holds exhibitions at national and international food fests to prove that millet is the right choice for those thinking in terms of diversifying and making themselves self-sustaining by all means.

Not only this, Paramjit provides all sorts of assistance to his fellow farmers. He works in partnership with the farmers of his village and also assists them in capacity-building, distributing seeds, purchasing their surplus produce and running a collective storage facility.

Paramjit plans to form a farmer producer organisation where he wishes to involve farmers of surrounding villages and scale up the sowing, production and processing of millets. “Youngsters are leaving Punjab for good but the state has tremendous to offer, still. Rather than selling their land, they should save it. Land is no less than a treasure, if explored properly. It is the young who can change the psyche of the old and a definite shift from conventional to modern through experimentation,” added the farmer.

“The need for diversification is being felt but very little change is being witnessed at the ground level. Farmers have to realise the value of water, which is becoming scarce with each passing year. We need to change before it is too late. The government’s support and motivation is in no way sufficient to convince farmers to switch over to alternative farming,” Paramjit rued.